Corona(tion) Year, Vol. 1: Short Stories

By Genna Rivieccio

Is it anything like the ten Plagues of Egypt? Well, fairly close. 2020 was a year like no other in history both modern and "ancient" (that includes the much referenced 1918 Spanish flu pandemic). A cauldron of circumstances combined to make the kickoff year to a new decade one of the nadirs of the twenty-first century (which is really saying som

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Opiate
• Release date: Feb 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578849720

Genna Rivieccio

Genna Rivieccio received her Bachelor of Arts in Screenwriting from Loyola Marymount University. She is the editor-in-chief of The Opiate magazine, a literary quarterly specializing in fiction and poetry. Her pop culture essays have appeared on Culled Culture, The Paris Institute, PopMatters, Gothamist, The Toast, Quiet Lunch, Itchy Silk and elsewhere. She is also the author of Corona(tion) Year, Vols. 1 and 2 (2021), Lindsay Lohan Stole My Life: A Tate Carmichael Novel (2019, 2023) and She's Lost Control (2011).

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Foreword

I first found the pandemic narrative creeping into my work around January of 2020, long before it became, let’s say, chic to do so in the U.S., where the gravity of something is never acknowledged unless it directly affects the nation. And oh, how the nation has been affected. From California to the New York island/From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf stream waters. Except, throughout the still ongoing ordeal, many Americans did not find themselves of the belief that this land was made for you and me, so much as this land was made for whatever faction—maskers or anti-maskers—managed to secure dominance. In U.S. terms, this rarely means tangible dominance so much as whoever can be portrayed favorably in the media. So, in other words, no one, for the media loves to place all party shades on the funeral pyre at some point to keep the fire of their machine burning. 

The infection of COVID-19 into my own short stories began with Patient Zero (which appears as the kickoff to this compendium, per a reverence for chronological order). I had only recently traveled back from my home state of California, where the paranoia about coronavirus was still rather germinal despite the sightings of more masks than usual at LAX. California, so close to China, after all, seemed in the greatest peril. And it was the West that would get smacked with the first recorded corona case in Washington State. So maybe that’s at least part of the reason why my phobia antennae about the novel disease’s ultimate effects were more on alert than others I seemed to encounter. Considering the irony that I’m one of the most antisocial people around, it was absurd to me that I should be more concerned than the average extrovert incapable of staying home at night. I felt on edge leaving L.A. at the beginning of February (specifically Groundhog Day). Bristling at the idea of sitting on something that someone else had, or touching a surface they had. Being near people in general was already something I found to be rather odious and unsettling to begin with. Compounded by the idea that they were all potentially contaminated only put my disgust on an upswing. At the same time, being a person who enjoys traveling and seeing new places, I had learned to accept that the huddled masses come with the territory of such a zeal. 

Back in France, it didn’t take long for all of Europe to watch in awe as Northern Italy was sodden with cases. How? Everyone wondered. China wasn’t close enough; Italians, let’s be honest, are notoriously unwelcoming to Chinese people to begin with, and don’t generally enjoy cavorting around that country either. Yet all it took was one person to bring it to the boot and blow up the nation, prompting the state to close off its border between France. While the EU was undoubtedly shocked, they were not empathetic, quickly abandoning Italy in all regards—as though cutting ties with them might spare their own eventual outbreaks. Not so. Soon after, Spain experienced a monumental explosion as well, with France holding out for far too long before surrendering to the sweeping lockdown measures Italy was the first to employ. Measures, mind you, that the U.S. never enlisted, despite their pansy claims of enduring the same level of suffering. If they had truly suffered at the beginning with mandated, strictly enforced lockdowns that were uniformly implemented, then they wouldn’t have paid a more painful price afterwards with their case numbers and death counts. The question that kept rising up again and again only in America was whether or not such enforcements were a violation of the U.S. citizen’s expected, inalienable right to freedom. 

As the urgency of the situation mounted, so, too, did the fever pitch of rage that had been brewing among Americans who couldn’t seem to find as much entertainment in singing to one another on their balconies the way Italians could. Indeed, everything about the American way of life was spotlighted for precisely what it had always been: a self-serving, self-aggrandizing pièce de merde. Every person for themselves and fuck the rest. Well, that’s a philosophy that doesn’t really work out when a nation can’t keep their nose to the capitalist grindstone, said stone having been upended by a virus. And with the crux of what being American had signified for so many centuries (work, work, work; produce, produce, produce) being ripped away in one fell swoop, the psychological effects on the population at large were immediately noticeable (manifesting in such inane ways as becoming obsessed with Tiger King and making TikTok videos to the more detrimental spectrum of shooting security guards in stores simply trying to enforce mask-wearing in public). 

Who knows what historians might later be able to make of this strange, grotesque psyche-baring year in the timeline of human existence? Maybe they will retrospectively label us the nadir of modern society—maybe things are due to get even worse as the decade wears on. Whatever might be the case, what follows is an in real time unraveling of the events at hand as told through short stories from the year of 2020.

Postscript: Because many stories were written as the pandemic was unfolding, some of the fictionalized information in it might already seem highly anachronistic. Just another testament to how rapidly details kept shifting during this, our Corona(tion) Year. I can only hope that any such anachronisms will lend further insight into this unprecedented time to those who might study it in the future. Whatever else happens with COVID-19, and what is sure to be the virus’ continued manifold after-effects, it will forever be 2020 that immortalized this seismic shift in how we, as a society, function. Or rather, don’t function at all, for anything except the economy.

Genna Rivieccio

December 31, 2020

Patient Zero

Nino Fiorelli had never so much as seen an Asian on TV, let alone talked to one in person. And certainly, he had never set foot onto the continent. He was a bona fide, through and through Italian patriot—which tended to mean that so long as there was a plate of pasta in front of him at lunch, he would remain committed to his paese. Would never dream of placing so much as a chin hair outside of it when everything he needed was right here. There had even been an offer from a friend’s parents when they graduated from high school to send the two to Thailand together by way of a three-day stopover in Hong Kong, but Nino firmly declined, said he wouldn’t dream of being apart from his mother’s cooking for more than a day. Elio rather abruptly stopped being friends with him after that, finding him to be a sorry excuse for a Northerner.

Even if Elio had said this to Nino out loud, Nino wouldn’t have cared. He was complacent. Perfectly content to remain within the bubble of Somaglia, where the only thing that ever happened was a church sermon. No, it wasn’t all excitement and action in the Lombardy region for those who lived outside of Milan, even if only a paltry fifty kilometers away. And anyway, Milan was a place Nino didn’t much care to fraternize with either. Not even when any of his friends or acquaintances tried to invite him along for a weekend excursion. He was a Somaglia boy and that was it. But perhaps he ought to have gleaned that living in a town pronounced like Somalia might have ultimately spelled danger of some kind. In Nino’s mind, however, Somaglia was untouchable—impenetrable to the events and upheavals of the outside world.

Maybe that’s why he was so reckless as a rule, putting James Dean’s character in Rebel Without A Cause to shame as he tore through the streets on his motorcycle after spending hours drinking at his favorite locale, Lo Stivale Nero. Who knows, it could have been all the drinking that wore down his immune system, made him susceptible to something others in town weren’t—even though, like all Italian milieus, it was chock-full of elderly denizens (which is precisely how Nino propagated the spread). Maybe it was simply karmic retribution from all the havoc he had wrought over the years, the proverbial gods cursing him for his insolence, paying him back tenfold by also making him the very source of infection for everyone he pretended not to care about. Though, of course, he never put up a façade about ardently caring for his mother.

Concetta, in turn, expressed a more stoic devotion, rarely saying much to him beyond, Fai il bravo. At twenty-three, he had done little to adhere to that request, unless one counts eating everything on his plate each time he sat down to a pranzo or cena as il bravo. Clearly, however, this vacuum-like tendency of his mouth wasn’t enough to quell the universe’s thirst for reprisal. For something in the air—some particle, even though minute—decided to travel through the distances of the various topographies to settle upon Nino. Nino whose lone other act of il bravo was visiting his two decrepit great aunts on the other side of town, past the dividing line of just about the only bar/restaurant to speak of, Trattoria Al Semaforo. The one thing that compelled him to do this other than his mother’s unceasing harassment about it was that they lived near the Castello Cavazzi, which had a lovely little park next to it—the Parco Vasca—that Nino enjoyed smoking some of his herbs in. Lighting up in his mother’s house had grown too insufferable to bother. She was a bloodhound determined to sniff out any relaxation and pleasure he might have in his small universe. Even if he had made it small of his own volition by refusing to leave the confines.

It was that evening after coming home from the park when he had to admit he wasn’t feeling quite right, yet he kept the information to himself and continued to go about his usual activities. In the next few days, everyone else would be subject to the same affliction as Nino, though not yet knowing why until the proverbial government-issued health officials appeared in their full-body protective suits and surgical masks (some even wearing goggles for a heightened apocalyptic effect). Going from door to door, the word spread quickly: coronavirus. No one could believe it. It was supposed to be a cinese disease. They couldn’t understand that it was always fated to take root in Italy—what with corona being the word for crown. Placed atop the head of the iconic boot shape that formed this land.

Nino, still having no idea that he was the source of the spread, kept mucking about in the streets, visiting his aunts once more as a cover to smoke clandestinely in the park afterward. He seemed to pay no attention to how both of his aunts looked especially worse for the wear as they coughed and hacked, gasping for breath until finally spitting it back onto him. He cut the visit short in response. He had brought the lenticchie to them anyway, his job was complete. Now he had another one to do: get high and forget about the men in suits crawling all over town like a plague worse than the virus itself.

At a shoddily set up lab in an abandoned gas station just outside of town, Stefano incredulously examined the sample. We don’t know how he got it. He’s never left town. It doesn’t make any sense.

His associate, Tiziano, admitted, "My bet had been on the old man that just came back from going to New York to see his grandson. That fucking city is crawling with cinesi."

"You think that guy set foot in Chinatown? No. Maybe this is just how it is now. Anyone can get it. Like the flu. Like—"

Bad luck? Tiziano interjected.

Stefano rolled his eyes. Be serious. This one little fucker has caused a national crisis.

We don’t know for certain he’s Patient Zero.

Stefano tinkered a bit more with the swab sample he had collected from one of Nino’s stolen blunts. Someone has to be. And it might as well be a young person. He can make a recovery from any probing in quarantine that we do.

A physical one, sure. But what about the emotional trauma he’ll have to deal with for the rest of his life?

It’s him, Tiziano. I can fucking sense it.

There’s no concrete proof.

This is a country of faith.

Nino had been in lockdown for almost three weeks, suddenly wishing he had decided to leave Somaglia like all the rest of the people he went to school with. This town was now a petri dish and he was the primary specimen under the microscope. He tried to tell them none of this was his fault. That it couldn’t possibly have been. And all the while, the faceless doctors just kept faux placating with promises of a final round of tests. The final round had been coming every day, and he was poked with more needles than even the most voracious heroin addict.

Worse still, Concetta wouldn’t come to visit him; she was that upset. Furious, really. For Nino had killed the aunts. They succumbed to the virus just two days after he was plucked from the house and quarantined, adding to her shame and embarrassment. She refused to leave her room, saying she was nothing but a disgrace to the town, though everyone assured her that she was blameless. She had done everything she could to raise her son correctly, it was his own cervello stupido that caused this. But Concetta could not be consoled. She would rather expire in her room from hunger and sadness than go outside and die of humiliation.

Nino, too, felt as though something inside him was dying out. That tends to happen when you become a lab rat. An unremitting source of testing fodder. Nino reckoned there would soon be nothing left of him to test. He would either die of this virus or be cured. Some part of him was convinced they knew how to do it, but were merely withholding the panacea as a means to see how they could manipulate the illness inside of him. Or was he simply going crazy? Crazy enough to come up with such a conspiracy theory.

As the duo of new lead doctors handling the case, Elio and Marcello, observed him from behind a glass window, they spoke of releasing him back into the world. He isn’t recovered, Elio noted.

That’s the point, Marcello tersely declared as he looked at Elio in annoyance. Do you know what we actually do here?

Elio shrugged. Sure.

Then you’ll understand we need him to spread the virus farther.

That’s what The Boss said?

Precisely. We’ll tell him he’s better, release him today and he’ll still be the fall guy no matter what. Patient Zero.

"Oh, he’s less than zero all right, that’s why we chose him, isn’t it?" Elio chuckled, thinking that mediocrity is perfectly comfortable until it makes you just another disposable member of society. A prop to be wielded until a different one comes along. Manipulated all the while by a hierarchy with some alternate plan for your otherwise lackluster destiny.

Russians in Milan

The Russians have taken over Milan. They of the hearty stock and with their unflappable physical and emotional essence. It didn’t take them long to infiltrate in clusters and then droves. Now that no one else is left to visit Italy as a result of the U.S.’ ultimate death blow (apart from the existence of New Jersey and Long Island Italians) of telling Americans not to travel there, they reign supreme over the land. Particularly the once overrun by many nationalities Piazza Del Duomo. Where Andrei and Nadia take selfies with one another unmarred by the presence of the usually ubiquitous Chinese or American tourists.

Little bitches, Andrei remarks to a British reporter wearing a surgical mask (just another person who has ignored the advisory that such coverings should only be worn by those who are actually ill). This in response to the reporter asking what he thinks about the sudden lack of a particular breed of tourist in the Lombardy region, nay, in all of Italy thanks to a certain virus. Nadia is the one who said they should come, he adds, noting that she thinks it’s just propaganda and that there is nothing to be afraid of. Nadia, indeed, is off in the background posing in front of the famed Gothic cathedral as pigeons swirl around her. Yes, the pigeons are the only other beings to contend with in terms of carving out a blank space for oneself to get their photo snapped in front of the near mythical edifice. As though the cathedral had been shut down to the public solely for a queen’s visit. Today, Nadia is that queen, and Andrei her king. Even if a bit of a buffoon. Then again, buffoonery is a common characteristic of any male monarch. Or president.

Andrei goes to the nearest caffetteria to order an espresso from a downtrodden barman named Ettore, who looks as though he’s seeing his entire life flash before his eyes. Maybe because the presence of only these Russians feels like a kind of death to him. The death of profitable tourism. The death of gleaning any sense of enjoyment from his job. His friend, Alessandro, who works at one of the most expensive alberghi in the zone, Bulgari (which, yes, is the same as Bvlgari, since the jewelry brand decided hotels were an essential operation to their aura of luxury as well), has already stopped in three times today to tell him that it’s been as dead as a doornail. Or as dead as an old person with coronavirus. Even the rich don’t believe their money can save them from it. That’s perhaps what’s scariest of all.

Maybe that’s why the Russians are so emboldened to come here. They’re already poor, as a rule (let’s be honest, Ettore says conspiratorially to Alessandro, "Questa gente non ha una moneta, non per fare le grande cose come gli americani.). And when you’re poor, you truly have nothing to lose. Death is a blessing, not something to fear, but rather, something to taunt and laugh in the face of because you know it won’t take hold of you. Life is far worse than death when one is a broke ass. Meanwhile, Ettore will probably have to learn how to make Russian peasant soup to appeal to his only clientele for the foreseeable future. He speculates that the reason the Russians haven’t reported any cases of coronavirus incidents" is because either 1) they manufactured it themselves or 2) their government has killed off anyone who has been thought to bear the symptoms, thereby eradicating any chance of the spread. Stalin, after all, established a template for someone like Putin to emulate.

Whatever the reason, Ettore smells conspiracy like baccalà on a Neapolitan fishmonger. He hates what has become of his once bustling metropolis. That it is between desolation or a smattering of Russians. Has Italy not endured enough in its history, already so brimming with tales of disease and contamination (here’s looking at you, cholera)? Evidently not. Evidently, there is some bounty on the head of this country stemming from centuries ago. Maybe somewhere around the point when the Greek gods were renamed by the Romans. Maybe the gods didn’t take kindly to their rebranding or something. And you can always count on a curse to originate from the Greeks. Especially when it comes to the unspoken competition between them and the Italians for Achieving the Highest Level of Art and Philosophy.

He supposes it doesn’t make any real difference where the hex arose from. It was here and ever-present, and that was all that mattered. Did America’s president have any consideration for the fact that Italians are already barely living on bread crumbs without having their only consistently profitable industry—tourism—wiped out? No, there was no consideration at all from anyone outside of the boot. The Italians were a tainted people now, deemed the sick man of Europe, and would be for quite some time. If they were lucky, maybe the fears and phobias would subside by next year. But by then, they would all be destitute. Subsisting on the few alms a Russian was willing to give.

What’s worse, the wine selling business was taking a hit, too. Suddenly, it was all demands for vodka. And talk of how Italian vodka ain’t shit. As if the Russians would know the difference between vaginal discharge and quality vodka. They would drink anything if it fucked them up with one sip, Molotov cocktail included. And of course Andrei and Nadia are unmoved by offers of grappa by the bottle instead of by the shot glass.

What is this you give me? Andrei balks later that night upon taking Nadia out to further celebrate the city being theirs. Is this water? he quips as he laughs diabolically with Nadia, who pulls out her own giant AK-47 shaped bottle from her freshly purchased Gucci bag.

She titters, concluding of the grappa, This very cute. Thank you much for ‘alcohol’ appetizer. And with that, she and Andrei burst into laughter anew.

The Italians they so delicate. Just like Americans, Nadia tells the same British reporter doing his segment on the present lack of tourism in Milan. Andrei finishes paying for yet another caffeine injection to kick-start their morning. And as Nadia sips her espresso at the counter in the caffetteria, she elaborates, But they have very nice things here. Just not liquor or sense of strength.

Ettore, overhearing this while he cleans the machine, gets the notion to lunge straight toward her and strangle them both with his bare hands (coronavirus risk be damned)—show them just how forceful an Italian’s sense of strength could be. But he refrains. He can’t kill any of the few tourists still remaining in the region. Russian or not, they were his livelihood. And that, one surmises, is how pandemics briefly relieve a person of his prior prejudices (in addition to causing them to flare up even more).

The Pop Star Who Said The Show Must Go On

She was tireless, relentless and all the -lesses that make someone a star. As such, she could not process even the most basic of human quandaries (like, say, needing to be at work at a certain time the morning following her late-ending concert). She had no use for them. To her, people were nothing more than the dollar signs that helped fortify her bank account and her ability to therefore be exempt from such unforeseen catastrophic events as a pandemic. A word that surely could not apply to someone of her class station. She was Mariposa, after all. Four syllables that meant, Shut the fuck up, and respect my authority. Whether this was directed at the many slaves in her employ, her adoring fans or non-human entities like a virus, she did not care. Everyone and everything were at her command, and no one’s quotidian personal life was going to affect her own needs and desires. And those needs and desires while on this world tour were not going to be flouted by some virus. The show must go on, she said, paying off everyone who worked for the arena to go against the government shutdown of all venues housing more than a thousand people.

Well, of course that eliminates pretty much every fucking venue, she hissed at her personal assistant, Erica, as she, for some reason, brushed Mariposa’s hair. She could not recall such a task being in the original job description. But who was Erica to protest when her salary was six figures? ‘Twas the tradeoff for being at Mariposa’s constant beck and call, therefore never being able to actually use any of her hard-earned money. Nor much in the way of sound moral judgment, for here she was about to do a sweep of bribery so that the show could go on quietly, with a last-minute email sent out to ticket holders telling them the concert was still a go.

Mariposa didn’t care about the so-called repercussions; she had made enough money in her lifetime to buy herself and any of her ascending bloodline out of such things as consequences. Erica, knowing this, boldly went through with the instructions. And, at exactly nine p.m., the arena was overrun with fans, making devil-may-care, body-to-body, breath-to-breath contact. Mariposa took the stage at ten-fourteen p.m., allowing plenty of time for them to incubate with one another. Oh my, how easy it was to see that humanity itself is a virus. That’s certainly what Mariposa was thinking as she peered through the curtain to assess the drones that were her fans. What a fucking pathetic lot. Genuinely believing in her message about equality, about how we’re all the same and should be treated as such. How idiotic could they be? Clearly the only reason she was able to build a career was as a result of not being the same—equal—to these no-talent lackeys. Some people were born to be the center of attention, and others simply to watch, to bask in whatever residual glow they could take from a better person’s spotlight.

Mariposa was that better person. She knew it, her acolytes knew it—but that didn’t mean they couldn’t all still pretend her message of equality was genuine. After all, it was what gave their mediocre little lives meaning. It being: Her. So how could she possibly deny them the pleasure of seeing her show? While other less iconic pop stars were forced to obey the government by actually cancelling their shows, Mariposa knew she could not be forced to do anything. What did the government know—understand—about the relationship between a pop star and her fans? How could they—this gaggle of stodgy old white men—possibly fathom what it was to be relevant? What it was to have more power over the youth than they ever would? She didn’t expect them to ever conceive of her almightiness. For it was something they did not want to acknowledge even if they had the capacity to. All the better that they couldn’t: it would just make her even more of a subject of controversy to them.

Speaking of controversy, she decided to open the show with a different number this time, one rife with guns and blood and tampons. There were a whole lot of hotbed symbols, concluding with a frozen image of dirty surgical masks in a landfill. No one was quite sure what it was all supposed to mean, but everyone found it very profound. Their uproarious cheering and clapping provided affirmation of as much. Mariposa could feel their adulation radiating onto her, and it made her feel stronger, as though she was absorbing their energies to make herself further immortal and impervious to anything like a disease.

As she made it all the way to singing the second to last song in the set, the police bum-rushed the entire stadium, clearing people out. But that only added to the folkloric nature of the event, as far as she and everybody else were concerned. Lent that final push of you had to be there to get it clout to the performance. Of course, those who were not there were ultimately quite glad to have skipped out, for only one week later, virtually two-thirds of the audience showed signs of the illness, which had since been nicknamed the What Goes Around virus. And it was certainly coming around to all those who were so convinced they were immune to such overblown trivialities, such overt machinations of the government wanting to exercise fascist authority. Mariposa would’ve almost felt