Category: Chronicling the Days

Chronicling the Days – Stephanie Moll

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 Stephanie Moll, writing in March 2020.

Photo: Stephanie Moll

Heeeere’s Pat!

Back in early March, after the biggest snowfall of the season, my husband David and I were out walking when I had a profound revelation. I have never actually built a snowman (or snow-person, I should say). I suppose this is the time to clarify that I am a native Texan, currently a permanent resident in Montreal, as of the past two years. So, I got very excited about the possibility of building a snow-person, only to have my hopes dashed, as David announced that this was not the “right kind of snow”. Apparently it was too powdery and would not hold a ball shape. Who knew that was even a “thing”? Certainly not this newbie! Seriously????

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 10, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Roksana Bahramitash

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 Roksana Bahramitash, writing in April 2020.

Rumi: Creative Commons

Solitude has not been a Sorrowtude

“ Don’t feel lonely

The entire universe is inside you.”

Rumi

I lived part of my life in a culture where the passage of a loved one would call for forty days of morning. And now in the midst of a global pandemic, I am well into my fourth week of self-isolation. Sad as it has been to witness the loss of many lives and the possibility of losing one’s own, a sense of surrender, content, inspiration and perhaps even euphoria has been surfacing. And I was not sure why?

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 9, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Gregory McKenzie

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 Gregory McKenzie, writing on April 15, 2020.

Photo: Creative Commons

Nothing. That’s just about all I’ve got to do today. Nothing. Nada. Rien du tout.

Maybe stare at the brick wall outside the bedroom window. Look at the trees that peak out over the top of the building next door. If I’m lucky I might see a squirrel. Or a bird or two. Crows mostly. And if I’m really lucky I might glimpse a plane. Then I can wonder where it’s headed. Pass a little more time staring at the sky. Surely there’s no passengers. Nowhere to go. I guess for now there’s just packages where the passengers might have been… Packages heading somewhere where the people are stuck inside staring at their brick walls and the sky just like me.

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 9, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Brian Campbell

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 Brian Campbell, writing in April 2020.

Ça va bien aller.

Photo: Brian Campbell

This poster blares from a tattered, papered-over storefront on Bernard Ave. in my neighborhood of Mile End, a voice echoing from what seems a distant past, a perpetual sneer at the snark, at the presumptions of cool. The poster’s been here a few months: to have lasted that long, it obviously must have been respected by the other posterers of cultural events… remember those? (Disclosure: I was one, once.)

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 8, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Su Sokol

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 Su Sokol, writing on April 1, 2020.

Photo: Creative Commons

Today my 28-year-old daughter moved back in. She brought with her a chromebook, an eight-pack of toilet paper, a coffee grinder, two beers, a bottle of wine, her roller blades, and a colouring book entitled “Fleurs anti-stress à colorier.”

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 8, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Wendy Reichental

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 Wendy Reichental, writing on Sunday April 5, 2020.

Photo: Wendy Reichental

From My Window – Some Covid Views

Like everyone in this Covid pandemic, I have lost complete sense of time. I have done my best to keep to a new type of schedule and be cognizant of what month and day of the week it is and where on the spectrum of time we are at; but being in a zombie like state of disbelief can sometimes make you lose track of it all. Somewhere during these past few weeks, I noticed another strange phenomenon to add to my growing list of new habits – I have morphed into the iconic character Gladys Kravitz, the peering behind her window curtain nosy neighbor across the street from Samantha Stevens – our favorite witch on a broom on the classic TV show Bewitched.

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 7, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Kenneth Radu

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 Kenneth Radu, writing on April 22, 2020.

Photo: Kenneth Radu

Ca Va?

My neighbours across the road paste a rainbow sign with the words CA VA BIEN ALLER painted in garish colours. Like a form of Facebook cheerfulness, I think, to post your optimism for passing pedestrians to see. Well, not pedestrians as no one passes these days, except the odd, relentless cyclist. A car coincidentally drove by, which reminded me of my stroll to the village the other day: no other pedestrians, the town devoid of street traffic and people like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I noticed at the local station that the price of gas has fallen to 72 cents a litre. Great, but then I’m not driving anywhere, and still have a nearly full tank of gas to take me to the marché in another town every ten days or so. With any luck …. I am hopeful …. it will last me for the duration of the pandemic, at the end of which I’m sure gas prices will soar once again.

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 7, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Curtis McRae

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 Curtis McRae, writing in April 2020.

Photo: Creative Commons

WE ARE FAMILY.

“In my dream, a man clad in loose black clothes broke into my home and tied my family to our kitchen chairs with thick manila rope. It was 2 A.M. and I hadn’t fallen asleep yet, which pissed me off more than any other inconvenience…”

I’d been kicked out of my apartment just before the pandemic got serious, standing on the corner of my street with a single foldable box. I was now lying on my mother’s couch across the room from my younger sister’s human-size teddy bear. I couldn’t see my therapist unless it was a teleconference, which I had an aversion to; I tried to figure out why that was with my new therapist, who was propped up on a chair, but we hadn’t had any breakthroughs. The bear nodded and took notes.

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 6, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Deborah Ostrovsky

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.

Photo: Rachel McCrum

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

May 6, 2020
Chronicling the Days – Connie Guzzo-McParland

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 Connie Guzzo-McParland, writing on Tuesday, April 21, 2020.

Photo Connie Guzzo-McParland

An Uneasy Siesta.

When the Quebec Premier announced the Covid-19 lockdown, I felt a sense of relief that the decision to stay put was made for us. I must also confess that, for a fleeting moment, I experienced the same gladness I remember from when, as a student and then a teacher, a snow day was announced. Unexpectedly, a present had fallen from the heavens: the chance to snuggle up in bed, catch up on assignments, read or simply laze around.

To read the rest of the story, please support our community and check out Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic

May 5, 2020