This week I had my first social outing in five months with someone other than Hania. We arrived at the café in masks, and gave each other a wide berth around the outside table. All the other tables were occupied. At one point in our conversation, a bit of leaf from my matcha drink tickled my throat. I sat silently suppressing the urge to cough, not just because of the current abomination of coughing in public but because tickle-induced coughing almost always leads, in my case, to sneezing, which is even more horrific. I knew that I could explain my sudden eruptions to my friend, but what of the rest of the clientele? The entire terrace would turn to me, coughing and sneezing, as if to a perpetrator of crimes against humanity. In the end, I successfully stifled the cough – small tears forming in my eyes – but thought long and hard about my next outing.
