"I am not downplaying the seriousness of the virus that has inflicted our world. This story is a work of fiction and is meant to be taken as such. I can only hope that everyone stays healthy and safe."
*****
My family life has always been over the top cool. We live a modest lifestyle and all our belongings can be packed up into a shipping container with relative ease, which considering our lifestyle, works in our favor. You see, my parents are teachers and have worked in some of the best universities in the world. So, for as far back as I can remember they have hauled my sister and I off to exotic foreign countries.
My first memory of adventure was the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Then we moved to Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. Switzerland. Again, very cool, but very different. No beaches, but the skiing was over the top. The 4 years that we spent there taught us plenty about European culture, history and cuisine. From there we went to the University of Technology, Monterrey, Mexico for 4 years, where we spent our formative years improving our Spanish, while travelling throughout Mexico and Texas.
It is the latest stop on our journey is where this tale takes place. Just over a year ago my parents, Todd and Louise McDermid accepted positions at a University that would be our home for the next 3 to 5 years. Apparently, it was a chance of a lifetime and there was no way that they could pass it up. Their sales pitch is what sold us. Deanna, my sister and I, Ben, would get a university degree and be debt free when we graduated. Also, when we graduated, the family would move back to the good old home base of California where my parents would work at Cal Tech.
Sounded like a dream come true. So, for the last time, the McDermid family packed our personal belongings, bid Mexico adieu and headed to our new home, Wuhan University founded 1893, in Wuhan City, in the Hubei Province of, China.
My sister and I started our classes and became immersed in the Chinese culture. Any spare time that we had was spent together travelling the Yangtze River to dark and mysterious places. Wuhan City itself is a very strange mix of old and new, from the old traditions of cooking up cats and dogs as street side delicacies, to having some of the most high-tech buildings in the world. It is almost comical to see a rickshaw next to a Range Rover.
Deanna and I stood out in a crowd in China. Firstly, because we stayed in pretty good physical shape. We eat well and worked out. Dee said that years of water skiing and downhill skiing made her ass and legs like rock. We were both tallish, I stand about 6'2" and Dee is just under 5'8", which in China is very tall for a woman and most men.
Secondly, being tall blonde haired, blue eyed kids with tanned skin also made us stand out. I had no problem with the ladies, they loved me or at least the idea of someone like me. Deanna on the other didn't fare so well. Her height and beauty scared of any possible suitors. This was a first for Dee, in other countries she had been a goddess, all the boys her age chased after her like lost puppies, but here as she transitioned into a woman, she was alone.
I couldn't stand to see her sad, so we spent every waking minute together. I'm not one of those guys that is blind to their sibling's beauty, not in the least. Dee is very pretty, has a smokin hot body that is accented with soft features, but she is after all, my sister, so I pretend not to notice.
On our eighteenth birthday our parents treated us to a night out at Zen5es at the Westin Wuhan. It is a great restaurant with great food, probably the best we had eaten in China. Another good thing is the drinking age in China is 18, so mom ordered an expensive bottle of wine from near her birth home in Napa Valley. Our meal was topped off with a fudge brownie cake and Happy Birthday sang to us in very broken English. I suppose that I should have mentioned that Dee and I are twins. Dee was born before me and has no problem telling anyone that will listen that we share everything but birthdays. Yeah, Deanna McDermid was born January 28th, 2002 at 11:45pm. Ben McDermid was being stubborn as usual and hung out in the womb until 12:24am January 29th.
Back at the house, we were given the obligatory, "now that you are adults" talk. It would be business as usual, Dee and I had a short summer vacation and planned to travel a bit. Past practices were embedded into our brains, because while our parents had allowed us to date, sex in any of the countries that we had lived was forbidden, "We will not be grandparents to a child not born in the United States of America", but with there not being a significant other in either of our lives, that wouldn't be an issue.
Summer flew by and in September we were back at school. Everything was going great until Christmas, when mom and dad started talking about COVID-19, a virus that was taking the city by storm. As the days passed by, the news and numbers of deaths caused from what was commonly being referred to as the coronavirus, escalated.
Our parents put us on a self-imposed lockdown quarantine very early in the new year and by the second week of January things had gone for a real shit over here. Everything was closed or closing and the whole country basically came to a grinding halt.
With enough fresh bottled water and dry good supplies to hold us over for a century, we closed ourselves off to the world.
Being born into a scientific family and living in a country that produces a vast majority of tech related products that are shipped worldwide has its advantages. Our house was like NASA. We had access to all the online school curriculum, access to all the news from the outside world and the ability to keep ourselves entertained.
Todd and Louise laid down the law. They were not to be disturbed during what would be regular school hours, they both had projects that they were prepping, and they would be working on class syllabus for when regular classes resumed. There main floor office was off limits. Dee and I were expected to continue our studies and learning, while not taking our incarceration as a joke or vacation. As dad put it, "none of the Chinese will be resting".
Day one was exactly what dad and mom didn't want, I slept in until 11:00am and in China, that's half the day. I would have felt bad about it until I realized that Dee was still sleeping. Skipping breakfast, I heated up a batch of Pho soup, taking two bowls back upstairs.
Dee and I never knock before entering one another's room, and it wasn't an issue. "Hey, get your lazy butt outta bed before you get us in shit."
Stretching her arms up over her head like a cat, Dee let out a moan, "Come on Ben, you're killin me. You know that I heard you getting up only a few minutes ago, don't you?" Looking at my hands she sat up surprised, "Oh, what's that, breakfast in bed?"
"Yeah, if breakfast is served at noon. After we eat, lets set-up a game plan so that when mom and dad ask, we can tell them that we some sort of routine."
"Oh, come on. I just want to relax for a few days. Let's be American and misbehave for once." Her pouty face almost had me convinced that she was serious.
"Whatever you want, but tonight at supper they'll want to know what's up."
Being the "older" child Dee did come up with a plan, we moved all of her electronics and desk into my room and my thick memory foam mattress into her room next to her bed. School and games room were set-up in my room and sleeping would be done in her room.
She was actually pretty proud of the arrangements. Our mom's only concern was the fact that we had the Xbox hooked up in the room where we were to be studying. Really? The idea of two 18-year-olds, one male, one female, sharing the same room to sleep didn't warrant any questions. I would imagine that our past history and the fact that we had cohabitated bedrooms in other countries put her mind to rest.
