Christopher Aque

When I left work on March 12, 2020, Avia, the security guard said, “see you tomorrow.” I had a few rolls of toilet paper stuffed in my bag and all the leftover N95 masks from the basement. Neal picked me up from the Upper East Side and drove me back to Brooklyn so I wouldn’t have to take the train. I didn’t get on the subway again for fourteen months.

The early days of quarantine passed in a blur of fear and crisis management; the small joys of artisanal cheese or Amazon packages being delivered alternatingly punctuated by the wail of ambulances rushing down Nostrand Avenue. We kept washing our hands, but the air was still a threat.

I spent a lot of time at the bathtub, developing the gum bichromate prints I was making—each a dozen or so individually colored exposures layered on top of one another, collapsing into an image—filling up the darkroom tray, rinsing, watching the water go back down the drain.

A few weeks after getting vaccinated, I got back on the train to go to an appointment at the DMV; my license was expiring in a surprise confirmation of the passing year. After taking my picture, my hair still buzzed in pandemic fashion, I walked from 34th Street down to West 4th. Life resumed in a rush of bodies clipping past, the ebb and flow of shared space.