People Fear

As the lines graphing infection draw closer to the x-axis, I wonder what life post-Covid will be like?

Will friends start inviting friends back into their homes without the mediation of a screen? Awed by new-old faces like tourists at Mount Rushmore? Or will they sit as uneasy hosts? Tracking each point of contact — a cup, a plate, a fork, a napkin, a door — eagerly awaiting their departure to cleanse their sanity?

Will adults become just as dependent on their phones and screens as teenagers? Will TikTok become the new Facebook, and see the mass exodus of millennials, exiled from their digital rebellions by aged interlopers. Or will they abandon the technologies foisted upon them, still unable to keep their faces in the frame on video calls?

Will people go back to dating in person, fidgeting at tables across from each other, asking the same questions kindergarten teachers ask students on their first day of school:

“What do you like to do?”

“What’s your family like?”

“Where were you born?”

And answering with the unpracticed bravado of a five-year-old’s crayon drawing?

Will they again suffer through a full meal or even a lazily-sipped cup of coffee, when their hoped-for chemistry fizzled on contact?

Or will a new step be permanently fixed into online dating — the video call — to reduce the sunk costs of commutes, dinners, and disinterested chit chat in real life? And enjoy the easy outs afforded at home — the dog threw up, the neighbor is at the door, that bread won’t bake itself, my hair urgently needs to be washed — not to mention the ease of exiting with the click of a button?

Will people miss the days of staying in? Their predictably worn couches? Their sourdough starters? Their quiet hours of puzzles and DIY crafts? Or will they eagerly cast off their homes like shrunken, wool sweaters? Longing for the ease of meals prepared by someone else, and spaces free from the echoes of vacuuming and the vigorous clicking of work?

Will we go back to work? Will work still feel like work, or more like somber libraries with everyone spaced far enough apart to discourage talking and coveted “collaboration”? Or will we keep working from home in a sharp rebuttal to the open office?

And what about those who don’t have jobs to go back to? Industries to go back to? Will the rich still blame them for being jobless and poor? Cultural miscreants unable or unwilling to achieve the American dream? Or will the rich have suffered their own job losses and injured pride as they too waited for a free bag of groceries?

Will schools reopen with the reduced class sizes teachers have long been begging for? Or will they move online? And if they do, will kids without home internet fall even further behind? Will parents be willing to pay high college premiums without the scholastic grandeur of buildings funded by dead alums?

Will mothers and fathers miss their children’s soft cheeks? Their once-a-minute requests? Seeing their daily growth with the detail of time-lapse photography? Or will they be relieved to no longer be three people in one — parent, teacher, and friend? And grateful for hours of focus only interrupted by coherent questions from adults who already have a basic blueprint of life?

Will dogs miss their owners’ constant presence? Where unearned treats, and walks, and head rubs were only a whimper away? Or will they be grateful to reclaim their eight-hour vigils and the freedom to tell the mail carrier off or destroy an old shoe without being scolded?

And will we miss the days when sweats were high fashion, and Zoom filters tidied up our flaws? Will we miss the democratization of beauty behind the uniform symmetry of masks? Or will we return to retail stores and malls with the enthusiasm Texas debutantes? Eager to express our uncloistered identities through fashion and makeup?

Will Parisians go back to kissing hello? And will children unlearn social separation after finally mastering their impulses for closeness? Or will our personal bubbles be permanently expanded? Even after the absence of any cases for a year (enough time to wonder if the whole thing was a private delusion or a shared conspiracy) will the solemn nods from politicians, the CDC press releases, and Fauci’s blessing be enough to remove our People Fear? Or will we still find ourselves waiting in line for our vaccines at intervals of six feet?