“Making the Grand Romantic Gesture” by Daniel Tam-Claiborne (Fiction ’20)

In our seven years together, we’ve thrived on routine. We’ve done long-distance before, but never quite like this.

When we arrive at the Green World Hotel, it’s well after dusk, but the block is lit up like a carnival. There are street sellers in metal carts, bicyclists jousting with cars down narrow alleys, neon awnings bursting with light. It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve been to Taipei, and the traditional characters for hotels, hospitals, and pulled noodles look thick and cluttered, like the crowds of people that we’ve spent ten months trying to avoid.

Meghan and I ride in the back seat of a taxi specifically dispatched to route us from Taoyuan International Airport to the quarantine hotel. We’re each bugged with a fourteen-day SIM card that tracks our location. Our clothing and luggage are moist from being sprayed down with disinfectant. I pay the driver and step out onto the sidewalk. At the 7-Eleven on the corner, people mill about of their own volition. It’s still warm for February, and the air smells of roasted sweet potato and skewered meat. For a fleeting moment, I imagine taking Meghan by the hand and making a run for it, escaping our two-week fate in separate rooms. How romantic and futile it would be: setting off like vigilantes.