Mary Wang

we parked our car on the side of a secluded street. The next five hours consisted of binging Manifest in our stuffy car, eating one bite of repulsive midwestern Chinese food before throwing out the rest, hanging out in the Pizza Hut that somehow redeemed our taste buds, and repeatedly interrogating bitter officers about when the interstate would open back up. But most of all, it consisted of true joy. We had not had a reason to be concerned.

After the sun had set, the officers began going door to door of the parked cars, spreading word that the interstate had opened back up. Along with what felt like the rest of the town, we drove away. While my dad breathed a sigh of relief, I found myself feeling content as I looked back on our adventure. My dreams had become real life. What more could I have asked for? Some might say that I could have asked for a warmer adventure. Some might say that I could have asked for a smoother adventure. Some might say that I could have asked for a safer adventure. But what is adventure without a little bit of chaos?

Reborn

Mary Wang

In old Chinese legend, there was a bird known as phoenix. Phoenix would bear all the pain and enmity accumulated in the world, and every 500 years they would burn themselves in the blazing fire. Their bodies had to experience great pain and reincarnation before they could be reborn out of the ashes the next day. The dying phoenix fell and rejuvenated in the fire, therefore its feathers were richer, its voice was clearer, its soul was more marrow, and then became a beautiful and brilliant fire phoenix...

Thirty days ago, I ran out of the school in excitement as the summer break finally started. Getting off the school bus, I took a deep breath with a big smile on my face, the air tasted sweet as if someone put sweetener in it. Happy life began today, May the 28th. When I opened the front door, I saw mom busy packing her suitcase. She smiled and took my heavy backpack from my shoulder.

“Mary, make sure to pack your suitcase tonight. We are leaving early tomorrow to Detroit then to Shanghai for vacation!"

“No worry Mom, packing will be done in an hour." I replied pleasantly.

The next day went by extremely fast, it almost gave me weird feelings about what would happen next. Mom and I first went to a small COVID testing center in Detroit as required by the Chinese government. We also had to take pictures of each other while doing both testing to show to the Chinese Consulate that we were actually there. I was never a photogenic person, but those two pictures can easily be on my top mostwanting-to-delete pictures of the year. All these procedures were required due to COVID. I guess I did not realize this at first, but now as I looked

back these changes had indeed foreshadowed a different trip than previous ones.

That afternoon the airport was crowded with people, everyone seemed like they had a destination to go to. As the airplane took off and shot up into the night sky, Detroit became smaller and smaller until it disappeared. We left the US on the last day of May, and there were 7,442 new COVID cases that day.

The morning of June the first in China time, my mom and I had successfully gone through all the “obstacles” to get on the bus to our quarantine hotel. Back in the airport everyone had to show their negative testing results from the US. We also got a “nice” surprise which was to run another COVID test! This time was the worst. The nurses who all had to wear protection garments that only showed their eyes, stuck the swab in both of my nostrils and let the swab stay in for ten seconds long! I felt the swab poking the back of my throat. I forced myself to not look too painful in front of the nurse, but tears slid down the second the swab was out of my nose. COVID tests surely woke me up, it worked much better than the alarm clock in the morning for school. I was sitting on the bus to the quarantine hotel - highways, tall buildings, traffic, the feeling of the city hit me as I stared outside the window. The bus made a sharp turn and stopped in front of a local hotel that was used specifically for quarantine. All of our suitcases got sprayed by sterilizer before we entered the hotel. The hallway looked “dead” as I walked towards my room. I could hear light TV voices down the hall and there were bags of trash by the side of some rooms. The sunlight shone through the windows of the hotel, but somehow it just couldn’t get through completely. That night, I laid on the white hotel bed with the cucumber face mask on and thought about what a unique 14 days I would have… There was an old saying, “Change happens faster than you plan.” I would have never thought that my plans would be absolutely destroyed by a phone call in the morning.

“Buzzzzzzzz, buzzzz…”

it scared the crap out of me, my heart beat probably went up to 180 that second. I reached across the bed and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is the front desk, is this Wang Miru (Mary) speaking?”

“Yes.”

“Your result for the COVID test in the airport yesterday came out positive. We have contacted your mom already. The ambulance will come pick you up in the next hour to take you to the hospital so have your stuff ready to go...”

No, no way it came back positive. I heard a voice in my head saying, “How could this happen?! I passed the test in Detroit with a negative result! I did catch COVID months ago, but I recovered quickly within a week, and all the testing afterwards was negative. What is going on here?”

Riding in an ambulance was a first for me. The ambulance sped through the streets like a rocket. It bounced up and down with squeaking noises coming from the wheels like a roller coaster. With this style of driving, I got sick in the stomach real fast. Mom called me before I got in the ambulance. She was afraid that I would be scared to go alone, but I actually felt excited about this. To me this would be a quick trip because I knew that I had no symptoms of COVID, so all I had to do was to prove to them that I was fine. I tilted my head towards the window and watched the people on the street. I saw a mother and daughter sharing laughter, teenagers running down the street, and a couple holding hands with each other. Outside the ambulance, everything looked so normal and casual like every other day. The light breeze moved the leaves on the sycamore tree slowly in a calming rhythm. I held out my hand and wanted to feel the breeze, but the cold window shocked my hand like an electric fence. Somehow I felt disconnected from the outside world. I couldn’t reach the life outside of this ambulance door, instead I was going the opposite direction and I

didn’t have the power to turn the steering wheel back into the right way. Right at this second, I felt something inside of me, like a seed was planted deep down in my heart. In the hospital, they did a series of examinations on me, which included: COVID test, blood test, temperature check, lung scanning, measure blood pressure, oxygen level, and a test where they put a swab inside my butthole. As you can imagine, I was absolutely worn out after all of these procedures. I waited seven hours inside a room that was the same size as the bathroom back in my house in the US, and the result for all those tests came out positive again!! Later I found out the reason I got tested positive in China and not in the US was because China had a more strict standard for testing and due to the fact that I got COVID back in early May, there were probably still remains of COVID in my sinus although it was not contiguous at all. The testing result might change between positive and negative depending on where the nurse stuck the swab inside my nose. It was nine o’ clock at night when a nurse came in and walked me to the hospital room. It was a tall three-level building with the top two levels for adult patients, and the bottom level for 18 or under. I overheard that there were 80 adult patients and 3 (including me) juveniles patients in this building right now. The nurse stopped in front of the third blue door and opened it by stepping on the button located inside a wall. Wind blew across my face and made my hair fly as the door opened its “arms'' and welcomed me in. The room was big with three patient beds numbered 11, 12, and 13. My bed number was 11 and I had the whole room to myself with a bathroom, sink, toilet and shower. This type of room was called the negative pressure ward. It had no windows but was equipped with an advanced system of air filtering which allowed the germs that patients breathe out to not spread into the air outside, thus greatly decreasing the number of COVID cases. I unpacked my suitcase once again, and went straight to bed in the white and green striped hospital gown not feeling like taking a shower. That day, June the second, there were 16 new COVID cases in China including me. The first week went by fairly fast for me, however, it felt like everyday was the same just like the movie “Happy Death Day”. I woke up at 7:30 for breakfast, eating was the only way to get me out of bed. I lied in bed after breakfast and read to kill time until lunch, which was around 11:30. Then dinner at 5:30. I was not allowed to go outside of the ward 78

at all, so the nurse brought three meals to me. I felt like I was in jail but actually I wasn’t. What a joke. The only comforting thing was that I made friends with the nurse who came in every day to deliver my meals. From her I learned that COVID had affected their lives as well. She had to work in this hospital for two months and then got quarantined for two weeks in order to see her son back home. The frustrating part was after 1 month, she would have to come back to this hospital and continue this cycle until COVID was over.

My mind started to tangle into a dead knot in the second week. The seed inside me grew intensively. The excitement of the hospital “trip” left me hollow like a shell. Commencing from the second week, I was tested (COVID & blood) every three days. I was in a positive attitude hoping I would be tested negative the first time...the second time… but the test results were always positive. The nurse tried to talk me into not having too much hope for my results, because the more hope I had, the harder disappointment would strike me. To be honest, I probably would already have a breakdown if the nurse was not there with me. There was no medicine or treatment for me since I had no symptoms, but I had to wait endlessly inside this ward till my testing result “magically” turned negative. This constant mental state of waiting was driving me nuts. Tuesday of the third week was the first time I was allowed to step outside of my ward for 20 days. I felt incredibly happy and satisfied from walking upstairs and seeing clusters of clouds hanging in the blue sky. However, it didn't last long when I saw the number on the scale. I lost all the muscles I gained from lacrosse, I was out of shape, and I could never get enough sleep. To make the day worse, my nurse friend left the hospital today since her 2-month shift was over. Until the moment she left, I still didn't know what she looked like other than her brown eyes. I only knew she liked deserts because it made her happy.

Even food could not excite me anymore. The breakfast repeated itself every week, the lunch and dinner repeated every two weeks. My family tried really hard to find ways to get me out of the hospital. Dad emailed the Indiana governor, and mom was asking around desperately. However, all these efforts didn’t help as China took COVID extremely seriously, a single increase of COVID cases could cost the local governors their jobs.

I stopped turning on the lights in my ward and started wrapping myself in darkness all day. Endless stress caused pimples on my face. My mood dropped to a whole new low. I found myself strapped in the situation- my hands and feet were tied together, my mouth was taped, and I could not call for help. Spikes grew around my heart, hurting everyone who wanted to give me a hug and everyone I loved. I poured all my negative emotions on Mom. I was annoyed when she called and avoided communicating with her. I realized that not all seeds would grow into beautiful flowers, this one was the seed for spiky vines. Knowing my COVID result was positive again for the fourth test, I buried my head under the pillow crying. I wanted to scream so badly, I wanted people to hear my grievance, I wanted them to see me breaking into pieces, how I was being torn apart painfully, and I wanted them to see my bleeding heart other than my bruised arm from blood drawn… That evening, I thought about death and whether death was the end of relief or the ultimate end for torture. I thought about my death on this hospital bed, and how my life was being drained out of me like water running from the sink.

What is death?

Death is when a bullet passes through your heart. Death is when a spear pierces your lungs. Death is the knife cutting through your wrist and the blood dripping on the cold hard floor making the “click, click” sound…I pulled the blanket over me and closed my eyes. I saw a phoenix diving into flames and burned into ashes in my dream that night.

A ray of sunlight hit the blanket the next morning. It traveled 94.1 million miles through the clouds overhead, the gloomy hospital, and the dark ward to find me. The golden dot stayed on my blanket quietly. It was there for me. Time seemed frozen, it was only me and the golden dot staring at each other. I pulled my left hand out of the blanket and reached out slowly toward the dot. My hand shone under that ray of sunlight, its warmth filled me up as if the sunlight held out its hands and pulled me out of the death bed. I then turned the palm of my hand towards the sunlight

feeling it's comforting. It. Slowly but gradually the energetic blood started running down my veins once again, I felt like a phoenix was about to be reborn out of ashes.

I got permission from the doctor to clean my sinus every day to get rid of the remaining virus there. The doctor did not want me to do that at first because it hurt so badly even for adults, but I was determined. When I cleaned my nose, the feeling was intense like putting rubbing alcohol on a fresh wound or eating a huge chunk of wasabi, just that the pain lasted 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds. I also created an exercise list that week and watched my diet closely. I walked for at least 1 hour a day in the wardroom and did full body workouts. My summer class also started that week which kept me busy most of the nights. During that productive week, I finished reading the book for my English project. The spiky veins cut deep into my flesh as I pulled my body out of its grip. Covered in blood and scars, I grew into a much stronger person, like a reborn phoenix with richer feathers.

I had three COVID tests that week. The first one was positive, but the second one came back negative. I was too shocked to say anything at first, it was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! When a nurse came in to announce the third test result, I saw three white angels coming in through the bright light to save me, and they did. With negative COVID results, I was released from the hospital back to the quarantine hotel after 30 days of isolation in the hospital. The outside world did not change at all. The long traffic, the busy people, the large sycamore trees were all still there. Shanghai was the same, but somehow everything looked different compared to 30 days ago. Hotel room was way more pleasant with a window view, many times I put my head out of the window and smelt the air of freedom. I continued my exercise routine and healthy diet throughout. At the end of 14-day hotel quarantine, one final COVID test was required. I was nervous to death - what if the result was positive? I would have to go back to the hospital again and restart this whole process.

“Buzzzzzzzz, buzzzz…”