I was stuck in New York through the first half of the virus, watching and reading the news everyday, inside the “Epicenter” with a screen in my hands. We were there, feeling the city, listening to the 7pm shout outs, the sirens that blew by every five minutes, and seeing the face covered masks that haunted our city. This was New York. It eventually got so eerie that we needed to leave, now we are in Jersey — less than 50 miles away. 50 miles is not far, Jersey still has the outbreak, it’s number two on the list. But nobody is too far from this virus, we are all within a split second, within our own six feet, it’s like The Invasion of The Body Snatchers all over again. Our neighbors, our friends, and our loved ones can all quickly become our demise. This paranoia only feels new, but this paranoia has been around forever.

There’s not much to do during the outbreak. Every siren was another person being rushed to another COVID unit. The harbor had the military there, police blocked the entrance and the whole city tried to keep six feet at all times. It was futuristic, genre, painful, and cinematic. Cinematic, because it had already existed, existed only on the screen, starring Bruce Willis leading the military and Jeff Goldblum who quickly discovered the anti-virus in time. This had been our reference point, our only understanding of how to deal with something this — NEW. The screenwriters, the producers, the directors, the filmmakers, have laid our pavement to see where and what would happen, it’s humorous that the men who wanted to entertain, have since painted the fears of what we, as a culture, can become.