Josephine wiggled her round rump around her apartment living room. She belted out the chorus of the pop punk song playing in her earmuff headphones. There were no curtains on her windows. Any passerby could watch her goofy dance from the sidewalk outside.
It had been weeks since Josephine had been outside. Her quarantine was almost over. Her symptoms from the popular sickness were finally clearing up.
Josephine longed to sweat with strangers again. To be in a dark, pulsating room with fellow dancers, pushing their way to the front.
Everyone she knew blamed some institution or some set of people for the current restrictions. Josephine only blamed the disease itself.
“Fuck COVID,” she jubilantly yelled as the song ended. “You too will end. And everything will be back to normal someday.”
Josephine knew the day would come when the comfort of strangers would return.
In the meanwhile, she refused to buy curtains. And welcomed the gaze of pedestrians to witness her joy in the midst of seclusion.