One Word: Longing
By Valerie Durias
A pandemic short story
Love is oh-so powerful — if one counts living vicariously through fiction as “love.” The sensation of someone’s touch, the slow burn, the chase… and on and on and on. This is what love is for me during lockdown.
Once a week at midnight, a Thai Boys’ Love TV show became form of escapism for me. Contrary to what the world was experiencing in real life, the characters have problems that are so easy to solve. While we navigated the "new normal," the show dealt with music club, football, cheerleading, and winning over crushes. In a way, it provided a sense of comfort as I nuzzled under my blanket in the coldness of the night.
Love felt raw and carefree when I relearned the language of fanfiction. I began missing spontaneity after reading fake screenshots of “Wru? Omw” or “Meet u in 5” messages. These brought me back to casual meetups, night drives, dancing to music in the parking lot, and did I mention casual meetups?
My most recent excursion is a period drama transporting me back to the Regency Era in London. The couple finds themselves weak to the power of touch — the grazing of fingers on the skin and a few seconds of hand-holding. Then, there’s me in the last days of 2020, a year that seemed like an era. I had spent hours every day on the couch while hugging my one and only throw pillow. Dear reader (as the narrator would say), I, too, would love to feel that way!
In my head, I say “love in quarantine” over and over. A part of me thinks it should be simple. Another part can’t think of finding love while everything is falling apart. I mean, how can someone know love when touch feels prohibited? How can they be together when people should stay apart?
Still, I can’t help but scale the phrase down to a single word. Love in quarantine is longing. When the end credits roll, I long for a hand to hold, for fingers to graze my skin, for spontaneous massages. I long for moments of intimacy, of surrender, of discovery. I long for love.
I understand how pathetic of an anecdote this might be. I wish I could tell you about a meet-cute or a sweet socially distanced gesture. I wish I could claim stories of fiction as my own or live the life of a protagonist. Until then, I’m stuck with longing until quarantine is over.
About the Author: "Love, for Valerie, is something she can put off to the next day and the next day and the next—Well, she's a writer." You can read more of her work on Medium.