THE DISTANT FOOTPRINT
(Yet another short story..)
by David DeLane Snow
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The virus stories dominated everything in his social feed, in the media, and every conversation at work. Sam, like everyone else was hoping the recent new-normal would just as quickly return to his old-normal, and soon. He knew that was a laughable thought because things had dragged on too long with far reaching rippling effects that weren’t going away in his lifetime. Sam Galloway wondered how much of the new would become the norm as new cameras were popping up on every corner with facial recognition scanners included as fast as the death rates had been. Only in the last few days were they hearing the turn of numbers were finally leveling off; maybe. The government was always spinning their version of the story. Who knew the truth anymore? Ten feet distancing, five people allowed to shop in any given store, temperature stations and ID check points on every corner; the world was turning crazy with its own pandemic fear response of the virus.
Sam’s phone died as he suddenly recalled its charger was back home in Seattle. He’d gotten stuck in Texas, having flown to Dallas for his cousin’s funeral. Stanley Marshall died from a massive coronary totally unrelated to the viral outbreak. Well, not totally unrelated, the overweight heavy smoking fool worried too much about everything. Stanley ranted for months on end to Becky that he’d contracted Mesothelioma but confined in Sam he just watched too many commercials and thought everything he saw was somehow going to kill him. When the viral pandemic broke and the causalities rose, she knew her husband wouldn’t last a second heart attack.
DRAFT scribbles still working on this...
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