dear professor: Mai

Dear Professor,

I hope this email finds you well in these strange and troubling times.

I know that you have limited time and that the seams of your inbox must be fit to bursting but I just wanted to let you know that my essay will be late, again.

Everything is slower now, not just the waiting outside supermarkets and the not having to be anywhere any time soon but my limbs and joints are heavy and sore and I am disoriented and confused; it is hard to slot myself into the place I think I am supposed to take up.

It felt as though we were at the centre of it all but now

I feel deeply estranged from the world and this essay has become an abstract thing dancing around the fringes of my anxious stupor.

Would you allow me One more week?