My girlfriend and I entered the elevator. An older woman stood in the corner. Not old, but simply older than us. She was petite, and shared a slightly nod, not a smile, but still she transmitted that she recognized our existence. We smiled back, saying a hello. Down the elevator went toward the basement. The lobby snagged us. A woman stood before us as the doors slid open. We had backed up to allow her entrance. She stared, somewhat agape, obviously uncomfortable.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Social distancing. 4 seems like a lot of people for an elevator.”
I stared at the woman. The door remained open. Its sensor awaited a body to pass its threshold.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” She repeated, almost as if looking for verification. Then stop saying that and get in the elevator, I thought.
Everyone seemed confused. Just get in the fucking elevator I thought. I also wondered, “if you’re crazy, why not just take the stairs,” though, to be fair, I never understand people who appear to be generally healthy who take the elevator to travel one floor. I tell myself that surely there’s more to the story, some malady not apparent to the eye. Maybe their parents were butchered in a stairwell; they witnessed it; blood everywhere; tendrils of flesh, or something even more internal and important; psychic trauma, surely.
Eventually I had the wherewithal to press the close doors button. The doors closed, finally. The stranger said, “People have gone nuts.” We laughed and agreed. “So strange.” Then, the elevator reached the basement and the doors opened and we wished each other to have splendid days.
Outside were the people wearing masks to walk the sidewalks. Some people wore rubber gloves. It’s all so insane. I feel like people don’t understand risk, as in where the risks lie. I suppose some people have that perspective toward me as well. I don’t know. From what I’ve read, and from what I understand, the keys are to wash hands, be careful while inside locations shared by others, and to minimize the number of people with whom you maintain contact. It’s like STDs, don’t fuck everyone willy-nilly, don’t roll around indoors where others lurk. But, people are bad at assessing risk, and people turn to their fears so easily, so I suppose it’s expected to see the world gone mad.
Sure, it’d be shitty if the woman entered the elevator and coughed. Don’t DO THAT. I am a cougher. I cough a lot. All of the time. It’s basically like blinking for me. But, these days, I don’t cough when near people. I stifle that shit. If I couldn’t do so, then I wouldn’t go out, or if I had to go out (like my building was on fire and I was going to be coughing a lot) I’d wear a mask. I think we’ll be ok traveling a few floors with each other in an elevator. Not to say that it’s overkill to wear a mask whenever you’re outside, especially while indoors, but I suspect that for most, with this disease, that it’s a panacea more for the mental distress than our physical safety. For gloves, if they’re not disposable then there’re one more thing that can bring the disease into your apartment and one more thing to wash, and if they’re disposable then we’re looking at an insane amount of trash if everyone uses them. Just wash your hands, they were made to resist most diseases.
Of course, there are people who are more likely to die from the disease and it’s understandable that they’d take extra precautions, such as not taking the elevator… I mean, I could have just been in that particular elevator coughing up a storm, and she’d have been fine getting in without having seen me. I don’t know. It just seems that fear got this nation into a protracted and unnecessary war with Iraq following Afghanistan, and that fear got us Trump, and that we’re playing into this manipulative mentality when we view people as threats more than as humans. And, yes, I provide space to people while outside, and I push down my coughs, but I’ll also offer to help grab objects from high shelves and hold elevator doors and generally be polite and caring, for in the end what will get us through the day is not our paranoia but our circumspect vision and calm and minds.