To be honest, the scheme’s inevitable failure was a main reason I agreed to go. Say what you will about the bubble - that it was a cynical money grab or a beacon of hope - the other thing to say was that it would never, ever, ever, ever work. bubble was like a circus crossed with a corporate retreat crossed with a space mission. Regular citizens, quarantined at home, could watch it all on television. Games would take place in arenas without crowds. Players would live in strict isolation at Disney resorts, where they would have access to the kind of rapid daily virus testing that, for months, the rest of the nation had been begging for. In the midst of our global nightmare, the world’s most powerful basketball league decided to finish its season in the candy-colored refuge of the world’s most famous theme park. bubble sounds ridiculous, like a devastating parody of consumer capitalism. I was here to escape the United States and enter the N.B.A. I had come, absurdly, to watch basketball. I had not come, this time, for childish fun - to eat frozen bananas and be splashed by simulated cannonballs in the Pirates of the Caribbean. Disney World’s cheerful entrance felt like an exit for a road that had been closed for decades - the route to an old American fantasy that had permanently expired.
I had stopped exercising and lost much of my hair one of the arms of my glasses had snapped in half, but I never got them fixed, so now they tilted at crazy angles on my face. For six months, my soul had been clenched in a fist of worry. The airplane to Orlando was nearly empty, as was the airport itself. I had been there earlier this year with my family and, against my will, I loved it.īut now I was alone. It promises frictionless fun to anyone who can afford the entrance fee. A grand arch promised, in looping cursive script, that I had reached the place “Where Dreams Come True.”ĭisney World, in normal times, is a sealed kingdom of childish joy. Billboards advertised gun shows and hospitals and lawyers and Botox.Īnd then there they were: Mickey and Minnie Mouse, standing on either side of the road, making white-gloved gestures of welcome. The freeway took me past multiple theme parks - SeaWorld and Universal Studios and a Bible-based attraction called The Holy Land Experience. The dashboard thermometer said 100 degrees. Florida’s atmosphere was gushing in all over, swamping me with its jungly breath.
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I was driving alone in a hypersanitized rental car, wearing two masks and a pair of disposable gloves, with all the windows rolled down to blast out any lingering virus. The moment I entered Walt Disney World, I felt extremely sad.
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