Author’s note: This short story was written in the spirit of Speaker’s Land《城事絮语》(2023), a collection of narrative published in Singapore in Chinese. Drawing from interviews, that work captures the peculiar lives of ordinary people in China during the uncertainties of the Covid-19 era, while questioning the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction.
I
(In early 2020, as Shanghai entered lockdown following the outbreak of Covid-19, all social activities ground to a halt. Anticipating the restrictions, I applied early for a delivery driver’s licence, securing a rare freedom to move through the city. With this opportunity, I visited and interviewed people in different walks of life, hoping not only to understand how quarantine was shaping their daily existence, but also to explore how this process might evolve into a new kind of writing.)
The guard noticed me as soon as I turned off the empty street and headed his way. He pointed to the registration form on the desk by the security booth, motioning for me to stop. I wrote down my name, contact number, and time of entry. He inspected my scooter and the food delivery backpack with an air of seriousness, yet carelessly, before opening the gate. I rode into the apartment complex, and his face, remaining discreet, receded in my rearview mirrors.
This community, unlike others I’d visited, seemed relaxed amidst the lockdown tension: residents could move freely within the block – a privilege reserved for communities without any infections. Some wandered along the inner paths, while others stretched in scattered groups. As I neared building number three, a man smoking on the fifth-floor balcony whistled, as if the sight of a stranger added a bit of excitement to his day.
I parked my scooter by the wall. A short distance away, two children had climbed up to the halfway point of the guardrail and poked their heads out, shouting, but after realising nobody outside was responding, they lost interest and ran off. I entered the building and took the elevator to the ninth floor with the ‘stuffed’ food package I had prepared – a trick that had helped me slip past the guard.
Out of the elevator, the door on the left was slightly open. I stepped inside, changed my shoes, and hung up my uniform on the hook behind the door, like a secret agent dropping his disguise. Nikita had agreed to my visit on the condition that I disinfected myself thoroughly. I put on a fresh mask and sanitised my hands. Following her voice instruction, I walked past the entryway and reached the chair below the skylight. She sat calmly in another chair at a distance, masked, waiting for me to prepare myself, as if she was the one leading the process rather than me, the interviewer. Soon, our conversation started.
“You may question the big fuss I made,” Nikita said. “This community is relatively unaffected, and some people don’t even believe in the pandemic.” Her tone was steady, measured, as though she had decided what she wanted to say. “Those who haven’t witnessed tragedy may believe it doesn’t exist. If given a choice, most people would like to live with that illusion. I once asked my mom, a retired doctor who fought SARS in 2002, how she felt on the front lines. She said fear gripped her each morning when she woke, but during the rest of the day, things happened one after another, leaving her no time to fear, and so she could convince herself that she was not afraid. This, to me, was the biggest lie; people called her an ‘angel in white’, but the epithet implied an expectation beyond her capability, and she had to offer everything to maintain this exalted position. When the hospital called for retired doctors early in the pandemic, she hesitated and finally refused since she could no longer carry the weight of others’ lives.”
I was glad that the conversation took shape quickly. With limited time, a pre-formed narrative wasn’t unwelcome. Nikita spoke of her mother with firm admiration – not just for her professionalism, but for her sensitivity and strength. Sensing this could be a story about family, I turned the subject to her father. “I don’t have many memories of him,” Nikita admitted. “All I remember is that he beat me and mom, and he gambled. He lost everything, and even mortgaged me to the debt collectors. My mom held me tightly when they tried to take me away from our home, and she worked around the clock to pay off his debt.” She recounted this without sadness, as though that chapter of her life had long since closed.
“When my mom married my stepfather,” she continued, “I was reluctant to call him dad at first. It wasn’t about him – I resisted the word itself and everything it implied. At thirteen, I would have resisted anyone who wanted to be my father. But one summer, my mom, my stepfather, and I, along with his son, spent a day by the riverside, drinking juice and enjoying the breeze, and I started calling him dad. Looking back, I think I did it for my mom’s sake.” Notably, though she used ‘dad’ instead of ‘stepfather’, the word felt more an acquired habit than a heartfelt designation.
“My dad,” Nikita said, “is also a doctor. He is now committed to his role in the hospital. To be honest, I barely know him, even now. I don’t have his phone number. Whenever we met, my mom was always there, and I know him only through her eyes, but her view of him has changed quite a lot over the years: It was because she loved him that she chose to marry him. Despite being hurt so deeply by her first husband, she, I felt strongly at that time, still held out hope for love. At their wedding, I asked her if she was happy, and she smiled, saying she was. Years later, when I asked the same question, she said only that they supported each other. I think, in a way, having a family makes her feel whole – she needs that illusion. A month ago, a friend told her that my dad was having an affair with a colleague. You know, they are with each other in the hospital where my mom cannot get access. They are facing the pandemic like comrades. I confronted her about why she didn’t leave, and she surprised me by saying: ‘which man on earth doesn’t cheat? After so many years, it’s not worth a bitter fight.’”
I asked Nikita, what do you think time brings to a relationship? “A bond,” she replied. “A bond that has nothing to do with love but consistently evidences one’s presence in each other’s lives. My grandparents had an arranged marriage. Before that, they had barely seen each other a few times, let alone loved, but they formed a habit of living, which, in some quiet moments, reminds them of how the other is present in their lives, and which eventually turns into an attachment. I remember once, my grandfather was sick, and my grandmother sat by his bed for a long time. She is a person not good with words. As I listened to her repeating the only sentence she could say to my grandfather, ‘eat well, eat more,’ looking at her quiet worry, I was hard-pressed to convince myself that this was not love. Perhaps love is a false concept, while the bond, no matter whether between children and parents or partners, is persistent. The bond is severed when the relationship ends, so my mom’s tolerance is understandable. It depends on what one truly wants.
“We could never imagine before this crisis how fragile relationships can be. There was a loving couple in the building behind ours. At the beginning of the pandemic, the man developed a high fever, and in a decision that would’ve been unthinkable before, the woman left with her infant son, afraid of catching the virus, leaving her husband to fend for himself. Is it human nature? Back then, all we knew was that the virus was deadly and contagious. She panicked and couldn’t tell if he had the virus or just the flu, but if she stayed, all three might die. A few weeks later, as more and more scientific information about the virus emerged, we learned that young people without underlying diseases were safe even if infected. The man recovered,” Nikita continued the story, “and just before the lockdown, the woman came back with the child because our area was classified as infection-free, allowing a milder quarantine. Nobody knows what the man thought of his wife. He let her back. He seems to have forgiven her, but the rift in their relationship, I’m sure, will take a lifetime to repair.”
I wasn’t surprised by what happened to the couple as I knew some hidden sides of human nature only reveal themselves in times of crisis. What was once considered abnormal has now become normal. I could tell Nikita saw the same. But I wondered: if the man had been sick, how was the community still deemed infection-free? In theory, the community committees were required to report cases of fever before the lockdown. “They covered it up,” said Nikita. “I suppose they gambled that what the man had caught was flu. Once lockdown began and if there were no other cases, people outside would never know, and as you see, they won the bet. Most residents dismissed the story as a rumour, like those fabricated stories on the internet,” continued Nikita, “but as I understand it, the committee likely asked the man to deny what had happened, and he complied out of shame. People accept his denial because it’s easier, preferring the extra freedom, even though it doesn’t change the nature of the cage we are held in, I think. The building complex has become a comfort zone that many don’t want to leave. There could be cases, and there could be deaths, but nobody, except the committee, knows. Truth only causes trouble. But sure, what I’ve told you might be a conspiracy. The man might never have had a fever. The woman might never have left. The story could be made up from the start. It depends on what we want to believe. I’m not a writer like you,” Nikita remarked finally, “and obsessing too much on things outside of myself will only add to troubles.”
Then we took a break. I went to the bathroom, stepping briefly out of the atmosphere we had built together. I could sense, faintly, her command over the conversation. What she offered were not only her experiences and views but potential ways to shape the text, as though she instinctively understood its malleability. This was a curator’s instinct: the way she moulded ideas mirrored the way she arranged her living space. The apartment was tidy and well-organised, each area clearly designated for dining, working, and resting. While my visit felt like a novel event, I could imagine, before the lockdown, four or five people sitting around and chatting in the small kitchen bar, helping themselves to tea.
Through the side window, I noticed the setting sun, something I’d missed in my absorption with Nikita. I had been here for over an hour. The urgent task was to complete the interview before the guard grew suspicious; I stayed on the toilet and framed my thoughts. Our discussion had touched upon love, bonds, and marriage regarding her parents and others in her life, but she hadn’t mentioned her own relationships. Was this something she didn’t want to talk about? Or was she downplaying her own experiences, offering instead the stories she thought best represented the time? She was, like me, trying to shape something larger out of individual experience – but what was her motivation? I couldn’t fully understand her from just one conversation, but I reminded myself to consider the layers and subtlety beneath the aspects of life she had shared.
I returned to the seat. Nikita turned her gaze back from the skylight. “One of my daily pleasures,” she said, “is watching people outside from here. Delivery drivers especially, who come and go during mealtimes. They register at the gate, pass through the inner paths, and deliver to households, day after day. They were once the most overlooked group, now they seem the axis of the city. Without them, it would have come to a complete standstill. I’ve started to recognise their clothing and vehicles. There was a man in a green outfit, delivering vegetables. I usually saw him at the gate half an hour after I placed an order. Strangely, he never took the elevator after reaching the building. I could hear his hurried footsteps, upstairs, downstairs. A few minutes after he left, I would open the door, collect my order, and disinfect it. This had become my routine during the lockdown. It wasn’t until weeks later when another driver replaced him that I realised I had never truly seen him.
Unlike Nikita, I didn’t have any special feelings towards delivery drivers. I had become a part of this group, after all, and knew the complexities behind it. Some were drawn by higher wages during the pandemic and others, like me, for the freedom the job gave us. When I grew tired of delivering, I’d lean against a street corner, swiping my phone. After my interviews, I would ride through the evening breeze allowing my thoughts to germinate, which, for most people confined at home, was a luxury. This job also came with the added responsibility of avoiding infection. We were in frequent contact with people, could be the medium for the virus to spread, but after a day’s work, we’d gather in dim corners, smoking and sometimes, drinking. We earned more respect as our roles and significance were heightened at a time like this, but at heart, we were just ordinary people.
There were other essential workers – cooks in restaurants, for example – largely invisible to the rest of us, yet equally vital in keeping the city running. For Nikita, they were no different from medical staff at hospitals – burdened with responsibilities that shouldn’t have fallen to them. She, however, felt that she, herself, wasn’t urgently needed by society. “Curators,” she said, “like historians, only look backwards. Art is meaningless to those struggling for survival.” Her words stood in stark contrast to our first encounter when she was hosting a public engagement event for a museum: she spoke about art with confidence, and she, from my impression, truly believed in what she was doing. I was struck by how the perception of social roles could shift with the change in social ecology. Nikita’s opinions on other jobs, especially the role of security guards, also reflected how she was making sense of the altered reality.
“Those people,” she remarked, “are given far more power than they should have. They, along with the committee, became ‘regulators’ overnight, a change from their previous role as more like that of servants in these apartment complexes. They decide, in moments of emergency such as seeking medical treatment, who can get out and who can come in, and we, the occupants, have to obey. I haven’t had direct contact with them because since the lockdown, I’ve never left my apartment, but I often heard my neighbours complaining. I’ve even had delivery drivers call me to explain delays caused by the guards. When first acquiring power beyond one’s understanding,” Nikita concluded, “we, as humans, can quickly adapt to it but few learn not to abuse it.” I understand her point logically, but experientially, what I felt from the guard when I arrived at this community was more of his laxity, arising from his exhaustion at maintaining a sort of standard for so long.
Taken aback by her claim that she had never left her apartment, I shifted the conversation to her own life. Her voluntary confinement puzzled me, especially when she had the chance to mingle with the community. “I quickly got used to the isolation,” Nikita said, “and then I started enjoying it, until I became uneasy with my own enjoyment but didn’t have the courage to leave. At first, I was calm when the pandemic hit. While everyone else was anxious, I barely paid attention to policy updates until my daily routine was disrupted. One day, when I tried to go to work as usual, I realised the whole community had been locked down. I returned home, checked the refrigerator, and reassured myself that I had enough food to last five days. I called the committee to ask how they planned to ensure we got supplies, but it wasn’t until the delivery system was restored that we could buy food. There was underground trade, with a box of eggs being sold at three times the price. But after the initial chaos, things calmed down, and the community settled into an unusual comfort.
“Like everyone else, I slowed down. I no longer needed to meet industry contacts or gather opinions for exhibitions, as everything was shut down. I slipped into a state of self-preservation, which made me feel that what once seemed important were, in fact, artificial, and I was artificial too. In solitude, I discovered an aspect of social phobia in my character. I embraced it, and became a social recluse. I ate and slept regularly,” Nikita continued, “and I watched the sun that rose at 6 am, reached its highest at noon, and set at 6 pm. I feel large in my small world as the space is mine, but outside, I would feel small – everything would be familiar but none of it would feel truly mine. I imagine this is how patients in a hospital ward must feel. I took a quiet pleasure in watching the community, a ‘bigger’ cage that contained the ‘smaller’ one of mine. Every day, people hovered outside or rode bicycles around the buildings. Even private barbers and fitness classes sprang up, held outdoors, performed in public, yet in perfect order. It was absurd. The scene felt entirely at odds with the sense of crisis dominating social media, where community regulators were often cast as villains. I’m not saying I agreed with everything the committee did, especially given the lack of transparency, but I was surprised by how uniquely a closed environment could take shape.
“My own little utopia shattered in the third month of lockdown when I was informed that my salary would be cut in half, while the rent and food prices remained high. I checked the missed messages on my long-silenced phone, hoping to find out how my colleagues had been. But all I learned was that most of them had been laid off. Though I felt lucky, it did little to ease the helplessness of my mental confinement, whether chosen or not. I have to admit, the lockdown had made me dependent on this apartment. My body would tense up at the thought of going out. Most days, I just lay in bed, waiting, but I didn’t know for what. Then, on yet another day spent wavering between self-motivation and despair, I received your message about the interview. A small spark of hope flickered, though I couldn’t see what could possibly be interesting about my life in quarantine. Still, I kept thinking about it. Slowly, the fog in my mind started to lift, the past months surfacing before my eyes. But from the moment you told me you were coming until you arrived, my anxiety never faded away. I imagined someone stepping into my space, sitting across from me, expecting a response. And yet, when you finally came in – when I saw someone up close for the first time in so long – I felt a long-lost sense of security. I sit, listen, and speak without difficulty, and I am relieved. Far more than relieved.”
This, I think, was the moment Nikita truly opened up to me, yet it also marked the end of our interview. She sounded more human now, while I made no move to empathise. My hyperawareness of themes forming in real time – the constant adjustments to my expectations of her story – seemed to have dulled my ability to respond emotionally. I simply watched her in silence waiting for the right moment to say farewell. Her face gradually regained its composure, and as I stood to leave, she followed me to the door as if the need for distance no longer mattered. “You are just like a delivery man now,” she said as I donned my uniform again. We shared a brief gaze before parting ways.
I took the elevator downstairs and stepped outside. It was late, and no other deliverymen were in sight. As I turned my eyes to the few residents who hadn’t yet returned home, or those who seemed to consider the communal space their refuge from home, I felt a sense of the inadequacy of retrospective history in capturing the most elusive moments of human life. The present and the past will eventually be neatly sorted, everything made to seem inevitable, but what historians fail to convey is the ineffable, bewildering uncertainties that shroud the seconds, hours, and days to come.
I rode my scooter along the inner paths, and by chance, spotted the outdoor ‘barber shop’ Nikita mentioned during the interview. A man sat on a stool beneath the streetlight while another trimmed his hair, both wearing masks. Tufts of hair on the ground glowed under the artificial illumination. I continued navigating through the winding branches, searching for the private fitness class or any other scenes that might capture my attention, but found nothing.
The guard noticed me as soon as I left the path and approached. Without a word, he opened the gate and pointed to the registration form on the desk. Realising he wasn’t the one who had been on duty earlier, I quickly flipped forward two pages, found my name, and checked the “out” box. As I turned the pages back, he glanced at the form. I restarted my scooter and pulled away before he could react, his face fading from view as confusion shimmered in the rearview mirrors.
II
(By mid-2020, as the situation in Shanghai steadied and social activities resumed, those with clean health records regained their freedom, with only areas reporting new cases remaining under lockdown. Rather than continuing as a delivery driver, I devoted most of my time to adapting the interviews I had collected, pursuing what felt like a self-imposed mission – not just to document what had happened, but to shape it into a form of history beyond the linear.)
Time ticked on. My face stood out against the blurred background on Zoom. With only my name on the participant list and Nikita absent, I began to feel uncertain about the meeting. Her recent texts had grown vague and hesitant about scheduling – a stark contrast to the eagerness she’d shown in our last conversation.
As I waited, I pondered how she had been adjusting since the lockdown eased, though her experience felt distant from my own. Unlike Nikita, who had returned to work and was compelled to reintegrate into social life, I had become increasingly isolated at home. My writing had tethered me to the past – a past that slipped further away as I tried to capture it. Though I kept in touch with my interviewees online, most conversations merely echoed what I had already learned – fragmented, familiar stories that filled gaps but never fully took shape.
My struggle to finish the project deepened as I tried, without much success, to trace how the pandemic continued to affect people’s lives even after the mass lockdown had ended. Some interviewees no longer had time for lengthy discussions, while others felt their post-lockdown routines – now punctuated by a daily PCR test – were too mundane to talk about. It left me with the unsettling thought: the prolonged quarantine, with all its upheaval, might simply fade, so long as forgetting was possible and we convinced ourselves enough of the new normal.
Nikita appeared on the screen, twenty minutes late, looking haggard. “I apologise for the delay. I’m dealing with something serious, but I think it might make a good story for you.” As she spoke, she wove through a crowd until she reached a dining-room-like space where her connection steadied, and her voice separated from the background noise. I held back my response, giving her space to gather herself, knowing she had already framed what she was about to share.
“The first day I left home,” Nikita began, “was to answer my director’s call for a meeting. It’s difficult to restore every detail of how I felt, but I remember being hyper-aware of everything. At the subway station, the dark walls and the dim lights felt more pronounced, and the underground air seemed noticeably cleaner. I waited unusually long for the train, and once aboard, people kept their distance. An elderly woman leaned against the handrail, wearing two masks and sitting on a paper cushion. When I reached the city centre, the streets were so empty that grass was growing between the cracks. I hadn’t seen anything like it in years. Everyone had been clamouring for freedom online, but once the lockdown was lifted, so few ventured out. Looking back at my own struggles before leaving home, it made sense.”
“I met my director in a coffee shop,” she continued. “He told me I’d be responsible for a small-scale exhibition featuring an artist whose work centred on food. It is a post-lockdown experiment, he explained – an attempt to see how we could host an event under current policies. There would be disinfection protocols before anyone entered the exhibition space and strict measures to maintain a safe distance inside. In fact, nobody knew how many visitors would come or how they would respond to the restrictions; all I could do was prepare for the uncertainties I could anticipate. It felt like crossing the river by feeling the stones.
“The next day, I met the artist. Although I knew that her work was secondary to the exhibition’s purpose as a test, I was captivated by the side stories she shared. Two days before the lockdown began, she picked up her daughter from college and moved in with her second husband, who had a teenage son from a previous marriage. Until then, they had maintained separate homes – she valued her independence, and his frequent business trips made cohabitation seem unnecessary – but now, they hoped to take care of one another. For the family, the first week was the most rewarding. While all four of them preferred retreating to their separate rooms, they always gathered around the dining table at mealtimes. Her husband, who had stocked up on plenty of food, prepared a sumptuous meal every day – sweet and sour ribs, braised mandarin fish, and more. Though she wasn’t fond of cooking, the artist contributed by cleaning up afterward.
“But the harmony didn’t last. Once food delivery services resumed, both children started ordering their own meals – his son had grown tired of his father’s cooking, and her daughter had switched to lighter food in an effort to lose weight. As family meals became infrequent, her husband gradually lost interest in cooking. The couple settled into simpler meals, and she continued cleaning up. Perhaps disturbed by the monotony of their days, she found herself growing strangely fixated on the food residue left behind. She painted meat scraps, rotten fruit, half-eaten leaves, and even oil stains of various shapes on plates, bowls, plastic containers, the cooker, and the children’s clothing. She photographed the dining room – sometimes with dishes on the table, sometimes bare – and the trash bag left at the door for the committee to collect. She assigned a number to each meal and wrote it on the delivery receipts, where the thermally printed descriptions of food and prices faded while her handwritten ink remained legible to this day. She remarked that all of it would eventually be reduced to blank paper, serving only as a numerical record of meals eaten during the lockdown.
“The exhibition isn’t held in the gallery where I used to work, which hasn’t been permitted to reopen due to its size. Instead, we’re using a smaller space tucked among residential buildings, with an unassuming façade that, I think, adds to the appeal. On the first floor, we curated a brief review of the artist’s earlier works, while the second floor showcases her most recent collections. The third floor has been transformed into a home-like space, complete with a dining room – table, chairs, and cutlery – where visitors can simulate a dining experience. And that’s exactly where I am now.” Nikita turned her phone around to show the room. It took me a moment to connect the exhibition she described with the decorations I saw. Then I realised, I had visited the space before the pandemic, during a retrospective exhibition on James Joyce. Back then, the third floor had recreated his short stay in Sandycove Tower, the opening setting of Ulysses.
“I’ve been working here under extreme pressure for the past month and a half,” Nikita continued. “With a tight budget, I’ve had to juggle everything – editing materials for display and publicity, overseeing the remodelling of the exhibition space, and negotiating with designers, builders, media, and officials. As the opening approached, the challenges piled up. Our original contractors hadn’t resumed work, and the new builders were inexperienced. They miscalculated the wall dimensions, so the frames for the paintings and photographs didn’t fit. Since they were on a fixed salary, they refused to do any extra work despite their mistakes, which delayed the handover by several days.”
A colleague of Nikita’s rushed in, interrupting our conversation. Sensing her limited time, I kept my questions brief, allowing her to continue. “The most frustrating challenge has been the constant staff shortages due to failed health record verifications – these are required for entry into public buildings. While we typically receive results within 12 hours, delays are common. To cope, I’ve been waking up an hour earlier each day to take the test before work, and again afterwards, to keep my record up to date. This way, I can cover for absent colleagues. On days when I had to work overtime, I stayed in the building to avoid the uncertainty of the test delays.”
She paused, then said, “Honestly, it’s only now that I realise how much I’ve invested in this. The artist – a woman about my mother’s age – gave me a perspective I hadn’t experienced before. I visited her family and explored her story from different angles, which helped me connect more deeply to the text I wrote for the exhibition. I even photographed her husband’s dining room to capture its details, though it doesn’t directly affect the display. Experiencing quarantine within a family is something I’ve never gone through. It’s not that one situation is better than the other, but through her story, I glimpsed the life of a woman whose present could be my future”
“It’s in my nature to connect life to art.” She continued. “Working on this exhibition has eased many of the anxieties that I’ve been carrying, including doubts about my role as a curator. Now that social activities have resumed, people are trying, consciously or not, to reclaim what they’ve lost, as if searching for traces of happiness. But it often falls short. I’m just beginning to realise that something fundamental in us has changed, though I can’t quite say what it is. One thing I do know: we can never return to what we once were. People may appear normal, but will we, one day, have to confront what we’ve been through? And when the moment comes, will we remember – even if, at first, we choose to forget?
“Yesterday was the exhibition opening. Despite my exhaustion, it was heartening to see the streets bustling again, with more people about. We carefully managed the flow, allowing no more than twenty people inside at once. Visitors arrived, verifying their health records and sanitising their hands, while I greeted artists, curators, and art dealers I hadn’t seen in ages. By the end of the day, I breathed a sigh of relief. But today,” she shifted the tone slightly, “around two o’clock, the authorities notified me that one of our visitors had recently been in close contact with an infected case. We had to shut down the exhibition immediately. A medical team arrived before our scheduled meeting to conduct testing, and the building will remain under lockdown until the results come back.”
Nikita stood up, her screen shaking, “Now, I need to go check if everything’s alright,” she said before disconnecting from the meeting. What she shared left me with a faint but growing glimmer. While I remained anchored in the stillness of the past, she moved with the urgency of the present. She had become the curator of the artist’s story, much as I had become the curator of hers – yet she was immersed in the moment with an intensity I had never quite experienced. And I, unaware enough, had opened myself up to her during this conversation, simply by listening, in my deepest silence and passivity. We had switched positions, yet something in the ways we spoke and thought – or the ways we told stories – ran parallel.
I waited for her, unsure if she would return. As I wondered how her team and the visitors might react to this unforeseen situation, my gaze lingered on the delivery uniform I had left behind the door. What could it still mean to me even now? While society still urgently needed delivery drivers, the disguise had become unnecessary for me since the easing of restrictions. Occasionally, when the pressure of writing became overwhelming, I would ride out to deliver food for a day or two to clear my mind. But the daily requirement to upload a health record before starting work had grown increasingly discouraging. Even though I knew that any interaction with the outside world – even something as simple as queuing up for a test – might offer a sense of relief from my solitude, it no longer seemed worth the effort.
When Nikita rejoined, she was still in the ‘dining room’. “Our samples,” she said, “are being processed on an expedited basis, and the test results should be confirmed before 10 p.m. I hope there are no infections so that we can all go home. Unfortunately, even if that’s the case, the authorities have just informed my director that the exhibition must end. A similar situation, an art dealer told me, occurred at another exhibition he attended, which was supposed to be the first one after the lockdown. I suppose there would be no reason for the government to relax control over similar activities unless all cases in the city are cleared, but nobody knows when it will really end.” Though a trace of helplessness lingered on her face, I could tell she had accepted the reality.
“I dispersed the visitors into different areas,” Nikita continued, “and reassured those who were very emotional after learning about the possibility of quarantine. I arranged alternating groups to stay on duty in case of any urgent developments, allowing the rest of my colleagues to take a break. I’ll need to discuss with the officials about transferring any patients, if we have them, and organise supplies if the lockdown extends. I’ll also have to manage food orders – it’s getting late. I hope today’s conversation hasn’t frustrated you too much. I’ve tried my best to make time. Before I go, I’d like to share one last thing.”
I focused as she spoke, “When I walked back to the room, I saw the artist sketching a bored daughter, leaning against her sleeping mother, swiping her phone. They sat beneath one of her paintings – the one depicting an open delivery bag with unfinished food. I wondered what she saw in them that connected to her own experience, how she found inspiration in something that wasn’t hers.” She added before she left, “But I didn’t want to disturb her, so I left my questions unasked.”
Time ticked on. The dark screen reflected my face. As I regained my senses, I put on my delivery uniform and left my home. The main road was busy with traffic during rush hour though not quite at pre-pandemic levels. Commuters emerged from office buildings one after another – some kept their heads down and masks on, while others strolled in pairs, lifting their masks to chat. Delivery drivers collected orders from restaurants, many still operating on a takeaway-only basis, wary that indoor dining could trigger new infections and regional lockdowns.
As I rode past the meadow, I was surprised to see people having picnics. Unmasked, some sat while others lounged on blankets, snacking on fruits. A teenage girl read beneath the tree, the wind stirring the branches and tousling her hair. A sanitation worker circled, picking up discarded containers. I slowed down and caught sight of another group grilling meat over a charcoal stove. Smoke rose into the air as skewers sizzled on the grill. Urban life, with all its realities, seemed to be evolving daily, shaped by shifting emotions, and a new understanding of the pandemic and its policies while unexpected fictions continued to emerge – if we allowed ourselves the freedom to explore them.
By the time I reached the exhibition space, it was already late. The building, along with the sidewalk and two others nearby, had been cordoned off, guarded by a few officials in protective clothing. A small crowd had gathered outside the barrier, scattered as though watching a significant event unfold. They had clearly been there for a while – some stood with hands on their hips, others smoked or chatted. A few newcomers lingered nearby, asking what had happened. As word of a potential close contact spread, some hurried away in a panic, while one person remarked, “Panic won’t change anything. If there’s a positive case, we’re all close contacts anyway.”
Residents returning from work found their homes sealed. Informed that the cordon would be lifted once the tests from the exhibition space returned negative, some made urgent phone calls, while others waited silently on the street. An official signalled for the crowd to step aside as a deliveryman arrived with stacks of bento boxes. A man from the exhibition space came out to collect the food in several batches. On the street corner, a group of delivery drivers leaned against their motorbikes, eating from take-out boxes and chatting, their eyes tracking the man until he disappeared from view. Meanwhile, I stood across the street in my uniform, gazing at the closed door as intently as if I had followed him inside.
I saw people on the floor removing their masks and forking up food from the bento boxes. The artist moved slowly across the space, upstairs and downstairs, watching those who ate beneath her work. She sketched them in her notebook with a pen, carefully keeping her distance to avoid appearing too intrusive. When everyone had finished their meals, the staff collected the boxes, and she tore off the receipts before they were thrown into a large bin bag. She made her mark on each piece of paper, waiting for a moment in the future when the ink would stand out against the fading printed words. Nikita followed at a distance, as though beside me, like the French aristocrat with the unseen man in Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark, witnessing it all.
When I woke up from my reverie, the crowd had mostly dispersed. Only a few residents remained, waiting to return home. Occasionally, those in nearby buildings peered down from their windows, as if scanning for familiar faces. The shops dimmed their lights, and people leaving work passed by, barely noticing me. As I watched, a medical team arrived, and an official removed the cordon. They moved swiftly, entering and exiting the art space until, at last, the doors were left wide open.
One by one, people emerged, their faces masked, their identities blurred. I could only recognise the staff by the badges hanging from their necks. Once everyone was discharged, the medical team began to disinfect the building – three inside and one outside – spraying the walls and grounds. Only when they were done did Nikita appear, stepping out last. Dressed in protective clothing, she moved the signboard inside and locked the door. Before she left, she paused, looking back briefly. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me or at the exhibition space itself.
I stood facing the darkened building, watching as residents returned to their homes and windows began to light up. Again, I felt as though I was inside the exhibition space. I wandered through its rooms in search of artworks, only to find nothing in the darkness. All I could do was imagine the artist surveying her work one last time before deeming it complete. As exhaustion crept in, I sank into a dining chair. I heard Nikita’s voice – hurried yet intent – telling me the last fragments of her stories before I brought the text to its final full stop. As she finished, I returned to the moment. A strange sense of contentment settled over me, as though I had reached the end of the day.
Narrated by Nikita Yu
Adapted by Yichun Jiang
Yichun Jiang is a fiction writer and filmmaker. His debut story collection, Speaker’s Land《城事絮语》 (2023), published in Singapore in Chinese, explores the peculiar lives of ordinary people in China during the uncertainties of the Covid-19 era. His short fiction in English, including “The Great Man” and “One Day”, has appeared in The Opiate and Green Hills Literary Lantern. His film Intimacy (2019) was nominated for Best Cinematography at the Madrid International Film Festival and for the Newcomer Awards at the Asian Film Festival.