Tuesday, April 7, 2020

I get on the elevator together with a coworker. We’re both wearing masks. He is wearing clear plastic gloves. “This is my first time wearing these. I feel stupid, like my hands are in sandwich bags. But I’m wearing them.” The office orders pizzas for lunch. Seven of us are here today. We sit in the conference room, widely separated. Three workers who speak Spanish explain some nuances of the language to the rest of us in Hebrew. On the way home, I see a handwritten sign at a tiny market: “Rolls for Passover.” It’s still open. I look everywhere for the rolls then ask the shopkeeper. She points to a single bag on top of the ice cream case. “This is all there is. The last. We got a lot this morning. They’re all gone.” It’s just what I need. I buy them and a canned Iced coffee. “All will be well,” she says. “This will pass. This will pass.” Two soldiers and two police walk past us. They tell a man sitting on a park bench that he can’t be there. He works at one of the shops and had stepped out for a smoke. The cashier runs out of the store to catch up with the soldiers. She asks them details about tomorrow’s curfew. I walk away and don’t hear their response. When I try to enter a pharmacy, a man with a thermometer scans my forehead and my wrist. My body temperature tends to be low. He thinks he’s not getting a proper reading. After several attempts get the same result, he lets me in. Apparently I am still alive.