IT HAS BEEN 11 months since anyone hugged Larry. The 62-year-old accountant lives alone in Chicago, which went into lockdown last March in response to co-vid-19. He has heart problems so he has stayed at home since then. The only people to touch him have been latex-sheathed nurses taking his blood pressure. Larry describes himself as a "touchy-feely" person. Sex is nice, but more than that he longs for casual platonic contact: hugs and handshakes. He lies in bed, he says, yearning to have someone to hold or to hold him. The pandemic has been an exercise in subtraction. There are the voids left by loved ones who have succumbed to co-vid-19, the gaps where jobs and school used to be, and the absence of friends and family. And then there are the smaller things that are missing. To stop the spread of co-vid-19 people have forsaken the handshakes, pats, squeezes and strokes that warm daily interactions. The loss of any one hardly seems worthy of note.
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