“All of a sudden,

The cloud turns dark,

As if

The world could be completely void

…”

The second week of lockdown at home, I feel that my neighbors’ breath is enlarged. The shell that used to protect our apartment from any noises seems to become thinner. The shell that is perfectly manufactured out of the metropolitan standard that does not fear using any wasteful materials to let the modern residents in a capitalist society live more comfortably—more modern. But the shell, at the end of the day, is a shell; it is dissoluble. It does not usually do, though, because it always lacked the solvent, until the lockdown.

Initially, the scariest thing about lockdown to me was the affinity. We didn’t have enough food or entertainment, and our neighbors were all whom we could rely on. Having infinite time at home, I usually finish all my work before evening, and when dusk casts and I don’t feel sleepy enough, I drift away, letting any thoughts, voices, and noises intrude on my sensory system. That’s when I hear my neighbors sounds that are usually quieted by the strictly noise-blocking shell we have. “sudden”, “dark”, “void”, or was it “vague”?… It was those blurred, single words that I first heard of that constituted my life back then, my fractured, segregated life.