“Bad air! Bad air!”

Content Warning: vivid descriptions of illness and contagion.
My day began at 4 am.
Waking up from what little sleep I had gotten, I was greeted by the sounds of crickets chirping their single tune, waiting for their summer lullaby to be replaced with the aubade of birds. The summer was coming to an end, and that was the same reason for my migration back to Toronto for the start ofclasses.
My breakfast consisted of rice, gyeran-jjim, and barley tea, prepared earlier that morning. Little did I know, this would be the only meal of my trip.
“You didn’t have to do this—I could have made something on my own.”
“It’s your last day here after all. I wanted to prepare something,” my mother said. “It’s the least I could do.”
“Thank you for the meal.” I replied.
“Do you want me to give you a ride to the airport?”
“It’s alright; I can call a cab.” The egg deflated at the cut of my spoon, exposing its scallion and mushroom-filled insides. “I think you should stay back. There’s probably lots of people there.”
A mild scowl appeared on her face. “You have everything, right?”
“Yes, I have everything.”
“Well, be careful about the flight. Wash your hands often.”
“Ok.”
Nobody wanted to admit it, but there was a very real possibility that I would never be able to come back. My mother began tearing up; I had little that I could say.
***
As usual, my luggage would require a second screening in-person by the TSA. It’s something about the way you have to take out your electronics—or do you leave them in? It was either that or the books I carried with me; after all, who carries physical books in this digital age?
Pulling my luggage out to the side, the agent asked:
“Do you have any sharp objects in the bag, anything in the bag that would hurt me?” I couldn’t tell if his tone was one of professionalism or complete disinterest.
“No, sir.”
“Good.”
Pilfering through my bag, the agent’s blue gloves tossed and turned its insides. Every item was suspect, requiring utmost scrutiny to be scrounged, twisted, shaken, and swabbed. Satisfied with the absence of contraband or insurrectionary materials, the agent proceeded to shooed me away. As usual, they left me to pack my own bag, my things splayed all over the table that hundreds if not thousands of hands and items had already touched. The oily fingerprints and scratches on the metal table made that clear.
***
The biggest change to the airport experience was the sheer number of people who were wearing masks. It was an odd situation, seeing all these people who had once shuffled or recoiled when I had worn a mask just a few months ago. I thought that it might help take away the gaze that kept me in the corner of their eyes, suspicious of what may have entered my body.
Yet what shocked me was the number of people wearing their masks improperly. Some would dangle them as if they were a surgical earring. Others would use them to cover their chins, leaving their whole face bare to express their scowl of disapproval. Or hold a drink in their hand, as if that made it acceptable not to wear a mask. Yet the common trait among them was the way they walked: with the dignity and righteousness that I could never be granted.
Rather than be seated by sections, we were boarded by row number. Starting with the back of the aircraft, people filled the spaces until the entire aircraft was ready to depart. Of course, there were those who were exempt from this exercise: the children, the elderly, the business and first classes.
Throughout the four-hour trip, flight attendants emphasized the need to continue wearing your mask at all times to cover both the mouth and nose, and repeatedly reminding those who failed to do so.
Wearing a mask itself was hardly the issue (aside from those who fail to do so, who, well, seem to make it an issue). Rather, it was a miasma of anxiety that lingered in the air. Anyone could be infected. Anyone could have the disease, and no one was willing to engage in the pleasantries of “Is [city] your last destination?” or “What do you do for a living?” Perhaps even I had already been infected by exposure. My advice to make such a flight more comfortable is to lose consciousness by any means necessary.
In contrast to getting on the plane, getting off the plane was a logistical nightmare. While the original plan was to have people reverse the order in which they entered the plane (passengers in the front exiting first, then in order following down the plane) people, unable to withstand the horror of staying on the plane any longer, attempted to evacuate. It became impossible to maintain social distance, with people pushing and shoving for their own escape. With some taking advantage of the situation, the plane descended into chaos, every person bolting to exit.
***
Having finished the mandatory layover procedures, I found refuge at a table within view of my gate and far away from others. Across from me was the only restaurant I found to be open: McDonald’s.
Food meant eating and eating meant unmasking. Even though I understood the biological need for nourishment, something bothered me about it. Instead, I had my fill watching other people eat their meals, vicariously imagining what that would be like.
My eyes focused on a happy family taking their meal, embodying an Americana that advertisements had once painted. The parents seemed to be in their mid-thirties, dressed in summer garb; the mother had on a white summer dress, a straw sunhat, and beaded bracelets that would crack at the table every other time she brought down her arm. The father donned cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, complete with a pair of Oakley’s hung on a button that barely covered up his chest. I thought I could see their germy hands touch all over the table, which they then used to consume their hamburgers.
The two parents seemed too preoccupied with their meals or their conversation to pay attention to their child, whose bare face winced while balling up stray French fries. Airlines, despite requiring all persons to wear masks, exempt those under two and those over 75. It seemed that the parents took advantage of this fact, with their child having nothing resembling a face-covering around their neck or their seat.
Drool dripped down the child’s arm while they placed what was now a fist of mashed potato into their mouth, lingering as if indulging in the texture, their fingers smearing it all inside their oral cavity. What emerged were strings of saliva, covering their hands, spreading all over their clothes and their seat.
“This is the final boarding call for passengers ____ and _____ booked on flight 1024 to Los Angeles. Please proceed to gate three immediately.”
The parents’ jovial conversation came to a halt. Panic livened their movements, as they hastily grabbed their oversized carry-on bag and their child. Stopped from their gorging, the child quivered, beginning to shout and cry. The child’s head lolled and swayed, with snot dribbling down their face, only to mix with the tears and spit already present. The family quickened down the walkway, unmasked, hardly making room for those unaware of their urgency.
What remained were the relics of their former presence: wrapping papers covering half-eaten burgers, the mashed food, the blend of a child’s bodily fluids left for someone else to clean.
***
“What is the nature of your visit?”
Having arrived at Pearson airport, I was ushered into the security checkpoint. I shuffled the various documents I held in my hands justifying my worth and need to enter the country to the stranger: the only things that made me a person.
I handed over my documents and went into the pitch I had mulled over all day.
“I’m coming back home,” I said, emphasizing ‘home,’ “after taking care of my parents for the past few months.” The last part wasn’t really true—my parents were doing fine health-wise. “But now that classes are starting again, I’m coming back to finish my degree and do some research.”
I tried to smile to reassure my sincerity before realizing that the agent couldn’t see it behind my mask. The agent looked over my documents, making notes on a form that he had. I tried to make sense of his writing, but I couldn’t tell. Would it allow me to cross the border? Where would I go if it didn’t? Was there anyone I could ask for help if it didn’t?
“All right, looks like you’re good to go,” the CBSA agent said.
“Oh, uh, um, all right.” I managed to blurt out.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he said. “Stay in place for 14 days.”
***
I arrived at my quarantine location provided by UofT. It was a neat hotel room, with standard amenities. As foreign as this room might’ve been, it would be the very room that I would have to stay in for the next 14 days.
I was safe—or at least, safe to breathe the air that lingered in the hotel room. Safe to touch things and feel them, to let them linger without imagining how many others had touched the same place and the parts of themselves that they’ve left behind. And unless something was inside me already, breeding towards the surface, I had arrived in the same form that I had left my parents. I could feel the walls around me, boxing me in, giving me but a glimpse of the world that passed me by just barely out of reach.