Apocalypse 2020

The year is 2020, it started as every year does, with trepidation, hope, promise and in January. January lasted for precisely 73 days, followed by the shortest February on record, lasting just over 10 minutes and 24 seconds. Then along marched March and March laughed in the face of January and February, March laughed at us all. For it was March that said ‘Cancel your plans people, I have another idea!’ We all said ‘No March, how could you?!’ In horrified unison, but March didn’t care. It was the start of the quarantine, a word we only knew from history books and sci-fi films, but soon came to know very well indeed. Quarantine meant queuing outside of the shop, far away from your fellow quarantiners, but close enough to wonder what good the mask was doing around their chin while they had a smoke, or the gloves they were wearing whilst picking their teeth, often muttering ‘I prefer it like this, it would be better if they had this queue system permanently’.

Once in the shop, quarantine squirms in your belly, it tells you to be wary, you hurtle around the shop like Dale Winton has just released you, pushing the trolly with the alarmingly damp handle, disinfectant, you reassure yourself, though you can’t really be confident. You pick things up gingerly, resigned to the fact that you have to buy whatever you touch because you daren’t put it back incase you are unwittingly infecting someone, so you run with it, even though you were just curious about what Leather and Cookies Lynx would smell like, you have to run with it now, you are Leather and Cookies. People in the supermarket pass you at a distance of 1.8 metres and you gasp audibly, claiming nothing could surprise you now. How wrong you are. You look along the toilet paper aisle and you realise you were a naive fool, full of young hope and misguided dreams. All that remains on the toilet roll battle field are discarded sheets scattered haphazardly across the aisle as though they lay in eager anticipation of your tears. You stagger backwards in horror and something stumbles from the shelf above, you shudder upon closer inspection, the last remaining toilet roll, the super market savers pack, you can already feel the scratch, but you grin in the face of it, grateful to have found such treasure. You hurriedly retreat from the toilet roll in search of some comfort food, but to your horror all you find is a broken jar of Dolmio splattered in the centre of the aisle like a murder scene, the only witnesses, a few recklessly abandoned conchiglie shells. You urge yourself not to cry, for alas, you aren’t allowed to touch your face. A lump of sadness and unease wells up in your throat but you cannot clear it, people will hear and it will incite a panic. It rapidly develops into the need to cough, you stifle it. Seconds drag into agonising minutes until your eyes are set to burst forth from your skull through restraint. All you know now is that devilish tickle in your throat and the oddly comforting smell of Leather and Cookies. You know it is only a little cough, but you don’t wish to alarm people. You rush through the check out, eager to get back to the safety of your car so you can clear your throat. You hold the cashiers wary gaze with a confident stare as they scan your seven chocolate cakes. They tell you how much you owe, it is £70 more than you expected to owe, you are quite sure you only bought biscuits, it matters not, you salute the cashier for doing a wonderful job in such a difficult time and quickly pay so you can burst out into the outdoors and breathe deeply and freely and once a little further, in the privacy of your front seat, cough with abandon.

Once home you look at the mound of biscuits, crisps, chocolates, cakes, champagne and hot tubs that you bought and kick yourself. You put your shopping away, adding the fruit you convinced yourself you would eat to the mound of browning fruit you convinced yourself you would eat last week. Now quarantine really begins, you lay down on the sofa, but having laid there everyday for the last 3 weeks your spine aches and your shoulders protest, so you consider going into the garden and exercising. You lay on the sofa in pain for the next 8 hours. You hear the rumble of thunder, but the sun is shining?! Nay, ‘tis not thunder! ‘Tis bin day! You curse. You are quite sure you put the bin out two days ago, how can it possibly be bin day and anyway it’s Friday. You check your phone, it is Wednesday. You assure yourself you will put the bin out later, you forget.

The next morning is another fine quarantine morning, you wake up, the sun is shining and you are well rested, you stretch and smile as you head downstairs for breakfast in your pyjamas. Your partner blinks in your vicinity, you are full of rage.

Tea time rolls around in a heartbeat and all day you have been thinking of the healthy and nutritious meal you were going to cook, but now you’ve left it too late and you are too hungry to make good choices and when one cannot make good choices one must at least make a Quaver sandwich. Your partner lectures you on the importance of a balanced diet and not eating crisps and bread for every meal, for that’s what quarantine wants. You watch with venom the next day as he eats a tube of Pringles and a KitKat for tea.

The strange instrument on your wrist has ever changing numbers on it but you no longer know what they mean, every day when the numbers say 10.40 it vibrates but you can’t remember why, maybe you never really knew why.

You regularly FaceTime your friends and family and the call either lasts ten minutes because no one has anything new to say or seven hours of alcohol fuelled chaos.

Your partner pulls out some dusty clippers one day, you must not engage him, avoid all eye contact and try to disarm him if you can, if you can’t, stay very still and he will eventually think that you have vanished. Do not let him near your dogs. You watch in glee as you find him trying to shave his head in the mirror claiming it is very easy, you snicker at the furry tufts dotted over his head. What did I tell you about the dogs, how could you let this happen? You weep. A strange, thin, four legged twiglet creature with an impossibly small head comes over to you and tries to comfort you, it suggests barking at pedestrians through the window to cheer you up. You decide to download tiktok to see what the fuss is about, you blink and three days have passed. You hear your front gate swing open and dive behind the sofa in fear, all of your window barking training forgotten. You cower behind cushions, why is there somebody at the door? Thank the heavens, for it is not a chance visitor, ’tis the noble postman! You chant your gratitude to him, he runs down the path screaming, confused, you look in the mirror, you only see Captain Caveman in the reflection.

Your partner finds you in the kitchen, chatting to potatoes, he gently steers you away, you are not potato, even if you feel like potato.

It’s Thursday now, you spare a thought for those who have sadly lost their lives and those who have lost their loved ones, for those who are suffering and for those who are struggling. Your wrist instrument says 20.00 and you know it means you must stand on your front garden full of pride as you clap and cheer for the amazing NHS workers and everyone else working so hard through the pandemic, you can hear crowds of people doing the same, probably in their pyjamas like you are, but that doesn’t matter because it’s an amazing thing to hear and all at once you are reminded that you are not alone, we are all in this together, even if we are spread a little further than we would like.