The Cover Age, Chapter 1

Went to bed late last night. This is strange because lately every day is so long most of it is just trying to fill up the day. Not working. Taking lots of naps.

This state of affairs has been inflicted upon me by a pandemic. It was decided that everyone should stay at home, all the time.  Normally this is what I do anyway, but now it’s even more so, I guess. I’m a blogger. Blogging was a thing people did on the internet before social media flattened the curve, so to speak (heh). Some of us are still doing it, compulsively, in defiance, I guess, of convention. Bloggers don’t expect a huge audience. Those that find themselves with one might as well migrate to other social media. Bloggers have become subversives. We’re not trying to buck the system. We can say anything we want because we don’t expect anyone to really be noticing. Basically we talk to ourselves, and imagine that someone else might care.

Which is to say, blogging during pandemic is like venting.

In the comments, my internet pal Clive will remark in the comments, “Calm down, Fox!” Clive will say that in the full knowledge that in his own blogging he’s a regular hysteric, but as people tend to, he has different standards for me. He prefers to think of me either as the weirdo with the insane opinions, or the kindred spirit he just knows would make a good friend in the real world. Clive knows nothing about me in the real world. I don’t know the first real thing about him. For all I know, “Clive” isn’t even his real name. He thinks we’re roughly the same age. He even thinks I’m male. He’s probably right about one, but definitely wrong about the other.

At any rate, the situation with my ex would be very different if he weren’t! A lot more complicated, anyway. Or maybe less? Kind of hard to tell, with my ex. Sometimes I try to stalk my ex on social media, find out what he’s been up to, the past, oh, twenty years. Hey, for bloggers, time is relative.

Like everyone else, or so I think ought to be the case, I’m blogging about the pandemic. I mean, I can’t help it. This is what history is going to expect anyway, so I might as well play along and maybe put the thing in a perspective it’ll actually understand. The thing about current events, especially in this age, is that everyone thinks they understand what’s happening, when they’re really just trying desperately to react appropriately, never understanding for a moment that what they think is appropriate might actually be making things worse.

Case in point.

Anyway, a blogger in a pandemic might not seem like the kind of person who will be the best possible source of information. At best they provide commentary, right? I wish that were the case. I wish. Because this is the story of how waking up in a pandemic, trying to fill another day, becomes an  object lesson in being careful what you wish for.

Because the first thing I did, of course, when I got up was begin another blog post. Later, I received a comment, not from Clive, but from my ex. He wrote, “This is all a cover story.” And to anyone else, I might have responded, “Yeah, sure.” And perhaps I should have. Things would be a lot simpler...

Maybe this is all a fever dream. Maybe I finally caught it. But the thing is, what I did respond with was, “Okay. Tell me more.”

And his response changed everything.