Member-only story
Grateful For My Little Life
Bearded, bespectacled, and long haired George leaned back into his chair and said, “This Covid-19 virus is the worst kind of a cock blocker.”
My eyes grew wide. For George had uttered the word “cock blocker” in a hospital workspace containing more than eighteen-hundred employees, seventy-three percent of which are women.
I threw my head back: “Ha. Ha.”
The blue hospital mask redirected my breaths toward my eyes and forehead. I inhaled. My breath smelled of partially digested mix strawberries, orange juice, and oatmeal. Wow, I thought. Is this really how my breath smells when others are within distance? Large glasses covered my eyes and made up for my nearsightedness. The redirected breaths fogged up my lenses, which prompted me to remove my glasses from the top of my nose.
George was smiling now, a rakish kind of shit eating grin. While looking at him, I was reminded of a set of nefarious characters in a novel I’d read in the not-to-distant past. “I’m telling you that what I’m saying it’s true,” he said. “We can’t go to a bar, restaurants are open at limited capacity, and the clubs are closed. There’s nothing dude. How’s a guy supposed to get his game on with these women brother? You know what I’m saying?” He ran his fingers through his mane and laughed.
