Lot's of people on the streets. On Bethlehem Road near my home, I saw a man who pulled food up with a rope to a balcony on the third floor where his friend was sitting. "He is in self-isolation," the man explained. "He has just returned from abroad and now has to hunker down for two weeks, rather than go and get tested like he would in any normal country."
I asked him," Why won't you just leave him the food next to his door?"
"He likes extreme sports, and he is a mountain climber, this keeps him busy," the man said. "Break right, go to the right, Yoram," he shouted.
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I recalled my friend, B., who is 50. He is an apocalypse enthusiast who lives in constant fear. Had there been dividends on fear, he would have been a very rich man.
The last time he has been seen outside was in early February. I had just returned from a speaking tour in Sweden and he agreed to meet me at a local park just because he was going to buy toilet paper in his favorite supermarket.
February was pre-coronavirus. B. opened the trunk of his car and presented me his loads of rolls. "Why do you have so many rolls?" I asked. He stared at me with a serious look. "The end of the world is near, and you, you keep asking why so many?" he shouted, waking up a couple of old folks on a nearby bench. "Have you ever thought about why none of the science fiction books have toilet paper?" he asked.
"There are a lot of other things that are never seen in science fiction," I managed to blurt out before he declared that he was jettisoning home. Who knows how many germs he managed to get in this filthy place, with dozens of irresponsible people exhaling carbon dioxide on him?
In the months that have passed since I have not had another chance to talk with B. But the story about the extreme-sports-loving neighbor ("he bought an indoor cycling bike and keeps spinning," said the guy in charge of delivering food) has awoken me from hibernation. I decided to go back to B.'s home.
I put on gloves, four masks on my face, and a handkerchief on my hair and layers of protective clothes that I had borrowed from my neighbor who is a certified locksmith. With this shield, I went to B.'s apartment and knocked on his door.
He did not respond. I knocked harder and eventually, someone appeared in the stairwell and asked me, "Are you for B.?" I nodded and she said, "What does he look like anyway? We have a leak from his wall and he has never responded to our calls."
"Well, if there someone who would be happy to deal with the mildew, B. is not the man," I said. The neighbor returned to her apartment and I continued with my knocking. The knocking, in different rhythms, created a sense of bizarre pleasantness. And B. just wouldn't answer. ,
I returned home. Several people in the street applauded me. Then, from his self-isolation porch, the new neighbor was cycling and singing in loud voices. After the clouds dispersed, he threw a note toward me: "I am waiting for the evening in order to go out for a walk. Do you want to come?"
I have no time, I shouted. I returned home, took a guitar, and headed again toward his place. The lighting in his building was pitch black. I sat near his window and began playing a collection of anxiety songs that he liked when he was a child. I began singing "Tea makes me nauseous" and ended with the lyrics "I don't know what happened, where the blessed way has gone."
From the apartment, beyond the window, I could hear a movement of feet being dragged. I went to B.'s apartment and felt that he was standing on the other side of the door, looking through the peephole. "B. I know you are there," I said.
" I am self-isolating," he screamed
"Why are you self isolating?," I asked. "If you go don't go outside now, you will catch isolationitis," i continued.
"What's that?"
I replied, "First, open the door." He opened the door slowly. I put my foot down on the floor next to the door, before he could change his mind. "I can't quite understand how a man who has read the entire dictionary for classic hypochondria doesn't know what isolationitis is. This is a terrible disease that attacks people who never leave home."
B's face showed signs of distress. He cleared his throat. "The death rate of this disease…" I said. "Ok, ok, I am coming," he finally relented. "But only to buy toilet paper, and then we are heading straight back home."
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