Do you remember how many days you had spent sequestered indoors before it began to chafe a little? How many baking projects attempted, mood...
Do you remember how many days you had spent sequestered indoors before it began to chafe a little? How many baking projects attempted, moods observed and self-soothing mechanisms tried until it all began to feel a bit much?
For me it was 45 days.
Days 1 to 44 had passed in various ways. In the first week, disbelief and rebellion prompted me to try and walk out of my colony and on to the street outside. I was stopped by a security guard and lost my temper at him. My hot, angry tears at what I felt was the huge unfairness of it all mortified the both of us, and I retreated back indoors.
As I developed a routine for myself, I took refuge in the sameness of the days. Outside, the mysterious, implacable disease raged; inside, nothing really happened. Some days it rained and flowerpots fell and broke. I became intimately acquainted with my plants, taking on the duties of the maali who could no longer come to work and discovering the many quirks of the various flowers and trees now under my care.
Most of the time, I read. At first I found that I could not absorb anything new. I was constantly...
