As all of you are no doubt aware, we denizens of the United States are getting hammered by this @#$% disease. Of course, we are not alone. Europe is having severe issues as well, along with other parts of the world. This is not a uniquely American problem. Some of the dysfunction in dealing with it has been, but state-by-state some regions have had better success than others.

I am glad to say that I’m convinced that Ohio has done their best.

Over the past nine months I’ve been watching as this pandemic has hit closer and closer to home. It’s like someone else walking artillery fire toward your position. Someone hostile. The first hit way off in the distance and off to the side is no big deal. A puff of black, and a few seconds later the sound of the explosion.

“Right 200, add 400.”

Uh-oh. This time you want to duck, the round goes off behind you.

You’re being “bracketed” and you know it.

“Left 100, drop 200.”

The round drops right in front of you. For what we are about to receive, you think, may we be truly thankful.

“Fire for effect.”

Well, that’s where we’ve been for the last six weeks. In the trench with rounds detonating all around. A few times the damn things have gone off in my face, such as last month when I spent weeks in bed with a mystery illness that sure looked like Covid, but wasn’t confirmed. Maybe it was pneumonia. Who knows. Negative test, but maybe taken at wrong time and tests only 70-75 percent accurate. Sickest I’ve ever been, for sure.

In any case, we’ve done our best to stay safe and not to contaminate our friends and family; not all of my household has the luxury of isolating like me, the retired writer and confirmed hermit. Like a medic, a lieutenant or a runner, they must move and expose themselves to blast and shrapnel.

Crump. Whump. Thump. The explosions are maddening, draining. A chunk of steel buries itself in the mud in front of me. I look left and right, my family is still OK… and then…

WHAM. Dust and mud flies, a terrible ringing blocks out all sound. It feels as if someone has struck my head with a board, I fly through the air and land somewhere in a heap. I hurt all over. My mouth tastes of blood; have I lost a tooth? My hand shoots toward my balls, they may be shrunken, tight, but they are there.

Who got hit? We ate that one. Shit.

A close family member took a confirmed hit from the Corona; the blood drains from my face. What? How?

I no longer hear the exploding ordnance, it has become irrelevant. What matters is that a loved one is stricken; the damn disease scored a direct hit.

The Health Department, notified of a positive test by the hospital, calls. We are under a mandatory quarantine order.

Now we wait. Tomorrow it snows, today I’ll read in preparation for another writing task. What can you do? Wail and run in circles? Hide beneath your sheets?

Nope. Life goes on, even in mandatory quarantine.

So to all my readers out there- God bless, and stay safe.