The corona pandemic of 2019-21 has shown, how deeply the problems of infection, distance rules, disease progression and therapy options are intertwined with the fundamental values of individual lifestyle and social cohesion. While social sciences deal with strategies of planning, prevention and preparedness, literary texts rather depict the subjective experience in its representation of the pandemic, concern issues of coexistence and also raise ethical questions. In this context I studied literary texts by authors like Lola Randl and Juli Zeh (2020/21). As these contemporary literary texts show, the pandemic can trigger experiences of unavailability and strangeness. Like other incisive crises of the recent past and present, the Covid-19 pandemic showed how fragile the supposed human control and predictability of the world indeed are. The corona virus, which not only eludes comprehensive control but also immediate perception, hits directly on the moment when human efforts to be available still fail, that is, physical deterioration and finally death. For philosophers like H. Rosa, SARS-CoV-2 is nothing less than ‘the epitome of monstrous unavailability’. The experiences of unavailability caused by the pandemic also lead to feelings of alienation from the previously familiar environment that has become temporarily inaccessible.