Tuesday, June 2, 2020

An operatic baritone, singing in Russian, booms forth from the office under construction down the hall. Before I notice how good the voice is, I remember that loud singing is more likely to spread the virus than simply breathing would be. In the elevator down from work, a large woman riding with me breathes quickly and heavily. She had been running. She managed to dive in before the doors closed. She places one hand on the wall to steady herself. When we reach the ground floor, she heads toward the medical clinic to our right. I go out, to the left. The park on the way to the mall is open again. The usual number of people are playing basketball and soccer and zooming around on skateboards and rollerblades, but everything seems hushed, quieter. At the mall, the tables in the food court have reopened. Fewer may be out there than before. I’m not sure. Low barriers divide some of the walkways. They may be designed to control the traffic flow, but I don’t see any logic to them. Signs on each open shop on the mall show how many customers may be in the store at the same time. Some clothing shops that I pass can accept three, five, and eight customers. The supermarket can hold 135. The aisles inside it are chaotic, but workers are trying to neaten things. At the bus stop, two teenage boys spin something made of fabric in the air. It looks like a bandanna on a square wooden frame. They twirl it like a pizza, tossing it back and forth. When the bus pulls up, one of them tosses it high in the air and catches it behind his back. Both of them hop on board.