Sirens

 

One. Two, Three. Four. Five.  Five ambulances in a row sound their way past my apartment.  I haven’t heard so many sirens since 9/11. My stomach tightens from the memory of that time combined with the anxiety of the moment.  Most days, most hours there are intermittent wails of the ambulance alarms. Each day the time between the alarms becomes shorter and shorter. They are the ugly warbling of a worsening pandemic.  Queens is the hot spot in the epicenter of the disease.  Every day, I hear them on their way to Jamaica Hospital, where they line up at the ER dock. There is no room inside the hospital for new Covid-19 patients, but somehow they keep coming. Will the precious cargo within the ambulance last long enough to make it to the hospital door or will the patient expire and exit through another portal to another plane?

 Over the threshold of my own door, I sit in my apartment wondering if the virus will pay a call and how long it might stay, host and unwanted guest bearing down on each other, each engaging to win the fight. I am the hand-washing “elderly” with multiple underlying conditions they keep referring to on the news. Here I sit, a “self-distancing” target, trying to remain invisible to the invader. In the meantime I distract myself with amusing calls back and forth between friends and family, cleaning my unruly apartment, and falling into the hypnotic hole of the internet and television. I am thankful for the balms of painting, writing, reading and sweet music.  The day passes.

During the time it has taken to record these thoughts, an additional nine ambulances have troubled my words with their swelling whine. And then there is short silence.

Marsha H.

April 2, 2020