When COVID Happens to Masked People

Shaking the Foundations of Belief

I was supposed to be spared this. I did everything right: I isolated, I social distanced, I masked - and not just any mask, but the right KN kind, fully over mouth AND nose! I got 7 shots, yes, two more even than the aspirational high by now – there’s a story to it; maybe I’ll tell it later. I looked scornfully down my (masked) nose at all who did not do these things. I was supposed to be spared. And yet, still I got it. And it’s been long and sort of bad. How unfair. What justice is there in that?

Four years in, and my luck ran out. I confess that I’d become a little cocky – like an invincible 20-year old, before life has had time to knock that foolish thought out of his cockeyed head. But can you blame me? Four years; seven shots; as strict adherence to the guidelines as 99% of humanity; a dozen domestic and overseas trips accomplished without a hitch. And after watching those all around me succumb, in ones or twos or hundreds, I had not. Why wouldn’t I be cocky?

Clearly, “cocky cometh before a positive,” to paraphrase.

Sore from lying too long in bed, without the energy to get up; with a throat that someone sandpapered through the night; and a nose like a faucet turned on full; a face like a quilted jacket reflecting back at me from my notebook screen. For “fun” I turn directly to the obits: Oops, three MDs; not an encouraging testimonial for the profession. I confess to heretical doubts.

I’m not dead, which is the up side. Or in hospital, drowning in mucus on a respirator. Could be there’s Paxlovid to thank for that (or maybe some of those 7 shots). I tolerated the metal taste that made my morning coffee vile, and another side-effect or two that I won’t go into out of delicacy. And then the negative test: Elation! And then, two days later, the positive test again: elation deflation. Lucky me, part of the blighted 20 percent of Paxlovid rebounders.

Where did it come from? I’ve scoured my foggy memory, searching for possibilities. And there are many – all unmasked (typed scornfully with pointing fingers!). So many.

I now sort of know where Howard Hughes was coming from. You remember him – that glamourous Houstonian from last century: aviation industry innovator; Hollywood man-about-town, of legendary flings with a marquee of above-the-title leading ladies. One of the richest, most eligible, most to be envied of his day.

And then the other Howard Hughes, who spent his last years isolated in a Las Vegas hotel suite, for fear of catching something deadly from the fomites that humans are. Endlessly (well, not quite; he’s buried in Houston’s Glenwood Cemetery, so it did end) watching television, finger nails unclipped, growing to talon length (you may have noticed over time that “talon” is a trigger word for me!); hair uncut, long past shoulder length – much like my own after the first COVID year of isolation and no barber. All that isolation – and still, he died. All that isolation (and shots and distancing and scorn for those who weren’t) – and still, POSITIVE. I see a parallel here (except in the “to be envied” part, and the Hollywood starlets, and the aviation thing, and the vast wealth; well, for sure there’s the long hair and fear of fomites in common!).

When you’re sick and struggling to get better, lots of things don’t seem to matter much: that the trash didn’t get picked up; that politicians aren’t reaching a climate deal; who wins the New Hampshire Primary; that your friends have dumped you. None of that matters; only how awful you feel.

Then you get a little better, and there they all are, back mattering, as though the little light that is your possible return to health illuminates nothing. But even just to be back where you were (especially if you DON’T have long COVID) seems enough.

It looks like I may survive, at least a little longer. I have progressed now to the philosophical stage. Why not philosophy, since bargaining with God didn’t do much good? Never mind that I flunked philosophy in college; nothing seemed more foolish to me then. Now I can almost appreciate the philosophical approach – when I have nothing else to console me.

So let’s look at the fundamental question – the really important one – WHY ME?

“No one knows why,” the Doctor said.

I know why: Because I’m cursed! Maybe Job gave them my number instead of his own, so that he wouldn’t get the endless texts and emails soliciting donations. Do you suppose he knew that they’d really be sending COVID? If so, I’ve lost sympathy for him. GOD, have at him with all you’ve got!

Or maybe it’s the wages of some original sin. I’m not sure what sin I’ve ever sinned to warrant the punishment I’ve had these last two weeks. Whatever it was, if that’s it, wasn’t near enough fun to make it an even-steven bargain. I should have held out for better terms.

Or could it be, Just the way things go? That’s a Just World cop-out if there ever was one. If we’re reduced to that, it means we don’t really have any control over things at all – which I won’t go into again, since I’ve covered that pretty well elsewhere.

If this all makes no sense – quite likely it doesn’t – it’s possibly because I’m in a COVID fog. Will it lift? Time will tell. This thing is still new enough that not even the doctor can tell me. I suppose it will; other things like it have. I’ve been sick before, and then well. You recover from sickness – unless you die.

But how will I recover from disillusionment? I was supposed to be spared this. I did everything they told me – everything “right.” And yet, here I am, positive for the second time in as many weeks, wondering what justice there is in that. It’s such doubts as these that can disturb one’s faith, when COVID happens to masked people.

PS Since this piece was written, I have returned to what passes for normal. Doubts have departed; belief, returned. So don’t get me wrong: I’m not making light of COVID, nor of the means we have to mitigate it. I can now attest from personal experience that it’s still amongst us and can still be nasty. Get vaxxed and boosted; mask; stay FAR away from other humans (Oh, dear, that’s the Howard Hughes coming out again); and, when taking Paxlovid, drink tea instead of coffee – with LOTS of sugar!