Quaranteens

As of November 2020, approximately 80% of the population aged 65+ has been wiped out, and the new wave of COVID-20 has taken its toll 60% of those in the 35+ crowd.

At first, us younger Generation Z kids were joking, calling the virus "Boomer Remover" and intentionally breaking lockdown laws to be asymptomatic carriers. When our grandparents died, we shrugged it off as something long overdue. When some of our parents died, many of us released from abusive households (or, are nihilistic enough to fake it) and held mass celebrations in the streets. Of course, no one laughed when our own friends and siblings got sick, but we still spent all day procrastinating on "long-distance education" by being on our phones and watching TV. (After all, who was here to tell us to get off our devices now?) Many of us were deemed immune to the coronavirus and made it a new method of flexing to others.

It was when the quarantine was lifted, at the beginning of 2021, when we realized just how much of a YA novel everything had become.

:):):)

I got ready for "physical" school, the first time I would be going out in a year. In fits of boredom I had chopped off the majority of my hair and dyed it with extra colors I found behind the bathroom mirror. I didn't even bother to cover it up, knowing full well that everyone else would look like a nuclear bomb had dropped in the nearby DC and we were all facing acute radiation syndrome. Since it is basically the apocalypse (just not that kind), I decided to find an outfit that would reflect that (I'll leave it up to your imagination to guess which TikTok elements I included). I even had a military-grade gas mask my dad left us to go with it.

On that note, half of my family is isolating themselves in the attic. The other half was buried in the basement. (I'll also let you guess which parents is where, since both haven't talked to me in months anyway.)

My brother's clothes also looked like they had survived a zombie outbreak, and his shaved head really brought out the dark circles around his eyes. While we had actually slept well, the sheer thought of having to go back to school made the two of us lose all of the energy we had been getting back.

We walked outside to find the last of the returning wildlife to be chased back by us and a few other high school students. The deer and foxes probably spent so much time realizing that we were actually off the streets for them to reclaim their land, only for some neon-haired humans to come back and kick them out again. Had it not been for the tinted glasses on my mask, we would have been practically hissing at the sunlight.

I found some of my friends with matching bleached heads and jewelry made from random household objects, ranging from USB drives to mini hand sanitizers to doll parts. Even my brother's friends had tried piercing their ears to wear Juul pod earrings (only some were truly successful). Some had also done stick-and-pokes or slitting their eyebrows (again, a maximum 50% success rate with each of these, but no one cared).

When we all made it to the bus stop, we found a lot less people waiting than expected. "Well, more room for us, right?" I ignored my brother when I saw that the bus driver had also been switched out for someone else. There had to be about ten of us, counting myself.

The drive was quiet for more reasons than just there being less noisy students.

I heard someone whisper "hey" to me from behind. I turned around. It was some freshman girl with a brimless hat and uneven bangs. "Are you, you know... immune?"

I shrugged. "I only got tested for 19, but probably for both, yeah."

"Okay, cool. I like your hair and mask, it's really alternative."

"Thanks. Uh, I like your hat. Yankee with no brim, right?"

I could see her face become a grin from under her medical mask and smiled back.

:):):)

Each of my classes only had around ten students, half of what I was used to. Many of our teachers were still communicating via online conferences or substitutes out of the fear of one of us being a carrier without knowing. In a way, the bright colors were wore now represented our toxicity like animals do. "Get away, we have corona-venom!" Our patchwork styles screamed.

I had brought my own lunch to avoid cross-contamination in school food, but saluted the lunch ladies for having to deal with people saying that their isolation struggle-meals at home were better than this. Almost subconsciously, most of us sat one or two per table, at least six feet apart.

Being an American public school, it didn't take long for the unregulated cafeteria (maybe the monitors were dead like many hoped) to witness another fight.

"This bitch got corona!" "Shut the hell up, it's YOU that's got it!" Two boys who look like they also failed their online classes were circling in the center of the room as people shouted.

"Woah, hold up!" They stopped each other from getting physical when my brother began yelling at them. "You'll both catch it if y'all catch hands. So, just break it up?"

They seemed to think about it for a few seconds. Then, one tackled the other and the lunch ladies had to pull them apart. No one could stop laughing.

:):):)

Sometimes, I write funny conversations in a small notebook I carry around for writing inspiration. Many of us hadn't seen each other in so long, and had very emotional exchanges with our teachers too. Here were some of that day's other entries:

"[Teacher], if you pass that test to me, I'll pass this virus to you."

"Well, [student], then I'll guess you'll get a zero for this quiz. I know you don't have any kind of COVID."

"That's better than what CollegeBoard gave me. I mean, my grandparents die and they pull up with a score of negative one on my AP World exam?"

"I don't know how you did that..."

"Me neither, the f***!"

"Since basically everyone running for president died or is sick, who are you voting for?"

"It's got to be Obama, he can fix everything like Flex Tape."

"Naw, he can't run again."

"In this economy? He can, and should."

"I miss [student] so much, I hope he's doing okay down there."

"I'm not dead! Wait, and does that mean I would be in hell?"

"Sometimes I think I can still hear his voice..."

"I did it: I went through quarantine without watching Friends or The Office."

"Really? And I didn't watch One Piece you weebass-"

:):):)

So overall, not having human interactions for the past 14 months made all of our speech devolve into memes and arguments. The future is bright in our hands, right?

Still, the anxiety is almost tangible. Not all of our classmates died from the virus itself: many committed suicide out of fear, and us having not been there for them was a heavy burden. There was even a certain emptiness from not hearing a certain teacher dress-code someone or take away their phones. It's all jokes until we are left with our thoughts for too long.

All we have now is each other and our twisted morally-grey minds, and a few adults still locked away. All we can do now is go forward and learn from what the virus left behind.

(That being said, first act of business: eat the rich. Apparently, a few unnamed billionares are still out there on private islands, and we can get a few boats...)