“I respect your decision, but-”
It is just after six in the morning, the sky is as black as the airport parking lot, and I am sitting in the passenger seat of my dad’s idling pickup truck with my coach on the phone. He is about to completely disregard my decision and the reasoning behind it.
Over the past week, Lisa and I put aside our differences to share our growing anxiety over the phone, as we checked our emails obsessively for updates on the indoor track championships. In response to growing concerns about the Coronavirus, the planning committee notified us that attendance would be limited to athletes, coaches and family members (as if anyone else would bother with a DIII track meet, anyway,) then sent out a barrage of infographics to preach the importance of washing our hands. When I checked my phone as I lay in bed an hour ago, there still was no notice of cancellation from the NCAA; there was, however, a news headline that the NBA had just canceled their playoffs. If the situation is serious enough to call off a major sporting event worth millions of dollars, then why are we still having our DIII track meet?
From the driver’s seat, my dad looks at me expectantly.
I stare through the revolving glass door, up the escalator that would carry more toward security, effortlessly, my duffel bag sagging over the step beside me. I watch the door swing continuously open and closed, a succession of opportunities offered and refused. I feel my nose pressed against one pane of glass, the next paddling at my heels as it shunts me into a closed cell.
I pick up my phone and smack it against the glass behind, watch the cracks radiate to form a shimmering web.
I call my coach to tell him I am not getting on the plane.
He tells me, respectfully, that he does not understand what the big deal is.
You can isolate yourself if you want, he says.
You can stay in your hotel room the whole time, and just leave for your race.
Hardly anyone is going to be there.
Young people don’t face much of a risk.
I don’t want you to miss your chance.
“This isn’t about me.”
I slump back against the glass, watching my feet scrape along the tile floor.
Six hours later and three hundred miles away, I am shuffling toward the gate to catch my connecting flight. I refused to board my plane this morning, cried, called the airline, cried some more, badgered multiple friends for advice, and finally booked another flight. The Coronavirus is going to sweep across the nation no matter what I do, and the meet is going to happen, with or without me. If a solution to the spread of the pandemic is beyond my reach, I might as well be part of the problem.
My shoulder sags under the weight of my duffel bag; my running shoes, hanging by their laces, knock against my ankles. My legs feel stunted and ineffective, and so does my brain as I scan the array of signs and screens overhead. I find the gate number I am looking for, which hangs over several rows of chairs, a maze of post and rope barriers, and a staircase.The attendant at the desk directs me to the lower level. There is no escalator. I haul my bag down the stairs.
From the gate, I am loaded onto a shuttle that will carry me to the plane. I clutch the steel rod at the center of the bus and pull my bag as close to myself as possible as other passengers jostle me from all sides. My phone starts buzzing. I somehow free one of my hands long enough to fumble around in my pocket. It’s Lisa.
“I think it’s canceled.”
Something sharp catches the underside of my bag. I turn to find a gaping hole in the glass behind me, and step through. The bag jerks back and moans as it splits open down the middle. Rumpled warmup clothes and squished energy bars pour out behind me and lie strewn across the asphalt like bleeding entrails.
I won’t need them anymore.