It’s nearing the end of Winter in Wuhan.
I remember the beginning of this cold season, how the days slowly turned bleak and bitter. How the strong winds that once carried the leaves to the sea are now as sharp as a knife, slicing rosy cheeks, platinum silver to match the skies. Now, the stench of smog burns the back of my throat as the sliding door closes behind me and I begin draping detergent-drenched towels over the rail. The city of Wuhan is bustling beneath me. Occasional honks sound from far below; the grid-lock traffic is customary for a late Friday afternoon, after all. Pedestrians walk in the glow of golden streetlamps like actors walking across the stage in the spotlight.
It’s the middle of Spring in Wuhan.
The mask is still warm from past breaths as I loop it around my ears, the elastic snapping against my cool skin. The air outside is warmer when I slide the door open slightly, yet through the cheap fabric of the mask, I smell the strong pungent stench of chemicals and disinfectant that is becoming all-too familiar in the province. Wincing at how it stings my eyes, I look over the edge of the balcony, and I’m shocked. The street below is almost-completely deserted and eerily silent. A sun that once struggled to shine through clouds of slate now radiates across a province of steel and branding it bronze. The Yangtze is a lagoon of rumpled blue satin. Beyond that, on a plot of land where the rainbow beanstalk of a circus tent would slice the sky, the week-old walls of a hospital doomed, struggling to accommodate China’s sickest.
It’s the start of summer in Wuhan.
The land is flat and dry where the sun will come to rest, flames still licking the sky as it straddles the horizon, and just when the tongue of fire has come to rest, only the glow of blue and red illuminates the street below. I’m not the only one watching. People above and below me are peering over their balconies to catch a glimpse of the man. He was old; he wore a red shirt over his face. The nurse closes lightless eyes with the tip of her yellow latex pinky, pulls the shirt over wrinkled skin. It’s when the doors of the ambulance slam shut that apartment doors overhead close, too, and now, it’s just me, watching as blue and red disappears past a bend of deserted street.
Wuhan is dark, Wuhan is quiet. That’s the way it will be for a long time.
