Back in Venezuela, there were a number of epidemics that had people trembling like children fearing the Boogeyman. First it was dengue fever, which I’m pretty sure I caught during the first days of 2012; then it was chikungunya, which I avoided. Yellow fever wanted to make an appearance, as well as bird flu, but they remained a scare and nothing else. I was always careful, always took care of me and my own.

And then fucking COVID-19 came and hit in the most powerful country in the world, and here I am.

I have complained before about what I’ve seen as the entitlement of the average American, considering how they treat their servers (yes, I’m biased, but that doesn’t make it less true). Now I have more reason for resentment, I’m afraid. I don’t think I’ll suffer any fool any longer. And that’s what I’ve most hated about this last week: the dark place in my head into which I’ve crawled. It has made me see and feel things that I’d rather had stayed down.

I feel as if I have no friends. And it brings back feelings that I have been, in general, a terrible friend. A single friend from high school years, and it’s more because she sought me out. My best friend from my first job, who resents me still from all the wrong I put on her. My best friend of 30 years, living an ocean away. My few male friends, all in other countries. None of them ask for me, write to see how I am, and neither do I. I am a single rock islet in the vastness of the ocean. No seen connections to any other land mass. Thank God for my wife and step daughter. And even there I know I have to work on improvements.

This will pass, I’m sure. But I need help. I have plans. And I do not want to be serving idiots any more.