The streets of the city are empty and silent. Businesses and schools…shops and restaurants…museums and libraries…all are shuttered and their patrons isolated in houses and apartments. Thanks to the pandemic, we find ourselves in a surreal moment of history where the normal hustle and noise of daily life has been quiesced. Normally, I appreciate the calm and quiet, the city like it is in the early morning hours before the rush begins and the noise invades, but there is something unnatural about this peace, something coerced and oppressive. For maybe the first time in my life I find myself wishing for a return to normality, a restoration of all the quotidian things that I perpetually complain about. There’s the old adage about being “careful what you wish for, lest it come true” and perhaps now I begin to truly understand the full gravity of it.