Ten-Minute Story, Part Three

Shower. Brush teeth. Get dressed. Fix hair.

And then what?

Charlie didn't know what to do next--this was, in part, why they had been reluctant to leave their bed. When you're always busy and you always have something to do, somewhere to be, something to begin or continue or finish, having free time seems like a luxury. When all you've got is free time, it can begin to feel like a challenge or an obstacle.

The pandemic had been raging for close to a year, with no signs of letting up.

In the beginning, Charlie had a job, a partner, friends, routine and familiarity. Half-way through, Charlie and their partner had moved to a new city--leaving the job, the friends, the routine and the familiarity behind. "A fresh start", some might call it. But it was more like living in limbo, like moving to a waiting room: everything was locked down, there was nowhere to go, no one to see, nothing to do. Oh, there were the little things, like grocery shopping and getting a coffee and taking walks to nearby parks. But those were the scenery and the props of daily life--without the players and the action, they didn't come to life in the same way. They were mostly dormant and faceless, lacking depth or personality. The grocery store, the coffee shop, the park--all of it was generic; there was nothing defining or real about them, nothing that separated these places from any other theoretical place Charlie had never been. Nothing was theirs yet.