I opened my eyes at the insistent sound of my alarm. It was such an annoying sound, I hated waking up like that, but I had to, I needed to revise something for school and I couldn't ask my parents to wake up at 5.30am so that they could wake me up, right? It would be extremely selfish. Especially because the reason was not a real reason. I opened the window and the sun rays entered my room. I didn't even bother putting some clothes on, nobody would notice anyway. I know I'm lazy, but online school really brings out the worst part of you. I experienced it in my own skin. As usual from a month or two - I lost track of time, every day is just exactly like the one before - I sent a text to my best friend, Anna, asking her how she was. She had Covid-19 and she was at the hospital. I couldn't go visit her, but that was fine, we always FaceTimed each other, at least once a day. I revised history and at 7.30am I checked my phone: no answer. Maybe she was still sleeping. I turned on my computer and clicked on the link our Italian teacher sent us. Great, another Italian lesson where she won't stop talking. She's a good teacher but since we're in lockdown, she just goes on and on and on with our school program without ever stopping. It's April and she's already doing something we should do at the end of May. At 10am I check my phone again: still no answers. But I mean, wouldn't I sleep until 11am if I could? Most definitely yes. I had a 20 minutes break, so I decided to have breakfast. I can eat at any time and sometimes I just forget to do it in the morning: it's not healthy, but I still do it most of the days. I returned to my online lessons: I had history, the teacher was going to test some people. I wasn't even that anxious, I had my book just next to me, if I didn't remember anything, I could just look at it. But then, then something happened, something I could never even imagine that would happen. I received a call. Obviously, I did not answer for two reasons: I was at school and it was an unknown number. They called again 5 minutes later. And again 10 minutes later. The fourth time I left the zoom call, the history lesson, and answered. I would just say I had “internet issues”, it's not like they can know in any possible way. I heard a voice I did not recognize. Maybe a male? I wasn't sure. They said “Hi, is this Valentina?”. I answered affirmatively. It was probably just a call center, always calling at the right times of the day. “I need to give you bad news.” They said. Oh no, I didn't like how that was going. They hesitated. “Come on, just say it, this way you're making it worse.” I said. “Anna has passed away this morning. You were in her “favorite contacts” list, therefore I thought I should call you.” I froze. “Yes, great nightmare, now can I wake up?” I whispered to myself. “I'm really sorry.” They said. Wait, was that really happening? It couldn't be possible, Anna was 18, she was in good health. It must have been a nightmare, right? “What is happening?” I asked. “I'm sorry.” They said, and then they hung up. I looked around me: everything was in the right place with the right colors: it couldn't be a dream, it was too vivid. I fell on my knees, finally realizing it: Anna was dead because of a stupid virus. I was sure she was going to get better soon enough, I was so sure. How did that happen? I felt a tear rolling down my cheek. I couldn't move. I don't know how long I stayed in that position, I just know that my memories after that moment are very blurry. I remember my mother hugging me, I remember walking upstairs and laying on the bed. I remember crying until I passed out. The next thing I remember is going to her funeral. No, it had to be a nightmare. Just let me wake up.

Every single day, I write a gratitude journal. I have been writing one since I was ten years old. In the beginning of the pandemic, I was hopeful. But as people close to me tested positive and one of my best friend's dads succumbed to the deadly virus, the virus was not a cold statistic anymore. My little niece, usually cheerful, wrote a story about how she discovered a magic potion that could combat the virus. For the first time, I knew that I was going to be living through a period in the world that would constitute living history. Indeed, anything we write about this pandemic and our experiences of it, will be used as archival research for years to come. How have I being spending my days, you ask? I have been practising strict social distancing, as several people I am quarantining with are immuno-compromised. In my real life, I live and work as an entrepreneur and a tour guide, so tactile presence is important not just to me as a human being, but also in terms of my career. Of course, my walking tours have dried up, but I have spent my time listening to BTS, a Kpop band that I discovered when I was going through one of the worst phases of my life-getting out of a physical and emotionally abusive relationship. The trauma of that relationship continues to haunt me and sometimes I wake up at night in a pool of tears, frightened and startled too, at the person I became in a relationship with a person determined to impede my growth through their abject apathy and narcissism. It has been three years, and I have emerged out of this terrible equation stronger, wiser and post importantly, much happier. During the pandemic when I have some free time, I watch mukbangs and learn about ASMR, play video games with new friends I have made, the pandemic has really helped me expand my community and appreciate all the creative ways in which food bloggers, sustainable fashion designers are using their platforms. I am also very impressed by the way activists are using the tools available to them to agitate and organize. Writers are writing beautifully. I have been feeling very exhausted of late so I have been snapping at a lot of people who are very close to me. I have built an unflappable social media persona online, but I am still the same quiet, unsure and grouchy person I always was. It is so easy to lose sight of who you fundamentally are when accolades come your way. And contrary to popular belief, success does not always make you confident. It can also make you nervous and insecure. With almost no interactions offline, I find myself comparing my own life to acquaintance's lives. He got an award during quarantine. Her business is thriving. She got a book deal. Once you start looking at other people's curated feeds (and automatically compare your unfiltered life to their curated one), it makes you miserable. Rationally, you know that this is only one part of the story and there is so much more to it, but your insecurity and low self esteem gets the better of you. "I still have not finished the book I promised I'd write," I tell myself. But I have low energy and am mentally too exhausted to actually form characters. "I will be disciplined and create a schedule that works for me." But I fail and I fail every single time. Finally, I decide that it is time for a shift in mindset. I am lucky to be alive and healthy and it is really okay if I don't get much done during the pandemic. I am working on my full-time job, and being productive is not really the prerogative at the moment. Finding a vaccine for COVID-19 is. Surviving is. Staying kind and loving is.

He sits alone in the night, there on the seashore amid the cobblestone rubble and tangled driftwood. A yellowy green and gray mottled full moon floats above the horizon like a giant hard boiled egg yolk. The luminous orb slides higher into the sky, shrinking, shedding its yolky hues, morphing into a blazing white disk that illuminates the nocturnal seascape in a silver light. He wades into the wilderness among the barnacled boulders, through the surge of seething windrows of percolated white froth and the rainy blast of cold salty mist spat from the explosive billows crashing toward him. The fizzing liquid roils about his body, heavy and torsional like a pool of serpents set aboil. He leaps onto his surfboard and paddles. He sits in the wintry Pacific Ocean bobbing about the tumult, rolling and pitching with the swells, the water's surface peened to the horizon before him with the moon's brilliant reflection winking across myriad facets of the agitated sea. Men have met grisly ends in the jaws of great white sharks not far from where he floats like chum along California's Gaviota Coast, lacerated by a phalanx of razorous teeth and drowned if not drained of blood in seconds. He is undaunted, thrilled more than horrified. Life is felt more intensely at no other time than in the ecstatic thralls of primordial existence, whether in the joy of love or the jaws of death. The macabre feeling is endangered these days in the Anthropocene. He appreciates that the opportunity to experience these ancient emotions still exists. Wave trains explode on the rocky shoreline behind him. The powerful Aleutian energy from a distant storm grinds the edge of the continent to cobblestones and sand like crumbs from a cookie. He floats up over crests and sinks down into troughs and waits. A set wave silently appears out of the depths of night, a one dimensional black wall growing larger. The big wave approaches in the vague form of a solid constant in an otherwise ceaselessly shifting realm of the darkened half visible. A quick shift to prone position and he is furiously paddling toward the oncoming wall of water. He digs deep and hard with each hand, fingers bent and spread, too cold to draw together. He springs up to a sitting position just before reaching the wave, leans back grabbing the pointy nose of the surfboard with his right hand as it thrusts skyward, his opposing free hand reaching out for balance as he shoves the board leftward riding it like a rodeo cowboy as it swivels around, pushing against the seawater with muscled legs and thrusting onto his belly and into a fierce paddle, chin pressed against the gritty deck of the surfboard, nostrils filled with the fruitiness of Mr Zog's Sex Wax. He affects a ninety degree turn in one fluid, masterly motion, the wave looming over his, crest curling like the snarling lip of a monstrous watery maw about to slam down with the force of a waterfall. Two hard grabs of seawater and the wave grabs ahold of him itself, pushing him forward, the back of his board lifting in the hooking peak of the swell as the nose plunges down towards the trough. He slides down the steep liquid slope on his belly for the briefest moment before pushing up and leaping to his feet. In a second he is standing with arms spread for balance and angled back as if to fly, mouth agape in concentration, eyelids pulled wide, tendrils of wet hair fluttering in the hissing scud blowing up the face of the heaving breaker. At home his family sleeps soundly snuggled in warm beds. His surfboard becomes a vehicle to a parallel universe, a magic carpet slicing a nick in the fabric of time as he enters another dimension for a fleeting moment before piercing back into reality. He slips into a liminal realm where the space between seconds stretches into something that matters. Where there are no barriers but the limits of nature and the extent of her skills. He is the supreme pilot of his existence in a moment of absolute freedom. All burdens vanish. There is no cold; no problems; no pain; no work; no responsibilities; no politics; no arguments; no fights. There is not a worry in the world. There is no world. There is only a single-minded focus on the wave and his relation to nature. And nothing else matters.

I wasn't always great; but, who was anyway? In sixth grade is when I would discover my greatness. I remember vividly the sequence of events that culminated to this revelation. It was in 1998 on a much awaited visiting day. All boarders would crowd by the school's gate waiting for their parents and guardians to arrive. My dad's red Datsun came into view and slowly made its way into the school yard but came to a sudden halt. I excitedly ran towards it wondering what was wrong. A small rock stuck on the left front tire was to blame. I kicked the rock and jumped into the back left side of the vehicle. From the window, I noted by the mouth-covered chuckles that everyone had seen this embarrassing spectacle including Margret. Awhile later, I was seated across my dad with my grades in the palm of his hands. He was fidgeting -- clearly disappointed – looking for words to express his dismay. "You know Felix, the problem with you is lack of passion. Without finding passion in whatever you do -- success will elude you. Do you understand?" "Yes dad." "Also, try to love your teachers. You can't learn from someone you hate." I don't know whether it was the advice or the empathy of seeing my dad this downtrodden but something opened up. Like a blind man whose vision was restored, I could now divinely understand the intricacies of middle school education. Mathematical formulas didn't seem like punishment anymore. By leaps, the rest of the subjects followed suit and became my slaves. Overnight, I became great. In a stream of four classes and 200 students, I was king of the blackboard. Mrs. Wamy, my then favorite teacher, would come with goodies in the form of bananas and avocados for whoever who would crack some mathematical problems she would write on the blackboard. Guess who would get a daily dose of fruit salad? My conquests endured till the end of the 7th grade. Why does life send some people your way? Like many other students, Margret sought me out to explain some concepts. I had seen her on a daily basis and her beauty couldn't go unnoticed. For some reason, I didn't pursue after girls. Maybe it was the fact that I had started school early and was therefore younger than most in my class. Seated on a bench, Margret came and sat beside me. She then proceeded to grab my thigh to position herself within earshot -- our thighs side by side. It was so close. Something weird was happening. My whole body shuddered and tingled. An electric tenderness left my nape caressing my shoulders collecting an army of goosebumps that were spread -- like butter on bread -- across my back and as they dissipated just as they were about to start the ascend of my derriere, I felt a warm mess deposited on my thighs. I was now an adolescent, a proper teenager. God bless you Margret. Thereafter, it was downhill for me. I was now spending my whole time and mental acuity drafting love notes -- meticulously hidden below protractors and set squares inside Oxford and Staedtler geometry sets -- to be passed on in class. During lessons, I would day dream of Margret -- in her blue and white checked tunic -- swaying majestically to the tune of Mariah Carey's Heartbreaker song (her favorite song) across space. On one of these depraved episodes, I was jostled into reality by a question directed at me. Not knowing what was asked, I sought help from my desk mate by stamping his foot. Barely audible, he squeezed out from his lips two words. Confidently, I answered. "Fallopian Tube teacher." The class roared into a delirious howl and for the remainder of the lesson, the spasms of laughter pressed on. There was no way this group would be teachable and the teacher left in defeat. With an expressionless grin I asked what the question was. She had defined an appendix. At this time, my small sister who was two years my junior had joined me in school. During visiting days, we would all sit together in the car. We were now back to where we were two years ago -- with my dad holding my grades wondering what would have gone wrong. I had no answer but my small sister did. "It is a girl called Margret dad."