Quarantine Monster Short: Yule Cat

The night of Christmas Eve was the dominion of Jólakötturinn, the Yule Cat. The massive shadow cat would travel village to village, devouring any child who had not received new clothes for Christmas, a sure sign they were naughty throughout the year.

Picture by PBS, found on Bored Panda

This year was a little different. Because of the sickness spreading through the human world, nobody was going out. They were spending all of their time home in their most comfortable clothes so there was no need to buy new ones.

By the eighth village, Jóla, the Yule Cat, could barely move. It had eaten so many children that it had completely lost the taste for them. The thought of even seeing another child made it nauseated. It didn’t want to come near another one until next Yule, and it wasn’t even sure if that was far enough away.

Disheartened, Jóla laid down in the grass on the side of the road, unwilling to even enter the next town to wreak its traditional punishment on the children who had been naughty. Jóla was just falling into a doze when one of the Yule Lads raced by, causing a ruckus. Jóla opened one eye to glare at him and he stopped.

“Jóla! Why are you sleeping in the grass? You are supposed to be eating all of the children who were naughty and did not get new clothes. Christmas Eve is for the Yule Cat!”

Jóla grimaced at his loud voice and jovial laugh. It just wanted to sleep until it wasn’t so full.

“Jóla!”

The Yule Cat’s ears flattened as it opened both eyes to glare at the Lad. “I am too full to move. I cannot eat any more children. They will have to go unpunished this year.”

The Yule Lad rubbed his chin, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “There are other ways to punish children.”

Jóla raised its head. “What do you mean?”

The Yule Lad grinned. “You can play tricks on them like my brothers and I do! Come, help me. I will play tricks on the adults and you can punish the naughty children!”

Jóla was beginning to like the sound of tricks. It sat up and gave the Lad its full attention. “What kind of tricks?”

The Yule Lad shrugged. “Lots of things. I like hiding their possessions, putting potatoes in shoes, tying their sheets into knots, opening their paddock gates so their animals escape, things like that.”

Jóla’s head drooped a little. “I can’t do any of that. I don’t have hands.”

The Yule Lad shook his head. “You can do other things! Like knock stuff over, push things under their beds, nudge windows open.”

Jóla jumped to its feet. “I will do it! Let us go!”

The Yule Lad took off running for the next town, Jóla jogging along behind him.

The Yule Cat was the size of a house so while the Yule Lad could creep in through windows and doors, Jóla had to use magic to enter without tearing down the whole building.

At the first house, Jóla put its head through the wall to look around for something it could do. It knocked over a glass of water and nudged a single shoe under the bed. In the next house, it ripped up the curtains with its claws and pushed a bunch of things off a table.

It chewed on books, shredded newspapers, scratched furniture, shed on the rugs, yowled loudly, and knocked over anything it could find.

Jóla began to enjoy itself. It wondered why it had not thought of playing tricks centuries ago. It still ate one or two children in each village to keep its reputation, but it spent most of the night thinking of better and different tricks to play.

In one especially naughty child’s bedroom, Jóla managed to cough up a hairball the size of a grown adult. That would surely keep the child in line in the coming year.

At the last house before dawn on Christmas morning, Jóla tried to think of something new to do. It was a large town and it had done most of its tricks two or three times already and wanted to do something special.

“Hurry, Jóla! The sun is rising!” The Yule Lad yelled as he skipped out of town.

Jóla thought for a few more seconds, then its face split into a giant grin. It carefully nudged the bed with the sleeping child around so it was against the opposite wall, then disappeared into the fading darkness.

The Yule Cat could not wait for next Christmas Eve.

I Got Covid

Sunday, November 8th was a hot, windy day, reminiscent of a Nebraska August, not November. My windows were open, my cheap ass not wanting to turn the air conditioner on. The weather reports said a cold front was moving in that night.

All of this is important, trust me.

I woke up with a headache and thought my head was going to explode considering the amount of sinus pressure I had going on. I stopped taking my allergy meds two months earlier when I ran out so I figured I’d just suffer through the day and if they didn’t go away with the cold front, I’d get more meds on my way to work. I was also super sore all over. I chalked it up to the cold front and me being old. Weather changes always made my knees ache, what’s a few more sore body parts?

I didn’t really feel better Monday morning but I was still thinking it was just a bad case of allergies, maybe a sinus infection if I was unlucky. Went to work and carried on like normal.

Still felt crappy Tuesday morning when I woke up so I stopped on my way to work and got some allergy meds and a thermometer. In the age of Covid, you can’t be too careful. Come lunch time, I noticed I couldn’t really taste my Cheetos but I could taste my sandwich without a problem so I figured it was just because I was stuffed up. Got home from work and decided to make sausage, potato, and cabbage soup.

Because soup fixes everything.

I realized when I was cooking the sausage that I couldn’t really smell it. I also couldn’t taste the sausage I tried.

Oh. No.

I checked with Test Nebraska and the soonest I could get tested was Friday. I emailed my boss letting her know that I’ve been feeling sick and I just lost taste and smell and that I couldn’t get tested until Friday. What did she want me to do?

She emailed me back that I could get the rapid testing done at work. She added the HR gal in charge of testing in on the email and she got me set up with an appointment 9am Wednesday morning. I’d go straight to the testing, wait in my car until I heard back, then we’d go from there.

Y’all, I had the original testing done earlier in the year where they basically tickle your brain through your nose. I can’t tell you which one is worse. The rapid test I did, she vigorously swirled the swab around at the back of my nose in one nostril, then did the same thing in the second. I had tears in my eyes and the need to itch inside my face.

The nurse said my results would be done within the hour so I drove over to the garage under my building and waited. 20 minutes later, she called and she didn’t even have to say the words and I knew.

“Hi Katherine? This is Jane from the rapid test… I’m sorry, you tested positive.”

I sighed, thanked her for letting me know, hung up, and burst into tears. Once I could see again, I started letting everybody know. Texted my family and my best friend. Texted the people I spent a few hours with the day before my symptoms showed up. Emailed my boss and the higher ups at work to let them know my results. Texted two of my coworkers.

Everybody was so kind. My coworkers packed up my desk and brought my equipment to the garage so I could work from home during my quarantine. My friends and family immediately asked me what I needed and if they could drop anything off for me. My heath-nut sister (I say that with love) started doing research and found a bunch of things that I could do that might help stave off the worst of the symptoms. And then she sent me a bunch of stuff to keep me well supplied in the two weeks I’d be locked up.

It was one of the darkest times in my life and my loved ones rallied to let me know I wasn’t alone.

At some point during my isolation, I decided I
wanted a dragon onesie so I ordered one. It doesn’t
quite fit but it was good enough for a picture

I ended up getting the whole laundry list of symptoms: head and chest congestion, head ache, severe tiredness/lethargy, abdominal cramping and diarrhea, joint pain, loss of taste and smell, loss of appetite; but I never did get a fever.

Some things to not eat when you can’t taste:
· Scrambled eggs
· Yogurt
· Peanut butter
· McNuggets (the crunchy outside was delightful, the gooey breading between the crunchy and the chicken was repulsive)

Things to eat when you can’t taste:
· Toast
· Soup
· Things you don’t like but are good for you (for me, it was the seaweed in miso soup)

Thankfully most of the symptoms are gone now (my taste and smell are still pretty spotty but gradually coming back) and life has somewhat returned to pre-isolation state.

My whole office went work from home the day after my positive results. My work friends blame me, which probably isn’t totally off base.

I managed to work the whole time I was sick (I did take a day off to rest), which is not something I recommend. There were 2-3 days that the only time I was awake was when I was at my desk and I probably should have just let myself sleep and heal.

I had about 8-9 days of actually feeling horrible before it started getting better, think the worst flu you’ve ever had and add like 12%. The first time I washed my hair after testing positive, wore me out, like I got winded and dizzy. I had to lean against the shower wall until it went away. That’s how much it took me out.

I still don’t know where or how I got it. Apparently, severity of symptoms can indicate amount of exposure and since mine was a mild/moderate case, I’d say I got it from random contact, either at work or my apartment building since I don’t go anywhere else.

I was doing things right. I wore my mask all day at work (except when was eating or talking on the phone) and anytime I went into a business, I washed my hands or used sanitizer, I avoided large groups and limited the places I went, and I still got it.

I was exceptionally lucky. It could have been so much worse and I pray for those people who were not as lucky as I was.

I’m not going to sugar coat it. It sucked. Really bad.

Wear a damn mask and wash your damn hands.

Going MIA

 I fell off the face of the earth.

I mean, not really, but it sure has felt like that the last couple of months. I don’t know if you know this, but it’s kind of a dumpster fire out there.

I wish I had a great reason like I was kidnapped by Somali pirates while sailing on a yacht worth more than most countries’ GNP and the UN just negotiated my release.

Or I became a long-haul trucker.

Alas, neither is true. Life just got the better of me… and I signed up for Hulu.

Some things that have happened since my last post in September:

1)      Ate in a restaurant for the first time since March

2)      Visited my family for Labor Day

3)      Broke my car a couple of times

4)      Judged entries for an anthology

5)      Had two short stories accepted for an anthology

6)      Had a short story rejected by a magazine

7)      Read/listened to a bunch of books

8)      Learned a whole bunch about death, dead bodies, and the American death industry

9)      The high school speech team I help with started back up

10)  Stayed in a Yurt

11)  Drank far too much wine with my sister and bestie on Halloween

12)  Got Covid and had to quarantine for 2 weeks

13)  Spent Thanksgiving alone

14)  Discovered the Mandalorian

15)  Made a flat Christmas tree out of an inverted trellis, garland, and lights

It's a bit scruffy and only half the lights work
but it turned out better than I expected with
my limited craft skills

That seems like a lot of stuff to be doing during a global pandemic but I’ll remind you, that’s over 2 months and most of that stuff can be done from the comfort of my apartment. Man, are we all getting our money’s worth out of our rent/mortgage this year.

I’ll go more into some/most of these in individual posts, just wanted to let you all know that I’m still alive.