Dear Corona

Chapter 1

Monday, March the 30th, 2020

Dear Corona,

March 30th is the 89th day of the year. Or the 90th, in a leap year. 2020 is a leap year. My guess is that this is the year everybody will remember in the next few years. Sometimes a year can last 365 days or 366 days, but sometimes one year can last as long as 10 years. Especially when it's hard. When you stop working and get locked down in your house, or in my case, onboard a cruise ship.

So, I decided to start writing to you, Corona, or should I say it more formally -Covid-19. I started writing to you just to show you that you didn't ruin all the lives. Youdidn't separate all the people. I remember that in school we used to study about allthose micro-organisms, including the viruses. My professor used to say that a virus is a'thing' that is between living and non-living. I remembered that few days ago and itmade me ask myself, why would you do that?Then I realized that every being that lives needs something or someone to survive. I completely understand you. You need to survive, but you cannot survive if you destroy other people's lives. This world doesn't work like that. You cannot simply destroy something to survive... only if you want to be destroyed one day -but maybe that's the point: to teach people to respect the places where they live and nature and to just... disappear- so that's a plus for you. So, let me start...

Living onboard can be complicated in normal times, but probably never as complicatedas now, in this situation. When it all started one beautiful day, Tuesday March the 10th,it all seemed so funny. Most of people went home on March 15th and we didn't have guests... at all! They said that cities have been locked down and the countries' borderers are closed, which made me feel tiny creeps all over my body, walking through my spine for hours. When it all started we had fun, at first. We organized onboard parties and had time to chill a bit. We used guest areas, including the swimming pool and dinning rooms. It all seemed like vacation. Almost all the workers stopped working; there weren't any guests to serve so there wasn't a point in paying people for nothing. Only few of them remained. The best ones. What about the rest of us? We stayed still. They said, "It's a vacation time." Some people just couldn't imagine a vacation outside of their homes and countries. For me, vacation can be anywhere as long as I'm happy. We had enough time to get to know each other better and to talk, about subjects other than work and the boring things we had to face every day with guests. Most of my friends went home including one of my good friends, Kayla who was always there for me. I had time to meet a few incredible people who I knew from earlier, but that kind of knowing each other was just saying 'Hi' in passing. From 15th of March we started hanging out. Tyen, Nora, Franceska, Mayda, Kathy, Saanvi and me - Calvin. We all have different stories, different temper, experiences, and age, but those opposite things made us closer. 

Today, we got separated. Well, not by distance. We got separated by decks and a few feet from each other, but it seemed like miles. They transferred us from crew cabins to guest cabins. Every one of us. There are only I few who are still working and have permission to go out, they are known as 'working crew'. The rest of us need to stay in our guest cabins. We have certain rules that we need to follow. For example, we need to clean and sanitize our cabins every day so that way we should prevent you, Corona, for getting to us and making us sick. Sorry, but, we are going to win. Lately, I've had a lot of time to think about everything: to think about my emotions,actions, and one part of me still can't believe that this is happening. It's like I stepped into a different reality. Especially after last night when we kissed for the first time. Matthew is a man, a man that is older than me. Okay, let me be real, he is not that much older than me. He is between 30 and 35. He was always around. I don't know how but he would always appear if I mention or just think about him. We didn't hangout that much, though. Not since once, somewhere in October when he said, 'You are too young,' when one of the people I know introduced me to him. That killed all my interest, if I can say it in that way. Then, one day, he just disappeared. I heard that he went on vacation back home and that girl that introduced me to him said: "Shame, that he left, he kinda really liked you." I feel goosebumps whenever I remember that. After few months he just magically appeared and he was back. Since I saw him in thecrew bar once, and he said, "I really really really like you", exactly in that way (he was probably drunk and I am completely aware of that), something started growing in me