An empty storefront near the Port Authority.
I'd say it's starting again, except that it never really went away, not completely -- it just got a little better. We don't have the sirens yowling all through the night, not yet, but the stories are back. Somebody's sister. Somebody's dad. Positive, but no symptoms, quarantining at home. Sick for a couple of weeks, but starting to feel better. In the hospital. In the ICU. Daryl. Angela. Susan.
Yesterday a friend called to wish me a merry Christmas, and we talked for a long time, catching up on all the silly things you share with old friends. An hour later, she called again, sobbing. Angela had died.
I'm not sure anyone writing a history of this time a hundred years from now will really understand what this year has been like. I know, I write for the hundredth or thousandth time, that I'm one of the lucky ones. (So far.) I'm not sick. I have enough money. Even so, I suspect that I will never really get past this now, that I will be jumping at this virus's shadow for the rest of my life.