A few months ago, Hamish Hamilton's literary magazine, Five Dials, posted a very specific competition prompt for a very short story. As I was in quarantine, and had nothing to do but inspect the fascinating texture of the fibres in the couch, I entered. The magazine is out now, and it turns out I won. You can read the magazine here. I have put both the prompt and the story below:
Prompt: The narrator is an infectious disease expert at a hospital in London. Describe what happens when she finally gets home from work. What are her new rituals? How does she relate to her family?
The story must include a scene in which the narrator interacts with someone delivering food to her flat.
The story must contain the line of dialogue: ‘My hands never shake.’
My entry:
Work is alveoli, membranes and flesh. It’s best not to remember work. I’m grateful for those minutes on the Tube, standing awkwardly in a hazmat suit. Minds need cleansing, too. At the apartment, we built a small decontamination room where the hat-stand used to be. I strip naked and scratch my skin with dry soap, as if I were at some new-fangled spa, ready to endure medieval tortures in the name of beauty. Then I put on a tracksuit and go through the second door. I’m home.
That’s my life. At work, there is only flesh and its images. At home, there is only family. Life is slimmed down to two poles.
When I come home, we replay the drama of the hospital. Mark, my youngest, takes my temperature, while James, already serious about his work, clamps the oximeter on my finger to read the oxygen levels in my blood. My husband has already taken the children’s readings and, as a family, we collectively enter our results into my phone. We are fine. Just fine.
James looks at me. Why are your hands shaking, Mommy? I tell them, my hands never shake. I am fine. Just fine.
Now it is time to order dinner. We no longer cook. It’s a public duty to get delivery. This is war, and our only weapon is consumption. Tonight, we order Sichuan. A year ago, I would have eagerly waited to pay with a card. One gloved hand passing plastic to another gloved hand. Cards were abolished a month ago; money, dirty, smelly money, was abandoned soon after the beginning of the crisis. We are all contactless now. The courier’s arrival is announced by the thud of my order on the doorstep. For the courier, I am just an address and a predilection for Mapo tofu and pea shoots with garlic.
We eat together and I gather the remains for incineration. The children go to bed; my husband goes to his screen. That’s the most intimate part of him these days. I clean away and get into the shower. My hands run over my body; I remember the flesh I have seen and the faces struggling to breathe behind glass barriers. That’s when I start preparing for work: Klonopin, Zoloft, Halcion.
I’m on life support; they are on life support. We are all on life support now.