The Pandemic is a Portal

I rip off my clothes as the group screams in ecstasy. I dive into the pond and the group follows after me, all
of us swishing around ravenously in the twisted reeds. I gather the dirty pond water in my mouth and rise up
like a wild yeast, my arms outstretched, before releasing the water slowly over the shelf of my lips, my head
swirling with the adrenaline of lifelong betrayal.
12
I dream that I am running away from the library of failed research on Marx and out into an empty street.
Nobody around. It is raining gently, and the wet satin sticks to my thighs. My feet pad limply at the pavement,
my slippers becoming ever more waterlogged as I go.
I’m groggy from sleep, but alert on another plane. My fingertips extend in all directions and become the pinpricked
flesh of the city, busy cataloguing its phantom limbs. This public lamp post, this public street sign,
this public toilet, this public garbage bin. That private lobby, that private car park, that private elevator,
that private topiary hedge. To whom do you belong?
O haunted skyscraper that could house ten thousand but prefers to house no one!
O silver skyline! O vacant public square!
In the city that is clogged with ambition, that is blue with sleep and collared with workers, the sun is rising
and it is raining gently.
13
Lately sleeping has become increasingly tiring. I emerge from my sleep-shift with a bad headache and the
limpness of an over-napped body. My stomach sags from the spine, the doughy muscles in my legs having
reverse-engineered into those of an infant just learning to walk. We adhere to a strict sleep regimen. Eight
hours a day — no more, no less — lest one should become overtired and unable to perform.
“Perform, but in what way?” we ask our leaders, yawning.
“Shhhhh!” the executives reply in unison.
Even sleeping now feels like working! Even napping feels like gig-ing!
Karla points to the new convertible they have parked on the street, cleverly covered up with reeds, and asks
them what convertibles have to do with the revolution.
“Shhhhh!” the executives reply once more, this time indignant.
Bobby, increasingly suspicious, decides to press further.
“What is it that you get up to all day anyways, while we’re so busy sleeping?” The clogged drain gurgles,
releasing tiny bubbles to the surface. “How do we know, for instance, that you’re really sleeping when we’re
sleeping, and that you’re not secretly running a double shift?”
The rest of us voice our support, but the executives remain evasive.
Little by little, unrest brews by the pond.
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