March 27, 2020
India Tor closed the door to her 3 year old daughter, Jayla’s bedroom quietly. She listened to the silence of the house. Of course, Sakura was in her room, but she would not bother Ryan’s mother for now. Moving to the kitchen, she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat, looking out of the back window at an incredibly beautiful day before she slipped her phone out of her pocket and looked at the messages.
When she had recorded and released what she had considered her ‘farewell single’ back in 2016, she had been sure that she had already lost all of her fans. She was pleased to be proven wrong. But when whatever had happened in 2017 happened, and knocked the island of Alexandra off of the world's radar, she had assumed that she would lose the few fans she had kept after her fleeing from the United States to Canada. That was almost true, as she appeared to lose many, but she simply didn’t care.
During the island’s isolation, she had, with Kagiso and some of the more musically talented Alexandrians like Fiona Reinhardt and Vincent D’Antoni held concerts in Central Park to keep up morale and distract residents from the fact that there was no land but theirs anymore. It had certainly helped her own morale, as she had learned that, despite her ‘retirement’, she had missed singing for people.
Alexandra had become her home and its residents were closer than any other group of people she’d ever known of before then. So when the island closed itself off from the ferry barely two weeks after rejoining the world, she wasn’t entirely upset about it.
Ryan had jumped on the isolation bandwagon early and, at first, India wasn’t happy about it, although the lengths to keep his mother, daughter and woman healthy were heartwarming to her. The more she read about the novel coronavirus, the more she became afraid, especially for her daughter and Ryan’s mother.
She called up Kagiso Jackson, also known as Aqoustic Spirit and had him deliver microphones and speakers to her house, making him leave them on her front porch. Inspired by the Italian police and block sing-a-longs in the United States, she offered her version, singing for those who could hear her voice while the speakers were full blast. She didn’t know how far her magnified voice would carry, but she knew that the people across the street from their corner house came out to listen and sometimes dance. Later she learned from Michael Reinhardt that she could be heard all the way to his house and got an email from Colleen Reinhardt that her family could also hear the music. But Colleen expressed a little sadness that her daughter and future son-in-law probably could not.
India wrote her back, telling her not to worry. Kagiso was doing concerts from his patio, and it could be heard all the way to the bottoms. Whoever India missed, Kagiso could cover.
Alexandra’s social isolation would not be pure torture if India could help it.
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