Writing Prompts for the Pandemic

She began to wash her groceries, even the cardboard boxes, even the lettuce, even the cheese.

Her husband ordered dumbbells, nose spray, and Crocs from Amazon.

Just as people started to get sick, I moved my mother into a assisted living facility in Washington State.

I bought a ticket for my son to Seattle. He could have stayed in Olympia and headed home from there. Instead, he took the public conveyance up into a hot spot.

At night, I get up to read social media, tablet flickering in the dark.

Their marriage improved in quarantine.

Everyone’s body became a weapon.

One night, I woke in a panic, certain I would never see my children again.

My sister refused to help me move my mother. She claimed my plan was flawed, stupid, ridiculous. Aside from the pandemic, it worked perfectly, my angry, irritable mother moving from California as if she’d planned it all along. It was a relief, really, that my sister wasn’t there, she with her anxiety and huge back-breaking load of past resentments and angers. It was a relief, truly, that she didn’t fly to the West Coast for an extended stay during March, later bringing home a virus gift to her three children. Point is, it all worked out. Mostly. So far.

She grew to love Words with Friends more during the pandemic, laughing when she created words like “dire,” “sick,” and, once, “isolated.”

If I didn’t have OCD before the pandemic, I wouldn’t be able to see how preparations for onslaught and illness resemble OCD behavior. Wash your hands. Often. Check the news. Think about the end of the world.

My husband mops the floor every night. I have grown partial to Clorox wipes.

Lately, I have begun to think my dogs are talking to me. I understand them perfectly.

I have milk insecurity, worrying when I am down to my last half-gallon.

We have a lot of toilet paper, but to be honest, we had a lot before March.

Her hands began to look like claws, dry and papery. She started to wear the same type of outfit every day: yoga pants, t-shirt, vest. Her hair starts to go gray. In the mirror, she sees her mother.

When they are lucky, their daughter Facetimes them, and they get to see the baby.

It’s day 18.

Outside by the creek, she can forget, listening to the water, looking at the tree the beaver is gnawing nightly.

Just think about playing cards in a warm basement room with no windows. Someone passes you a bowl of nuts. People are licking their fingers.

Yesterday, I found a rock upon which someone painted, “You are amazing.” I put it in my pocket.

The days bleed one into the other, time marked by dog walks and Zoom meetings of various kinds. My husband and I make a lot of food, prepared from the groceries our children buy for us. My dogs huddle under my desk, whispering their needs and thoughts. A sun spot would be lovely. A dry chew bone. A long nap.