Episode Notes
While self isolating to avoid a global pandemic an eccentric rich man begins to realize his past is after him as much as any virus.
Quarantine: A Story of Isolation by Keith Tomlin
Music by Ray Mattis
http://raymattispresents.bandcamp.com
Produced by Daniel Wilder
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Transcription:
Chester Lytle stretched his legs and turned the page in the book he was reading.  Although he rarely allowed himself to think it, he was alone in the world.  He had no friends and his father, the last of his relatives, died when he was a teenager. When Chester turned eighteen, he inherited a small family fortune in a trust that took care of all of his needs.   He never had to work a day in his life, which gave him plenty of time to pursue his only passion, books.  
With a book, he could be transported anywhere in the world, anywhere in the galaxy.  He can be a captain of a ship hunting a great white whale, he can command starships, pursue criminals through the streets of 1920’s Chicago, and be a great ball player, beloved by an entire nation.  Books were his refuge, his safe place from horrors and pains of life.  The world outside his door may crazy and deadly but he was safe and sound, alone, in his comfortable house in a small town in Connecticut. 
When Chester first heard reports of a mysterious new disease rising out of China, he knew it would only be a matter of time before it came to America.  He had read enough novels about pandemics, plagues, and outbreaks to know that someone, somewhere, screwed up and unleashed a demon upon the world.  He was not surprised when a lockdown was instituted and, to tell the truth, it wasn’t much of a change for him.  Chester liked the isolation, it felt comfortable, like an old friend, not that he knew what a friend felt like.  
On this night, the night of Chester’s death, he was reading a story about a pirate king who fell in love with a serving wench and was now facing a ship full of mutinous sailors.  His first mate, the instigator of the mutiny, had just grabbed the pirate king’s one true love and held a knife to her throat.  Chester’s breath quickened as he hurriedly turned the page to see how the pirate king would prevail and save his queen.
Scratch
The strange noise broke Chester’s concentration.  He shook his head as if waking from a dream and looked around the room.  Every wall in the living room was lined with bookshelves, each one stuffed with hard cover books, paperbacks, and manuscripts of all kinds.  The room was dimly lit by a gas fireplace, throwing strange and mysterious shadows around the room.
He cocked his head and listened for the noise again.  
“What was that?”, he mumbled to himself.  He spent a few minutes more listening, silently trying to probe the deep shadows around the bookcases.  When the noise did not repeat itself, he shrugged and bent his head back to his book.  He started reading again but the spell was broken.  He couldn’t summon up the scene that had been playing in his head.  He tried going back a few pages to see if that would kickstart the story but it was no use, the magic had faded.  Sighing, he put the book down, carefully inserting a bookmaker to preserve his spot.  
Chester stood and stretched, his back cracking as he arched backwards.  He realized that he has been slacking on his calisthenics.  Maybe he’ll try to get in 20 jumping jacks before bed, he thought absently.  He walked to the doorway, turning sideways to slide between the two bookshelves that partially blocked the opening between the living room and dining room.  
The dining room was also lined with bookcases.  These shelves were even more crammed with books than the den.  Stacks of well-read paperbacks covered most of the floor, leaving only a path to get from the small table and single chair in the middle of the room to the three doorways, leading to the living room, kitchen, and hallway.  
Squeak
Chester stopped.  He stared, confused, at the floor.  He gingerly began applying more pressure to his front foot, testing the floorboard that he was standing on.  When he first heard the noise, he thought it may have come from there but the more he thought about it, the more he was sure it came from his left, towards the hallway.  
“This is strange”, he said out loud.  His voice cracked as he spoke.  He wasn’t used to speaking above a whisper but he felt he had to say something to break the eerie silence that had dropped over the room.  
Chester held his breath and listened, thinking that he had to be alone, no one else could have gotten in here without him hearing them.  Each of the windows and the backdoor have been boarded up and the house was sealed tight to keep out light, sound, and disease.  The front door had nearly a dozen locks on it.  He only opened it every other week when he received his supply of food and reading material and that was only after he was sure the delivery person was long gone. 
Chester had no idea who delivered his supplies, the family trust took care of everything. To him, it was almost like magic, everything he needed seemed to show up without him having to ask for it.  He then wondered if he had a book with a story about a dashing young hero that fought off home invaders.  That may be a good for a thrill before bedtime. He seemed to remember a book of short stories in the bathroom…. He stumbled as he suddenly realized that he had been holding his breath this whole time. He loudly exhaled, taking a few quick deep breaths to clear the dizzy feeling from his head.  
The strange noise already forgotten, he headed into the kitchen to make himself dinner.  He absently stepped over the stack of paperbacks that line the kitchen doorway and walked to the kitchen cabinets.  Opening up a cabinet door, he selected the lone plate sitting on a shelf.  He then reached into the breadbox and pulled out 2 slices of white bread, placing them on the plate.  Turing to the fridge, he opened the door and looked over the shelves which housed a partial gallon of milk and several packages of butcher paper containing various types of lunch meat. He thoughtfully pondered over what type of sandwich he wanted before finally selecting a package of sliced turkey.  He deliberately pulled out 4 slices of turkey meat and placed them onto a slice of bread.  He put the second piece of bread on top and made sure the sandwich was centered on the plate.  
Next comes his favorite part of dinner; desert.  Chester opened up a drawer and looked longingly at a pack of vanilla crème cookies.  Whomever delivered his supply of groceries only give cookies once a month so he was careful to ration them.  Shivering with anticipation, he reached into the drawer to grab the three cookies that he would eat with his meal.    
“What?” he exclaimed when he found nothing but crumbs.  There should have been enough for at least three more days but the package was empty.  Dumbfounded, he picked it up and shook it, showering the counter with crumbs that fell from a ragged hole in the back of the package.  Turning it over, he stared at that hole for several seconds.
It slowly dawned on him that something had chewed through the plastic wrapper and ate his cookies, that something was loose in the house, that something had invaded his space, his safe zone.  His mind flashed through the endless possibilities of what this creature may be.  He thought of stories with creatures from outer space, demons from the darkest pits of hell, and fairies from tales of old.  He finally realized the only logical explanation would be…
“A mouse?”, he whispered out loud.  
“A mouse.”, he said, in a firm voice.
“A mouse!  A goddamn mouse in my goddamn house!”, he exclaimed loudly.
At the edge of his peripheral vision, he seen something dart out of the kitchen, running between stacks of books, into the dining room.  Chester gave a guttural growl and picked up the closet object he could reach and threw it at the creature.  The empty package of cookies only flew a few feet before slowly floating to the ground.  Chester’s face turned red with the shame he used to feel as a child when he tried to play sports with the other kids.  The indignity of it was too much and he charged into the dining room, kicking over stacks of paperbacks as he ran.  
Breathing hard, he stopped to listen and, upon hearing nothing, he arbitrarily chose to proceed down the hall.  He paused every few stops, drawing on the lessons he learned reading countless stories about great hunters stalking prey in the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa.  He made a point not to think about the fact that a great hunter would not accidentally kick a copy of The Great Gatsby down the hall causing a stack of mid-century French poetry books to topple over.  He stopped at the bathroom and flicked on the light.  Looking at the piles and piles of books, for the first time he no longer saw adventure and romance, he only saw all the dark places where an enemy could hide.   
Chester nudged a pile of books with his foot, jumping back in anticipation of a rabid rodent leaping out to attack him.  When nothing happened, he felt like a fool, his face once again turning red with shame.  Disgusted with himself, he kicked another pile of book.  He shrieked with panic when a mouse did pop out from behind that pile, ran across his foot, and out into the hall.  Falling back and landing on his rear, he caught a quick glance of the small furry brown creature squirming under the door of the spare bedroom, across the hall from the bathroom.  
Trying to rise to his feet, Chester slipped on some paperbacks before his feet found purchase and he smashed into the bathroom doorknob. He grunted as pain exploded from his hip but h