RONA, a short story anthology about the global COVID-19 pandemic

Night Ride

I remember fondly of those days. It wouldn't be a fixed day of the week. It could happen at any day, anytime; magically. I wouldn't build my hopes up because if I did, it wouldn't happen. It was only when I wasn't waiting, when I wasn't even thinking about it, doing something else, that my mother would enter the room and say the words I longed to hear, my favorite question on earth: "wanna go for a night ride?"

My answer was always a variation of a shriek that would put the most lovely smile on her face, followed by a "get ready, we'll leave in 10" coming out of her lips. I would ponytail my hair, put on the gloves and mask as fast as I could; I was always by the door, like a puppy, well before she did.

As soon as I got out the door, I would direct all the excitement in my body towards my eyes, so I wouldn't miss one beat of the great spectacle that was leaving home to enter the outside world. I would jump over the backseat fast - probably the only kid alive who didn't want to sit in the front seat - and lie down on the trunk of our Nissan wagon. As if I was in the movies, I would gaze at the widescreen glass, excitedly waiting for the main event as the garage gate opened up, slowly adding light to darkness. While my mom backed up the car in the driveway, my heart would beat fast, craving for the moment she was finally in the street and it was safe for me to get up without blocking her view and causing her to run over a possum or a cat or a raccoon.

It all probably took 15 seconds but I guess, even for my mom, that moment where we waited for the garage door to close felt like a lifetime. A time of hope and excitement, of looking around and realizing there was still life out there; even if locked down inside. Necessity is the mother of invention, so I quickly developed the language of lights inside the households. The Millers bright-lighted living room at 8 pm with all other bedrooms in the dark painted the story of a once-apart family that learned to cherish their time together due to the virus. Mr. Reynolds' bleak flickering lights told the story of an educated old man, always with a glass of wine by his side, finally being able to live the life he'd always wanted; writing novels and poetry by candlelight. Timmy's bedroom penumbra at 11 pm probably meant he was playing some sick new video game without Mr. and Ms. Moralez seeing. Yes, the language of lights inside the households, one of the most beautiful in the world, never tells a sad story.

And the great thing about languages is that, once you master one, the next becomes easier to learn. I became fluent in graffiti on the walls fast, in advertising billboards faster, but always struggled to get people in other cars. Besides being rare, their appearance distracted and excited me too much to be able to fill in the blanks...

But all of this happened on the first and last 20 minutes of our night ride. Because once Uncle Javi was in the car with us, none of that mattered. I would jump to the front, always to my mom's complaint, so we could do our 2-minutes long secret handshake, and he would always have a gift and a story for me. He was a younger version of mom, they had the same eyebrows. But he was much more loose, had a bunch of tattoos and a very colorful vocabulary - so colorful my mom would sometimes reprimand him for using it in front of me. He would say sorry and wink at me, making me torn between being his niece but wanting to be his younger sister.

Our script always followed the same structure; there would come a time when both mom and uncle Javi would tell me the Matadero bridge was close by, and I needed to go back to the trunk of the car because they needed to go over some details. They would turn the car stereo on, and I would, gladly, take my attention off of whatever they were saying - usually about money, and a car shop junkyard - because the most anticipated part of our night ride was about to happen.

I knew every tree, every sign, every tire mark, every paint fault on the asphalt of that road that led to the most magical place on earth. As soon as the vegetation started growing thin, and I could spot a parked car close to the ledge, I'd know: we've arrived, and I'd better make the most of it - run, touch the leaves, breathe in the crisp untouched air of the hills, climb the rail guard, yell to the echo valley if I wanted, grab some rocks and throw somewhere, run, look at the stars, make sounds to attract animals - because, in 15 minutes or so, mom would call me, I would have to go to the other car to kiss Uncle Javi goodbye and watch him leave, as I tried, most of the time unsuccessfully, to bargain a few more minutes before mom would start our old Nissan and me and she would drive back fast, straight to home.