I am Now a Character in My Own Dystopia

Sonja Killebrew

Five years ago, I asked my cousin, the doctor, about the hypothetical causes of epidemics. 

Five days ago, my cousin, the doctor, sent a selfie in full hospital personal protective equipment with goggles and a clear face shield. 

Five years ago, I began writing a dystopian novel about an epidemic. Up until this March, I took the Long Island Railroad each morning from Jamaica, Queens to City College in Harlem where I took two novel writing classes and worked on that novel. Tomorrow I’ll log into Zoom for my Activist-Arts-and-the-Harlem-Renaissance class, with my pile of books by Hughes and Hurston beside my laptop in my living room. Maybe the professor will ask us to share our projects in break-out Zoom rooms. Maybe I’ll talk about my dystopian novel. 

I no longer have to wonder what it’s like to be afraid of whether an invisible virus might kill me. Or my mom. Or my friends. I am now a character in my own dystopia. The air is chilly. The night is bright with stars. The day is a song of silence with a chorus of sirens. The morning tastes bittersweet like the last case of dark chocolate sea-salted almonds at the store.

Sonja Killebrew is a Queens native pursuing her MFA in creative writing at City College. She writes flash-nonfiction on Medium. She's working on a queer young adult novel. According to her Tinder profile, she's a sapiosexual, a bilingual adjunct lecturer, and she loves Caribbean food. @sonjajean22