Isolation

That night, she woke at four a.m. She heard or dreamed she heard, voices on the street – the mumble of young people – and the blare of a car horn. She rose and parted the room's heavy curtains, though she saw nothing but tail-lights glowing in the distance.

Her eyes peered through the window, hands up against the glass – she caught notice of what was assumed to be the drifting shadows of two people. She slumped back onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. She couldn't sleep – her mind was awake but disorientated. It felt as if she was floating through the rooms, with arms and legs moving freely around without control, and nothing made sense as the room warped and shifted before her eyes into bizarre shapes. But somehow, the odd synergy of hushed tones and the ear-splitting blare of a car horn at four a.m. brightened her mood enough for a smile.

The city had been in lockdown for the past three years, with the aggravating routine of wearing face masks every outing, and keeping a required one-and-a-half metres distance from each other. Her life was a continuous, repetitive cycle, where every day consisted of eating, sleeping and working from home. She rarely placed a foot outside of the house, unwilling to take chances, and she rarely socialised but did befriend a few people, though their relationships never lasted.

During the beginning of quarantine, the constant phoning of friends and family came to a sudden halt. It had depleted both her physical and mental health, trying to fight off her wretched state, but it only worsened by the day. And all these days of being on her own, alone and afraid, meant that she had had to resort to a sort of dependency on herself, for she had no one but herself. Isolation plummeted her into a downward spiral, leaving her aching for the warmth and comfort of people, whether it was having a friendly conversation or even just knowing they were near. But on this very night, it seemed that God had rolled two sixes, for on the other side of the wall stood two strangers, not that it mattered they were strangers – at least, they were people. In a quick flurry, she fumbled with her blue mask, putting it on inside-out and stumbled out the door.

"Hello!" she called out. The echo of her voice resounded through the empty streets. No comment.

What followed was a discomforting, awkward silence that seemed as if it lasted a full hour. The figures' heads remained still, though their pupils watched her like a hawk to its prey; every little movement seemed to be of interest to them.

"Um... so what are you doing around here at... four a.m.?" she asked, trying to maintain some semblance of a conversation. Yet even with the prompt of a question, the strangers were silent, motionless like the lifeless atmosphere that flowed throughout the city. Then, suddenly, they were gone, and she was alone. Again.

With the solitude that arose from the strangers' sudden departure, she arbitrarily wandered to a nearby park. Oddly enough, what was once barren land had turned into acres of lush dewy grass that swayed in the dulcet breeze. She didn't expect anyone to be at the park, particularly at this time of night – but her mind wasn't drawn to her surroundings. The sound of scattered whispers and the soft crunching of grass barely caught her attention as they lingered within the depths of her thoughts. She rubbed her hollow, sunken eyes and slowly dragged her fingers away from them, revealing two swollen eye bags; her vision blurred. She tilted her head up and squinted at what appeared to be a brick-red and bell-shaped tunnel of unfathomable size, and the grass she had walked on to reach this tunnel had become dried-up cracked dirt.

Her mind remained muddled, and her movements were automatic – staggered and unbalanced. Before she knew it, loneliness had devoured her whole. She craved desperately to scream. Her heart sank and her stomach dropped; heavy tears filled her eyes, and a lump in her throat forced out staccato cries as she attempted to speak, echoing out into the emptiness. At that moment, she felt like an aberrant monstrosity on display for all to see and all to laugh at. She didn't belong.

Her head spun and her limbs flailed. Her eyes twitched erratically and she broke out in a sweat – she felt feverish, yet she shivered. The voices turned muffled as she held her palms to her ears. Her head unleashed a throbbing pain at the back of her skull, and she could feel every breath infiltrating her lungs as the ringing of phantom cries in her ears progressed further and further until...

A thud – and she was knocked out cold.

–––

Her head felt dazed as she awoke on the grass. The sweet, mellow chirps of nightingales and the gentle rustling of trees danced through the air as the morning sun had just begun to seep in. All was silent but her heavy steps as she trudged the vacant streets, still wearing her mask the other way around. She sighed as she unlocked the previously-untouched door of her house, slamming it behind her. She took off her mask and tossed it into the bin, then neared the chair that sat by the window. The chair screeched at the slump of her long-awaited seat. She placed her elbow on the window sill and rested her head in the palm of her left hand. A slight tear rolled off her cheek as she stared into the distance. Looking through the window, she gazed at the flourish of green that unmistakably stood out against the bleakness – even in an unoccupied and soundless world, it was still strangely home to nature; to beauty. And to her, it was the only thing she could relate to.