"Hi, how're you doing!" the clerk chanted as I entered the hardware store. "Can I help you find anything?"

It took me a moment to process - not that this was confusing, but after weeks of barely any social interaction even by my standards, it felt weird just being acknowleged as a human being in the first place. The masks weren't helping, either; half the visual cues were hidden, and I had to look people in the eye to even guess how they felt towards me, if their (muffled) tone of voice didn't give it away. (Plus, it gave me the nagging impression that they were either going to rob me at gunpoint, or perform dental surgery.)

"I, uh, th-thanks, I'm good," I stammered. In reality, I didn't know where the plumbing section was, but it shouldn't be hard to find; there was no need for her to get any closer and risk one of us infecting the other. (God, how warped was it when you were evaluating every interaction with other human beings primarily in terms of disease vectors?)

She smiled and nodded in that customer-service way that didn't necessarily indicate any actual pleasure at the exchange, and I headed towards the back in search of the right aisle, wondering whether she was miffed or relieved at not having to help me. It was hard enough to figure people out when they weren't half-concealed...

I'm happy for you. I sighed heavily into my face-mask, filling my nostrils with a rush of warm, stale air and fogging my glasses; I had to stop and wipe them off on my shirt. How hard was that to say, really? Was it such a betrayal of principle to let yourself believe that someone was legitimately happy when they said they were, even if it didn't make a lick of sense to you?

It was plain to see that Nicole was jazzed about her change, even though - no, because - she was more radically altered than most victims. If it weren't for the possibility that the virus was encouraging it, I'd see no reason to suspect that she wasn't really happy about that, however irrational it might seem to me. Even then, I couldn't quite convince myself. The addled behavior pre-metamorphosis helped spread the disease, but she wasn't acting that way now; but if she was still infectious, it'd make no sense for her to stop, so it stood to reason she was "clean" and her enthusiasm genuine.^° But then...why did it bother me this much?

^° (Plus, let's be real, it was entirely in keeping with what I knew of her before.)

...It just felt so much like this was pre-ordained. Like I was going to end up in the same position no matter how I tried. I'd done what I was supposed to; I was staying in,^° wasn't I? But I'd watched the news, seen the reports on the spread of the pandemic, and now it'd come all the way to my doorstep and stared me right in the face. Despite my best efforts, I had a nagging feeling that somewhere out there was a spike protein with my name on it...

^° (Okay, I was out now, but there were extenuating circumstances, and I was taking all the precautions.)

It could be lurking anywhere, even now. I'd always valued my personal space, but I had gotten intimately aware of the space around me, the buffer between myself and everyone else, since this started. I could feel the mass of people pressing in around me, even though there was hardly anyone here and I had the whole aisle to myself; I wasn't claustrophobic, but I wondered if this was what it felt like. And even "social distancing" would only do so much when we were all breathing the same air...

I rounded an endcap and nearly jumped; there was a catgirl there, browsing through the shelves with all the little tubs of screws. I immediately felt like a tool; what was I doing, freaking out over just seeing one!? If I genuinely didn't think they were a danger, what was there to be afraid of? But no matter how irrational it was, I couldn't fully suppress my unease.

To my chagrin, she clearly noticed. "Oh! Mya, 'scuse me," she said nervously, moving to one side; then she realized her tail was still jutting into the middle of the aisle and lashed it around for a bit trying to get it out of the way, finally just grabbing it with one hand and holding it against her leg. I could tell she was struggling to keep it from twitching back into place behind her.

"Uh, n-no, not at all, s-sorry," I stammered through my mask, really feeling like a jackass now. I sidled past her, trying to stay safely clear without giving the impression that I was avoiding her. God, she must think I'm a huge jerk... I glanced back out of the corner of my eye as I rounded the other endcap and moved on to the next aisle, trying not to be too obvious about it.

She was petite and calico-furred, her hair the same golden-brown as the patches on her ears and tail. She was back to browsing the screws, and didn't look deeply injured, but I had little experience at reading catgirl body language. If anything, she seemed generallyfidgety and uneasy, glancing nervously around, tail lashing. She was clearly still new to having it, and I wondered whether it was only the "cat" part that was new for her. Was she self-conscious because people looked at her as a freak, a symbol of something they feared? Or was it because they categorized^° her as belonging to a group she never had previously?

^° (Damn it.)

I didn't think that was the case; it was hard to say from our brief interaction, but nothing about her gave me the feeling that she was really a man in a woman's body. But then, how would I know? If this thing could alter your behavior pre-transformation, if it could rewire your brain so that you had to learn to speak all over again afterward, why couldn't it make you, well, girlier? In a crowd of strangers, would anyone know?

...would you even know...?

With a shudder, I forced that thought to the back of my mind, searching for an alternative. What was I thinking about before this? Ah, right, me being an insensitive jerk to people over my own paranoia. Second verse, same as the first, I thought with a sigh, my glasses fogging up again.

Was I being unfair in imagining that Nicole would be an advocate for her new state of being, a catgirl evangelist? After all, she'd framed it as a question, back then, and she hadn't tried to push me into agreeing with her, had she? It was probably pretty natural to wonder if just ending up with a tail would be such a big deal, especially for someone who was more than usually fond of cats, right? Just because someone had...odd tastes didn't necessarily mean they'd inevitably project them onto other people...

...except that it so often seemed like they did. There was nothing wrong with Parker being an exercise fanatic, f'rexample, but the thing about fanatics is that they're, well, fanatical - so wrapped up in what they find fulfilling that they can't comprehend anyone not being just as enamored of it, and convinced that anyone who isn't must simply not have realized it yet, and it's their sacred duty to help them see the light. And sure - maybe it would do me some good to get in better shape; but I had other priorities, and there was nothing wrong with that.

But was that what was going on here? Was it right of me to assume she was a fanatic just because she was a fan? Or was I the one projecting here, measuring her up against my standards for "normal" and concluding that someone who was happy to be so far out of the norm must be against it? Was this that thing where people think that if you don't oppose something vehemently enough, you must support it? Was I just struggling to accept her acceptance because I was afraid of what people would think about me...?

Ah, here we go. Having finally stumbled onto the plumbing section, I scanned the shelves and found a new flap. It didn't look too complicated to replace; I could go home, have coffee, knock this out, and then...maybe drop Nicole a line to apologize for freaking out on her and try to explain myself. It was startling to come face-to-face with an entirely new kind of creature for the first time in your life and have to square that with the fact that it used to be your nice normal-ish neighbor, sure, but being a little weirded out by it didn't make it okay to assume that she wanted me to become-

"I bet you'd be cute. ...You know, if it did get you."

With a shudder, I grabbed the part and scuttled off to the register, feeling the weight of the not-even-a-crowd pressing upon me, catching stray movements across my field of vision that I knew were just "floaters" but fancifully imagined to be oversized virions drifting by, trying to regulate my breathing and keep from hyperventilating, lest it increase the risk of exposure...

I managed to keep my composure through the checkout process and (I thought) not come off as too much of a whackjob to the clerk, but by the time I exited the building I felt like I was escaping Tartarus, not daring to look back lest I be trapped for eternity. I was about to rip the stupid mask off and finally breathe free when I almost bowled into a gaggle of ignorant yahoos coming the other way, all of them maskless and yukking it up like idiots.

I turned and stared as they barrelled into the store, blatantly ignoring the sign taped to the door. I wondered briefly if I should call them out, but...well, it wasn't my job to make everybody else behave like responsible adults; there wasn't enough time in the day for that. I did feel bad about leaving it to the clerk, but she wasn't the only one working; the guy manning the power-tool-rental desk looked like he'd make a serviceable bouncer, in a pinch. And God knew what those slackjaws might be carrying, epidemiologically...

I turned back to the parking lot, glancing over my shoulder and directing a wave of searing inner contempt at them. You wouldn't do that if you knew what you were risking, ya cretins! I wanted to yell after them, but it wasn't like they'd hear me...

As I got back in the Bug, I found that I was shaking; I wasn't sure if it was from rage or terror. I took off my mask and spent a minute breathing deeply, steadying my nerves; then I drove home, fixed the toilet, had coffee, and spent the rest of the day dedicatedly dead to the world, immersed in other realities. From next door, I heard a lot of feline hubbub, as Nicole (presumably) indulged in her newfound kinship with and closeness to her beloved companions...