Tuesday, March 24, 2020

At ten minutes to two, I set out stacks of yarmulkes and prayer books on our front desk, next to the hand sanitizer. A single guest shows up for afternoon prayers. He uses the sanitizer then takes a photo of the bottle. He likes the scent. Fifteen minutes later, only a few other people have shown up. Almost all the offices other than ours are closed. Since there are fewer than ten men, they leave. I carry the stacks back to the conference room and return to my cube. At 4:30, I go to the ground floor for a snack. The cafe to the left of the main doors bears two new handwritten signs, each saying “A cup of orange or carrot juice: 7 shekels.” It is closed and dark. In the supermarket to the left, plexiglas shields, a meter square, are now attached to the back of the touchscreens, between the cashiers and the customers. I have to stand off to one side to pay and get my change. Decals on the floor, two meters apart, now show us where to stand in line. We would usually unload our bags or carts onto the conveyor belt while the customers before us were getting scanned out, but we stand too far apart for that now. Since the store is nearly empty, it doesn’t slow us down as much as it might. Ducking around a child and a dog as I leave, I crash into one of several large outdoor displays of toilet paper. The rolls yield upon impact. Neither they nor I fall.