In April 2020, we invited writers in Quebec to submit a story of a single day during the strange, uneasy time of coronavirus and pandemic, of social distancing and self isolation, of lockdown and quarantine.
We’re thrilled to announce that these stories have been gathered in Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic (Guernica Press). To learn more and buy the book, please visit https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771836579.
Please also join us on the QWF FB Community page, and let the authors know if their words resonated.
This piece is by Deborah Ostrovsky, writing before April 6 2020.

I go out for a walk and my legs start to shake. I feel dizzy, confused. By evening I have a fever that breaks at 5:58 a.m. I develop a dry cough, shortness of breath, and more night fevers. My husband takes me to the mobile clinic in the Quartier des spectacles to get swabbed for COVID-19. Five days later, when I finally receive my negative test result, I’m already on my way to the ER, where a triage nurse is so anxious that she jolts backwards every time I cough, calling an orderly to wheel me to a “COVID bed.”
To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic