HOW COVID-19 SAVED AARON ROSEN'S LIFE

Aaron Rosen always lived a frenetic lifestyle till Covid-19 showed up. He was thinking about it as he was editing together an art video. The art video was lame and Aaron knew it, but the Arts Council was giving him ten thousand dollars for his experimental work (it was a veiled hand out to help people in the productions business during quarantine) and he had to deliver something.

The video entitled ''Shoes'' was a look at his shoe collection. This was really ridiculous because Aaron had two pairs of running shoes, three pairs of cowboy boots, and a couple of pairs of dress shoes. What made the video interesting or was supposed to was the mixing and matching of the shoes to a electronic beat. Aaron was sure all the cool kids would read things into the project that really weren't there, but ten grand was ten grand.

As he looked at his rough cut for the fifteenth time, he knew he hated it, but he would send it on anyway. He was for the first time in his life being a prostitute, he was accepting money for something he was faking to like.

During the normal course of Aaron's life he had earned a tremendous reputation for being a great Director. He moved between television, stage, and screen and had equal success with all three. Prior to the Corona virus he was prepping a nice Independent movie. It was a love story called '''Dishes and Wishes''. It was going to be interesting because one of Canada's brightest stars had agreed to play the lead, and she was known to be an absolute pleasure to direct. He had received a healthy advance, the dates had been set and then kapow the virus. Everything scratched. The Producers had contacted him and told him that the advance was his, but they were seriously thinking about scratching the film. It was upsetting as Aaron was confident that it was going to be a winner.

After having a busy life, staying at home was tough. He walked his Black Lab Rufus on a daily basis, and once a week he went grocery shopping but that was the extent of contact he had with the outside world.

There were Zoom discussions during the week, with family, friends and his Agent, Leah. All the projects she submitted him for were in limbo.

One morning, Aaron decided to declutter his basement. The laundry room was off the recreation room. Aaron took the opportunity to throw some clothes in the wash as he went through boxes filled with tons of old paper work.

He took three boxes, dumped the paper into recycling bins and sorted through them. The wash finished so he moved his clothes into his dryer. He had noticed the dryer was making strange noises and he hoped there wouldn't be any problems. He went back to sorting papers when Rufus started barking. He wanted to go out and was telling Aaron it was time for a walk.

Aaron stood up and a script caught his eye in one of the boxes. It was called ''Naked In The Bush'' and it was about the Courier de Bois. He had optioned it from a writer named Jay Black and had forgotten all about it.

Instead of walking Rufus, he let him out in his backyard, and went back to the script. He was really enjoying it, when he thought he heard the dryer making weird noises again. He went in to look and the dryer stopped.

It was strange as there was still twenty minutes to go in the cycle. Aaron opened the dryer door to smoke that came billowing out and flames jumping up in the back of the machine. He immediately unplugged it, and within seconds the flames stopped, but the smoke was extremely heavy.

Aaron sat there stunned. He didn't want to get smoke inhalation, but he also didn't want the fire to come back. He looked around at all the laundry on the floor and said a prayer pf thanks. If he would have not seen the script and instead would have taken Rufus for a walk, his whole house would have probably burned down.

After checking the dryer numerous times and seeing no signs of flames or other problems, Aaron closed the door and upstairs and back to his desk.

He thought about the fact that if his life would have been normal, he probably would have been at work till late, come home, thrown his clothes into the dryer at eleven o'clock (which he had done a million times) and gone to sleep. In that scenario, he could have been consumed by the fire and died.

It was not fun being in quarantine, but in a strange way maybe it had saved his life in more ways than one. He knew he would stop complaining and wishing he was out and about, being in was the best thing that could have happened to him.

Before going to bed, he gave Rufus a big hug and said a prayer of gratitude. He didn't have such a bad life, and tomorrow he would rework ''Shoes'' into something he loved. Maybe it would start with a shot of a burnt sneaker being pulled from the dryer.