TWO YEARS IN NEW YORK (Michael Mohr's Fictional NYC Covid Memoir)

Chapter 11 (PAID)

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

Chapter 11

Between October 13^th, when Sophia flew out to Europe, and January 21^st, 2020, which ended up being the next time I actually saw her in real life, my existence became to a certain degree chaotic. I hadn’t seen Sophia again before she left, as I’d expected. We’d texted little, because the last evening we’d had had been magical. I did wish her a safe flight, and she did let me know when she landed safely in Berlin. We were using WhatsApp.

Deepening into fall, the temperature dipped again in Manhattan. I wore usually two shirts, a hoodie, and my red REI insulated jacket over it all, with my father’s old blue-and-gray U.C. Berkeley beanie I’d snatched years ago. (It was big and thick and warm.) My mom and I texted maybe half a dozen times over the period of a month. My dad an…