1. Sleep on your side, they said. Warm fluids. Shape your hands like a cup and beat your back, if you can reach—if not, pray…. A heavy paw sits on your chest…. Look down at your toes—they now have eyes with gold flecks that wink at you—when did my toes grow eyes: COVID toes is what they told me—look out for it. Try to move frequently, drink hot lemon water, talk to your lungs—they need you. My body folds back into itself and my toes blink rapidly.

2. They said that I died. The light burned my skin—I thought that it was the eyes that went first, that hurt the most? I saw them scramble and bump into each other—this is still new, I hear them whisper to themselves. How did it get this bad? There was something electric about the way that they worried about me—no one had ever loved my black body like that before. Their hands were swift and tender at the same time; the paddles played on my chest like the rhythm section of a jazz band that I had heard before—my body swayed, and the lead singer, dressed in green, called me back home.

3. Create a bubble, they said. I am already sick, I said. Create it anyway. I did and now the bubble moves when I move. It rattles when I rattle. It is made of red-tinted cellophane and expertly constructed. While inside, things are clearer: sleep has always been elusive, loneliness lingers like mildew, counting pennies in sets of four does not counter the pain, my lungs are in danger…. The phone rings and I see it move but I cannot feel it, the bubble. Friends: Where are you? Pick up, please? We are worried. Do I need to come over there? Dude, stop playing and answer. Life is clearer in the bubble—can I stay forever?

4. I try to write through the depression—COVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDPAINPAINPAINPAINLUNGSLUNGSFIREFIREFIRE—is all that my fingers can muster. Empty. Anger. Ashamed for catching it. Sad that folks know that I had the RONA is what I want to write but I cannot. COVIDCOVIDPAINPAINLUNGSLUNGSFIREFIRE

5. I tell my therapist that COVID has paralyzed me. He stares at me like am I am a book, to be read by LeVar Burton. My therapist has on a red headband that pushes his locs to a crescendo on his head—his thick fingers peel an orange into sections, delicately. He says, “Well, since you had it already, you have antibodies so you’re, like, kind of immune—” and smiles at me, as if I am a paragraph that lingers poetically in the air after it is read. I think of immunity and, boom! I become Black Superman right before his eyes—leaping COVID in one single bound. The letter C sparkles in gold against my black suit and I Iean into the screen and ask him—are you sure that I cannot die?

6. When my fever was at its highest, I felt the inside of my body eating itself. My lungs became a throat—swallowing everything around them. And as my body feasted, I saw her—my mother, dancing in every corner of my room. Her hair was in a short afro and her makeup made her entire face glow—I missed her deeply…. If I had to go, I wanted to go with her. That’s what I used to tell my friends when they found me sitting cross-legged in the darkness of my apartment. If I had to go, I wanted to go with her. She never stopped dancing long enough to take me.

My lungs argue with me when I try and walk up the stairs. I ignore them and push forward anyway. I have to finally beat this, I say. I have to win. I have to get my mind back. They are stubborn, my lungs, and hit me the hardest when I am on my back, and not on my side. I can smell a little, taste the lemon water that has become my elixir. My therapist assures me that my mind is still mine, that I am stronger, healthier than I think. I smile back at him through the screen and wonder if he can see me fighting with myself. His nod is meant to soften the silence but there is something, someone over his shoulder. Wait. Is that her dancing in the corner? Is she ever going to stop long enough to see me, to lead me out of the dark?

Danny M. Hoey Jr. is the assistant dean of English, literacy, and communications at Anne Arundel Community College. The Butterfly Lady, his first novel, won the ForeWord Firsts’ Winter 2013 Debut Fiction Award and the Bronze Award in the IndiFab Book of the Year Award. Currently, he is at work on his second novel.