Capsule Stories Second Isolation Edition

By Capsule Stories

Featuring poems, stories, and essays, Capsule Stories Second Isolation Edition reflects on the isolation we've experienced this past year in the pandemic. Read about connecting with strangers over Zoom meetups, feeling trapped in your apartment, drifting apart and falling back in love with your partner, watching your child forget what the world

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capsule Stories
• Release date: Jul 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781953958075

Book preview

Capsule Stories: Second Isolation EditionCapsule Stories: Second Isolation Edition

Masthead

Natasha Lioe, Founder and Publisher

Carolina VonKampen, Publisher and Editor in Chief

April Bayer, Reader

Stephanie Coley, Reader

Rhea Dhanbhoora, Reader

Hannah Fortna, Reader

Kendra Nuttall, Reader

Rachel Skelton, Reader

Deanne Sleet, Reader

Claire Taylor, Reader

Cover art by Darius Serebrova

Book design by Carolina VonKampen

Ebook design by Lorie DeWorken

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-953958-06-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-953958-07-5

© Capsule Stories LLC 2021

All authors retain full rights to their work after publication.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, distributed, or used in any manner without written permission of Capsule Stories except for use of quotations in a book review.

Capsule Stories: Second Isolation Edition

Contents

Letter from the Editors

Prologue: Second Isolation Edition

Broken Faucet—Paulette K. Fire

Totally Fine—Paulette K. Fire

The Epley Maneuver—Kelle Schillaci Clarke

Sand Stories—Jan Chronister

Bookmarks—Jan Chronister

Now and Then—Deborah Purdy

Quarantine—Deborah Purdy

Happily Ever After—Linda McMullen

Open for Business—Beth Morrow

Car in Reverse—D. H. Valdez

Goddess of Knife and Stove—Melissa Sussens

Don’t Press Play Without Me—Teya Hollier

I Can’t Even Find It in Me to Water the Flowers—Teya Hollier

Metamorphosis—Ashley Huynh

A Year Unspent—Sukriti Lakhtakia

I Have Unlearned My Body—Sukriti Lakhtakia

An Ode to My Long Hair—Bethool Zehra Haider

Everything Holy—Jenne Hsien Patrick

A Tuesday Pandemic Love Song—Jenne Hsien Patrick

Eleventh Month—Jenne Hsien Patrick

March—Hannah Marshall

Community Garden, Wisconsin, Nine Months Pregnant—Hannah Marshall

2020 Falls—Hannah Marshall

Lost Touch—Hannah Marshall

Lament for March Madness and Remote Learning—Matthew Miller

Infestation—Matthew Miller

The Heat—Cassie McDaniel

survival plan—Annie Powell Stone

sounds like a hospital—Annie Powell Stone

Because We Said So—Annie Powell Stone

Self-Storage—Kelly Q. Anderson

The Way the World Was—Talya Jankovits

Joy—Brett Thompson

Summer—Brett Thompson

A Tragedy Unfolding—Brett Thompson

Morning Song—Brett Thompson

Drinking Full Moon Blend During a Pandemic 900 Miles Away from Home—Mel Lake

I Live on This Island That I’ve Created—Mark Martyre

Walking on Water—Mark Martyre

In Isolation—Mark Martyre

Rent/Relief—Glennys Egan

In a Time of Pandemic—John Jeffire

Nest—James Croal Jackson

Now That the End Is in Sight—James Croal Jackson

Orphan—Casey McConahay

the possum—harps mclean

the word shifts from its axis—harps mclean

Twenty Minutes—Rae Rozman

The Measureless In-Between—Steve Head

Last Days of the Old World—Steve Head

Distance Between Us—James Roach

Number Nine—Alicia Aitken

In Orbit at El Camino Hospital—Avalon Felice Lee

Sheltering—Lisa Romano Licht

Outside of Time—Carol Mikoda

While You Wait—Carol Mikoda

Delivery—Carol Mikoda

How to Recycle Your Worry—Chandra Steele

Squalor—Shiksha Dheda

I’m Seldom Short on Inspiration—Xavier Reyna

Eggs—Mo Lynn Stoycoff

Glass Half Full—Steve Denehan

Normal Life—Steve Denehan

Social Distancing—Jan Philippe V. Carpio

Martial Rounds—Jan Philippe V. Carpio

Parallel Online Funerals—Angel Chacon Orozco

This Is a Test—Barbara Simmons

07/2020—Zoe Cunniffe

skin on skin—Zoe Cunniffe

washington monuments—Zoe Cunniffe

Contributors

Editorial Staff

Submission Guidelines

Letter from the Editors

When we published Capsule Stories Isolation Edition in mid-April 2020, we thought the coronavirus pandemic would be over within a few months. We wrote in the edition’s letter from the editor: Throughout March 2020, we saw our world rapidly changing. It didn’t feel like anything we knew. It was tough to process how quickly things changed—travel restrictions, social distancing, schools closed, stay at home orders, businesses shut down. We didn’t have the words we needed to experience this moment in time.

Over a year later, in summer 2021, the pandemic is still ongoing. The virus has claimed more and more lives and left countless people sick, hurt, and broken. Our lives have changed forever. Once again, we are searching for words to describe how we are getting through this and how we are surviving. Our first Isolation Edition captured our immediate stories and feelings about the first month of the pandemic. Now, we want to go deeper and explore how our lives have been changed, how we’ve changed, after living in the pandemic for more than a year.

Prologue

Second Isolation Edition

You think of how naive you were just a year ago. How worried you were about things like running out of toilet paper, your career never recovering, your loved ones falling deathly ill. You’re still anxious, but it feels different now. It feels longer. Less urgent, less panicked.

Days melt into weeks. You open your laptop one groggy Saturday morning thinking it’s Thursday. You place your laptop at the foot of your bed and sleep upside down, just to add some variety to your life. Is it too risky to go get a haircut? When was the last time you saw a stranger smile at you? These are the questions nowadays—forget about the experience you should be capturing. Now, all you know is that awkward silence before the video call ends, as you frantically try to press the button, wearing a fake smile on your face.

But one venture outside will tell you that even though it felt like your life had paused, the rest of the world kept moving. People you know, or don’t know, have been lost forever. There’s noisy construction on streets you knew intimately, new restaurants replacing your old favorite ones. People are going out as if nothing happened. You feel like the only person who remembers what life was like before, what life is like now. But you’ll never forget how the world changed, how you changed. How alone you felt. You will always remember this.

Broken Faucet

Paulette K. Fire

There was a time when we lost track of time. It was a time when it was not safe to be near people. Even people we loved. During that time we had photographs we looked at. Some of the photographs were on a screen. We could talk to the photographs. People said it was almost like the real thing. Sometimes the pictures froze, but that didn’t mean we got the time back. The photographs with the babies and their dimpled hands, one-toothed smiles, chubby knees made us sad. We knew we would never hug their baby bodies. They’d be one two three years old before we held them again. The cuter the babies got, the worse it got. The cuteness was unbearable. Our eyes welled up. Tears spilled down our faces. Wet our clothes. Soaked our shoes and socks. When there was talk of a second third fourth wave, we knew we had to shut off the faucets. We tightened and tightened. Our teeth shuffled themselves into new arrangements. Our hearts pounded. Our heads ached. We tightened some more. There was no other choice. When our Nespresso machines broke because some of us were shoving the lever with perhaps too much force to the side, and the machines groaned and screeched and water and coffee grains poured over our kitchen floors, we tried to understand what was happening. People spoke of messages from God and the universe. The poets among us wrote essays about metaphors. The know-it-alls and hysterics said it was a warning. But I had given up on messages and metaphors and warnings. I called the people whose job it was to care for me. I have hope for your machine, the woman at the customer care center said. But when will the machine work the way it’s supposed to? I asked this woman with her fine Italian accent. All in good time, she answered. All in good time.

Totally Fine

Paulette K. Fire

Totally fine

is what you are

when you fall down the stairs

hit your head,

only once,

and sprain your knee.

Slightly.

Totally fine

is what you are

when the phone

rings at two thirty

in the morning

and the person on the other end

says, Sorry, sorry.

And at four forty

in the morning

you’re still wondering

did they say,

Sorry, sorry, or

Hurry, hurry?

Totally fine

is what you are

when you take a walk

with your husband