FEAR
I am afraid that this will last too long.
Too long to be able to call what we once had normal.
What if I refuse to adapt and live in denial; go in for hugs and be palmed off on to the pavement; what will they think?
What on earth do they think? I think sadly to myself at home alone in my kitchen: nobody wants this so – what does that mean?
Eventually, we will become reckless and touch hands to face, to cough and splutter and inadvertently kill off the sick and elderly. How un-caring would that be, and could we live with ourselves after that kind of revolution?
I’m disgusted to even think of it and slam my glass down on the Ikea tabletop. I am not worse off, I’ve not been directly hit by this pandemic, so why am I sitting here being morose when there are people far worse off, dealing with poverty and a lack of space and being displaced.
It puts me in an angry state, I feel caged in and helpless, I feel stupid and lethargic and incapable of doing anything good in the world. This whole thing makes me lose hope.
I want to talk about the fear of not knowing.
Not knowing whether what you are doing is right or wrong, or how you even feel about it in the grand scheme of things. People hope the government is doing the right thing, but of course they can’t be because no one knows what the hell to do, no one understands, there’s too much opposing data, too many questions that bring rise to more questions.
Unlike a maths problem where there’s a cribsheet and fun to solve, the situation is forty thousand dead in eight months and the numbers are mounting.
EXT. TREE LINED STREET - DAY
The diagnosis of covid is not black and white.
It’s much more complicated than what the public think.
Why aren’t we listening to the doctors who say that lockdown is going to cause more damage to public health than no lockdown?
Fatigue. That’s the big issue.
You mean post-viral fatigue syndrome?
No, the public’s feeling of fatigue.
INT. BASEMENT FLOOR KITCHEN - NIGHT
When was the last time you felt alive?
This very morning when I woke up alive and breathing, awake.
Is that what living is – being stuck in your locale, not communicating with society out of fear of infection? Is that really living?
When you put it like that, then no.
That’s what I’m talking about, man.
What if we learn to live small-y. Buy kittens, knead sourdough, prune plants and learn to forage mushrooms.
Get into home-schooling and cycle to work, get to know your neighbours and not rely on quick fixes to solve our mundane problems because we’re too poor to be click-baited all year round, out of season.
But what about the daters?
I heard us couples became smug in our lockdown bubble o’ bliss. What about those of us who have to find a soul-mate, or someone to cuddle up to when the outside world seeps into your core.
Penetrated by those desperate quiet stares of strangers sat across from you in train carriages, lips and softness smothered by a stretched piece of cloth. All you can do is swallow and hope that this will soon be over.
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