As I type this I’m in a video conference. I hear myself typing, and see my face concentrating like I’m interested in what my co-workers are saying. I’ve been in this exact same meeting. It’s not that different than the meetings I’ve been attending for years in person, but on the another hand, it’s very different.
We downloaded Zoom at the end of March. Our industry is non-essential, so we’re working from home and spending more time video chatting than I imagined possible. The last few weeks—and the coming weeks—are all Zoom meetings, one after another, forever. That’s not an exaggeration. I can’t get out of these.
I sign out of one, only to find myself signing into another. Just now, as a test, I signed out only to simultaneously re-signed in. Now this meeting has restarted from the beginning, and everyone is saying the same things they’ve already said. I am too. I can see my face on the screen, clean shaven, hair combed, and I have the engaged expression l always have in these mid-April meetings—though that expression changes over the next few weeks. All I can see is my laptop screen though, nothing in my periphery, and I can’t look away from it. Next to the Zoom window is an email that lists the scheduled meetings from early April until the end of next month. With a click, I can sign into any of them, past, present, or future. But I don’t like the meetings that occur next month. In them my co-workers talk about disturbing things: a mutating virus, mass graves, and society breaking down. Many of them look ill, and there are fewer attendees the further into the future we go.
The last meeting scheduled is the end of May. I signed in once. I‘m the only person there. In the camera view, I‘m frantically typing. I look terrible, I’m not wearing a shirt. My face and shoulders, lit by the screen, have a bluish tint, and I look shockingly thin. My hair is a greasy mess, my eyes red and shining, and I look like I haven’t shaved for a while. My apartment is dark, boards nailed over windows, and you can see small things scurrying in the corners. My mic is on, and I hear myself typing and my congested breathing, interrupted by deep, racking coughs. Outside the boarded windows, I hear air-raid sirens, crazed laughter, and screams.
The meeting I’m in now though, takes place in mid-April. I like this one and I keep coming back to it. Everyone‘s here. Everyone’s okay. In the camera, I look fine. A little pale, but we’ve all been spending a lot of time indoors this month, so that’s normal.
I‘m typing this in a chat window. I’ll figure out how to share it. I want to get the word out that I’m okay. I’m safe in here. I’ve seen what the future holds. I‘m not in danger—all of you are.