Notes from the End of the World

The Outbreak

If I want to understand how and why I survived, I have to go back in time.

It all started somewhere in West Africa. We watched the occasional news about it on CNN, on how this terrible virus was quickly spreading among the poor children and the elderly in Guinean villages.

The fact is that nobody really cares when people is dying in Africa. Who gives a fuck, right?

But it soon reached Europe, and some cases were reported in Brussels, Paris, London and Madrid. It was already a pandemic by then, but the governments and the general public dealt with it as if they were isolated cases. New York was the first American city to identify a victim; however, in only two weeks, there were thousands of infected already. It was out of control. We all understood it at that point.

"You have to leave," my wife said. "Immediately."

She was an ER doctor in the Metropolitan Hospital, and was assisting loads and loads of new patients by the clock. They were coming no-stop day and night. Adults, children, elders, poor, rich, black, white, latinos, you name it. The virus knew no boundaries, no social class, no skin color, no ethnic background. It was a very democratic kind of disease. It made us all equal as never before. There was no cure, I must say, so it made no difference if you lived in Morningside Heights or in Park Avenue.

If you were infected, you were doomed.

"Where am I going to?" I asked her. "I won't leave you here by yourself."

"You have to. I have my duties here, so I can't leave. But we've received some inside information, and it seems they'll close the bridges anytime soon. The island will be quarantined."

"Do you think it will help?"

"Of course not. There are incidents in Los Angeles, Chicago and Denver already. There is nothing to be done..." She said.

"So come with me. Why will you stay if there is no hope?"

"I didn't say that. We are working on understanding this virus. I really think we can fight it."

"Please, promise me that you'll meet me as soon it's over. I'll call my dad and check with him if I can stay there for a while."

"He won't say no," my wife said.

"You never know. He was really pissed off with me the last time we talked on the phone. Not sure if he's got over it."

"He's your father, for Christ's sake! And he probably knows what's going on here."

Of course that my father accepted me with him, actually, with plenty of enthusiasm.

"This will be like the old times," he said. "Your bedroom is exactly as you left it."

So I drove twelve hours to the past. I had just abandoned the love of my life fighting this horrible disease by herself. I felt awful. I was a coward. I should have stayed with her...

I should, but I didn't.

That's why I'm here, and she's not.