dennis s. hurddennis s. hurd

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Only Essential Services

Day 139 - We could tell that today was the beginning of an unusual situation even while in bed this morning. The city was quiet. Sometimes, we use that adjective to mean things weren't busy. However, I am using it literally. There was a noticeable absence of noise.

As we're on the 18th floor we don't hear a lot of street traffic, yet we noticed less general background noise. Several families of birds live in the trees and bushes ten floors below us near the building's swimming pool. Their songs were much more pronounced during that special period right before dawn when early birds enjoy stirring.

Quiet in KL

We are social distancing ourselves due to circumstances as much as by choice. When we went out today, we found only a few supermarkets open. Most restaurants were closed except those providing takeaway. Every other store was shuttered. I've never seen the area so empty.

It was a bit eerie as though we had this end of town nearly to ourselves. I was reminded of one movie from 1971 in my collection. In 'Omega Man', Charleton Heston plays a survivor of a global pandemic, in fact. The city of Los Angeles never looked as empty as in that pre-CGI film. Today, the area around Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur was pretty desolate too. I have to admit that I sort of enjoyed the unusual circumstances. Ask me again after two weeks though.


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