Carolina Vonkampen

Capsule Stories Second Isolation Edition Carolina Vonkampen

Featuring poems, stories, and essays, Capsule Stories Second Isolation Edition reflects on the isolation we've experienced this past year in the pandemic. Read about connecting with strangers over Zoom meetups, feeling trapped in your apartment, drifting apart and falling back in love with your partner, watching your child forget what the world was like before all this, learning to love your body again, running in the heat just to feel something, screaming into the sky because it's been a day. Within this literary magazine's pages are words to help you feel less alone during this lonely and isolating time.

Second Isolation Edition

You think of how naive you were just a year ago. How worried you were about things like running out of toilet paper, your career never recovering, your loved ones falling deathly ill. You're still anxious, but it feels different now. It feels longer. Less urgent, less panicked.

Days melt into weeks. You open your laptop one groggy Saturday morning thinking it's Thursday. You place your laptop at the foot of your bed and sleep upside down, just to add some variety to your life. Is it too risky to go get a haircut? When was the last time you saw a stranger smile at you? These are the questions nowadays-forget about the experience you should be capturing. Now, all you know is that awkward silence before the video call ends, as you frantically try to press the button, wearing a fake smile on your face.

But one venture outside will tell you that even though it felt like your life had paused, the rest of the world kept moving. People you know, or don't know, have been lost forever. There's noisy construction on streets you knew intimately, new restaurants replacing your old favorite ones. People are going out as if nothing happened. You feel like the only person who remembers what life was like before, what life is like now. But you'll never forget how the world changed, how you changed. How alone you felt. You will always remember this.