Probably​, Maybe

The sky was still blue then. Looking at it now covered in its green-gray haze didn’t trigger that thought—the crushed blue cup on the side of the road did. A cup that probably came from the convenient store just down the street and probably held some sort of fizzy, sugary mental escape from now. Probably. Our forced solitude allows so much time to manufacture a multitude of probable possibilities. 

We all do it now. We all study the minute details of everything and garner stories about those details to relate them to ourselves and things we remember. We all are forever reaching backward to remember when solitude was a cherished break from a daily grind and not a sentencing. 

I bet that crushed blue cup was filled to the rim with ice-cold soda pop. I bet the fizziness made tiny bubbles burst in the person’s nose as they took that first, satisfying sip. I hope that first sip made them reach backward to the first time they drank a soda—back when the sky was still blue and we weren’t forced to imagine it that way now. I hope that first sip was worth it.

I know I’m not the only one who sees the crushed blue cup on the side of the road. We all see it, because we all see anything that appears out of place now. 

​That crushed blue cup that once held someone’s mental escape was probably also their surrender. Probably. So many people that haven’t succumbed have opted out as their own way of surrendering. Gunshots to the head or heart, overdoses on mass quantities of anything, and razors severing key arteries are all commonplace stories now of people opting out. But occasionally, there are other stories—stories where people choose to opt out by simply breaking one, or many, of the stringent laws that have been passed. 

Right now, during this time when all bodily fluids are considered a form of biological warfare, a crushed blue cup on side of the road that potentially contains someone’s saliva is an act of terror. I’m sure the person knew that. I’m sure as they threw their head back to finish that last freeing sip of mental escape, and broke the ice cubes with their gnashing teeth, they grappled with their choice of opting out. And I’m sure when they were satisfied with their choice, they placed the blue cup in plain sight where we, and all the surveillance cameras, could see it. 

I wonder if they are waiting patiently at home for the authorities, or are they are hunkered down with weaponry hoping to take some of them out during their orchestrated opt out. The latter is an occasional story now also. When misdemeanors like littering were upgraded to terrorist felonies, the pageantry of resistance was upgraded as well. 

When the sky was still blue, resistance looked different. And as the vaccinations reduced covid cases and deaths, resistance was tempered. 

I’m sure you remember those few years after covid when our new normal slowly reverted to familiarity and experiences that were as refreshing as whatever that crushed blue cup held. We all remember those intertwined feelings of renewal, hope, and healing. 

I saw her when the sky was still blue. That day, I was at a park. Remember when you could just go to a park without having to make an appointment and show proof when you got there that you indeed had an appointment for that day and time? That day, I was sitting in the green, prickly grass, but only feeling the warmth of hope. Green—another color I miss seeing in nature. 

She was doing the same, enjoying our altered normal and uniting it with nostalgia. When we noticed each other it was omnipotent. My warm feeling of hope inflamed my need to know her.

And like so many during those post-covid years, we rushed through courtship, ran to the alter, and immediately started a family. Like so many during that time, we were filled with optimism, but, we were constantly mindful that living was a countdown to an end. That was one of the remnants covid left us all—a continual reminder of the fragility of our mortality.

Our son came into the world a year after we met. When I held him for the first time he was blinking the big, brown eyes she had passed on to him like he had seen everything before. It scares me now to think he may have seen all this coming.

Our son had six good months of us. He had six months of our laughter and days at the park shrouded in optimism. I hope those six months are the only things he sees now.

Remember how abrupt the change was? How we all felt renewed in the post-covid utopia, and then felt cheated when we were again told to stay in our homes. And how that cheated feeling ignited the resistance that had begun to cool. And how so many people who left their homes in protest were never seen again.

Remember how quickly the barricades were erected, and the thermal cameras were installed throughout the city? Remember when we were told those were protections for us? Remember how that lie of protection was extended when the sky changed from blue to green-gray due to the chemical that was sprayed to contain the spread of the variant virus that made covid feel like a lazy day in the park?

We were all so scared then, and I think many of us are just numb now. We were so over stimulated with every terrorizing feeling in those early months to where we now can’t feel anything at all. At least I can’t.

I remember the exact moment when I stopped feeling. I remember when the constant tingling of anxiety stopped permeating every nerve in my body. I remember when my head stopped throbbing, because there was no more need to agonize about me and my family’s safety. 

I still hear every sound during that last phone call. I hear the tears in my wife’s voice as she tries to assure me she’s fine. I hear the clicks of static that broke through some of her words in our faulty connection. I hear her pleas for a few seconds more with whomever had detained her before the call ended.

When that call ended, my head throbbed even more and the tingling anxiety almost put me into cardiac arrest. I sat down and closed my eyes to steady myself, and in those few seconds of solace behind my eyelids I still had traces of hope and optimism. It was the sound I heard next that catapulted me into numbness.

We assumed he just had a cold, which is what sent my wife to the store where the thermal cameras detected her rising temperature. As I heard our son struggle for breath, the reality set in that he was also infected. Numbness replaced my traces of hope and optimism.

With my wife’s voice still shouting in my head, I began to pack our son’s things. The faint bit of reasoning I had allowed me to concoct a plan where I could drop him off at a hospital and conceal my identity in the process. 

I still feel the heat on my lips after pressing them against his forehead to give him a last kiss. His congested wheezing is now the melody accompanying the sounds from that last phone call with my wife. I wish the numbness would allow me to feel hope and optimism for him.

So, now as I sit in the long line cars waiting to get into the park, my only thought is how my opt out will not be as spectacular as that of the blue cup owner. I will sit in what used to be green, prickly grass and stare at the green-gray haze to try and remember when the sky was blue. And I will do that long after the allotted time on my pass to be in the park. Because survival now seems selfish, not too mention futile.

​Maybe when the authorities detain me they will take me to where my wife is being held. Maybe I’ll be able to look into her brown eyes and only see all that I loved and not all that we lost. Maybe I’ll no longer hear the song of anguish where our son’s wheezing is the melody and her frantic pleas are the lyrics. Maybe I’ll forgive her for forcing me to abandon optimism. Maybe.