Everything seems to happen like it's in slow-motion, and the things I feel —frustration, loneliness, anger, fear —all seem distant, like they're behind glass. I do go outside to walk the dogs with my husband, but I feel the way the dogs do, that it's my brief time of tasting freedom, before I go back inside to the slow time. I'm teaching online, and communication with my students also feels like it's slow-mo (posting online) or behind glass (clumsy zoom conversations). I am doing some writing, but that too seems to be happening in slow-motion, because though nothing much seems to be happening, it all takes a painfully long time to accomplish.

Annette Gilson’s short story, The Proposal, is forthcoming in FICTION No. 65. She has published New Light, a novel, with Black Heron Press, and is at work on several others. She got her PhD from Washington University in St. Louis and has essays and reviews in a number of journals. She directs the creative writing program at Oakland University in Michigan.