I teach writing for a living. And there’s nothing I spend more time coaching than the simple elegance of a short, unadorned sentence.

Here’s a good one. It’s from the information sheet I received today at an after-hours medical clinic.

“You have tested positive for COVID-19.”

The doctor put it much the same way, in a tone so flat it suggested weariness. She’d delivered this news too many times before.

I’d suspected the diagnosis. Aches, chills, a scratchy throat and dry cough, nerve pain and wobbly muscles will do that in the Covid age, when pandemic lies like a rotten-egg compress over everything, smothering possibility, spoiling all.

I’m OK. I think. Vaxxed and boosted. Firm about masking up, perhaps irritatingly so.

So was I lax? Did I let attentiveness lapse? Did I get lazy?

I dunno. Covid-19 case counts had fallen 43% in the past week in my city. I’d permitted myself to hope. Now I’m a case.

Covid-19 has come for so many. I’m not special. The virus always presses, neither sentient nor kind – but always smart, sneaky, insistent.

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Yes, when? When?!