After the chapter of COVID-19 has ended, how to start living again?
Thinking about post-pandemic life is like reading a book that you have abandoned a long time ago, but with one difference: books can be started again from the beginning
I have an appreciation for old books — especially those asleep on a dust-smelling second-hand bookstore, with an old yellowish cover. The reasons for this preference have become lost somewhere in time. Every time before entering Amazon, I make sure the story I need is not awaiting in a wooden bookshelf on the other side of the street. If I would describe it in words, I would say walking into a second-hand bookstore is like violating a posthumous literary mausoleum.
I wander through the labyrinthic corners of books — the smell resembles the past (or is it just mold?). I looked at the grooves on them — which hands did it go through? Why was it sold (perhaps the story is not worth reading)? Does the dedication mean anything else? I stare at them with almond eyes — such a great deal! Buying a used book is receiving two stories in one: the narrative and the book itself. The older they are, the most interesting they become. I wonder if the endless library of Jorge Luis Borges’ fiction was inspired by the second-hand bookstore on the corner of my block.
After coming from the bookstore that day, I would notch my new findings into my shelf. Reorganizing them carefully, one made an abrupt suicidal jump attempt to my feet. At first, I didn’t recognize the fragile cover, but I soon understood what was laid cover-up on the ground. The care-desperate book was Umberto Eco’s The name of the rose, which I had opened and closed suddenly in 2019 before the pandemic turned the world upside down.
I recognized then the tears on the cover and the brittle pages — it was a pocket version that I carried with me everywhere squeezed into my coat — why did I stop reading it at all?
I sought it out carefully from the ground. In the core, a page (the 281st) was marked with a piece of paper I probably tore to use as a bookmarker. I ran my eyes through a few lines to decipher any memory of that abandoned plot. I was strike with no idea of what was going on (why does it contain so many phrases in Latin?).
At that moment, I forced myself into reading one or two pages to bring up some memory of what I was going on — but coming back to that story was like invading a palace through the window and getting lost in its enigmatic architecture.
I even doubted I got to the 281st page, which was oddly right in the middle of a chapter. It wouldn't be a surprise if I found out I had never started that book. But no, although I was lost in its arcane structure, both William of Baskerville and Adso were too familiar to me (the names I had to remember through the pages, but I am quite sure they have not forgotten mine). By the way, what was the rose’s name anyway?
The books were not the last things I reentered (either through the front door, the window, or the priest hole) in those times. The pestilent crisis of 2020 has noisily closed a chapter on our faces without asking for permission.
With the vaccinations, we were finally able to reopen on that exactly interrupted page. At least, so I glimpsed as hope sets over the horizon, the end of the never-ending pandemic. One just forgot to tell me life is not (unfortunately) as portrayed in the books.
Unlike them, I couldn’t put a piece of torn paper to safeguard the “March 17th” page (when the lockdown was first introduced in my city). Unlike the books, the plot was still being written out of the direction of my eyes, advancing, rewriting, and erasing.
Going back to the new “old normal” is like crashing into a book that has abandoned itself and tries to resume in half. My friends and acquaintances, masked or not, looked like characters from another author. Had I changed for them too, or am I still the selfsame but with a (not-so-metaphorical) mask?
Going to the streets after the closures (this word in plural gives me anxiety) was the same as being reborn in a remote unknown place (suddenly we should relearn new etiquette rules as we reentered our lives). Is this distance okay or should I stay more apart from the others? Does my mask look right (maybe it’s too ugly)? Is this person smiling at me or just tightening the eyes? I think that place is not following the protocols. What should I do instead of shaking hands (saying hi is enough, isn’t it)? Do my friends still know me or am I already past? What is the name of that guy over there? Wasn’t it William of Baskerville? No, wait! That's from my book. Am I infected or is it just a cough? I just wished my glasses didn’t get blurry because of my mask.
One of these days, I came home tired debating whether to pass on the second-hand bookstore to feed my bibliomaniac obsession or not. Thank God the bookstores reopened soon, and I didn’t need to go through the thick Amazon’s paths anymore. I got rid of the idea seconds before entering there— something was waiting for me sleepless on the bedside table. Umberto Eco was in my room waiting. I took the mistreated book in bare hands and pulled carefully that piece of paper on page number 281, making it become lost in the savage paper piece in less than a split second.
I started reading the book for the second time, as it was the first, and I had a virtuous premonition as if I had never witnessed that before — but with an unprecedented maturity.
I looked out the window: the sun shone like the day the world ended (this time there was life on the streets, and the earth was in its orbit). Giving a new beginning to this story would be impossible, even harder was to get back to the point when it stopped, shown by a little piece of paper in time.
Since life was not like books, it was time to start living the post-covid chapters, to continue in the middle of that story, and to live it for the first time (with masks on and social distancing until this paragraph is over).
