Covid Madness

Colin jumped as his mother slammed the newspaper down on the breakfast table. It skimmed the tomato sauce bottle and sent it toppling over onto its side, dribbling clots of sticky red paste across the tabletop.

His father raised his eyes to meet those of his wife, then reached over and righted the bottle, making as much comment on her outburst as he would in most situations. This had never deterred his mother in the past, and it didn’t now. She began to rant in answer to a question that Colin’s father certainly hadn’t asked but she appeared to have heard anyway.

“Bloody stupid people. It says in the paper today that there have been people out, leaving their houses and gathering at other peoples’ houses, sneaking out to see their grandmas when they think no one is watching. It’s no bloody wonder the world is in the state it is in now.”

“Calm down Jodie,” the sedate, seldom heard voice of Colin's father beseeched her. “You’re getting all overexcited about something that doesn’t even affect you---."

Well, that was the wrong thing to say as far as Colin could see. His mum had just turned a very vibrant purple. The colour was rising from underneath the collar of her blouse and creeping its way in ugly patches up her face. Colin thought he could actually see it clawing its way up. Changing like the skin of an octopus. He could remember eating some grapes that were that colour once, but it wasn’t something he thought looked so healthy in a person. She was suddenly all elbows, angles, and spikes as she hit her stride.

Colin tuned out what his parents were almost shouting at each other and watched them as a silent movie where he could insert his own meaning and dialogue. There could be no meaning taken from it other than anger, but in his mind it was the comic frustration of a cartoon. Sparks flying because one character doesn’t agree with another and neither can be talked around. He could see the steam coming from his mother’s ears.

Colin had heard of this Covid thing. He had no real concept of what it was, but it seemed to him like it had been an important subject throughout his very short life. His mum was always talking about all the people who had died and how everyone is doing everything wrong. She seemed to think if they had acted differently this Covid monster wouldn’t be here. Was it actually a monster? Did it eat people? Colin had a very clear idea in his mind about this but as much as he had been looking, he hadn’t seen a Covid monster yet---he didn’t think.

He wasn’t aware that anyone he knew had died but then to his young mind, death just really meant going away for a while. A lot of people had been doing that lately it seemed to him. All the kids from day care must have gone away with their families because he wasn’t going there anymore. Daddy hadn’t been out to work for ages either, so maybe the men he worked with had gone away too. Did that mean they were dead? Colin wasn’t sure and there never seemed to be a good time to ask his mum, she was always prickly and didn’t really seem to notice him much.

Colin bit the inside of his lip. There was so much he didn’t know. If he could get his dad away from his upset mum for a little while, maybe he could ask him. He must have been staring at his dad as he thought this because the soft brown eyes turned to him. They looked sad, watery; they had lost the mischievous twinkle that made Colin giggle. He did sense a question in them though. His dad was asking him if he was ok. Colin nodded slightly and smiled a tiny smile, while sliding off his seat to the floor. The table blocked the view of those eyes that he trusted, but he was sure they weren’t for him anymore, they had gone back to fielding the crazy that his mum was throwing around the kitchen.

Colin knew he wasn’t allowed outside unless he asked one of his parents first; but the house just seemed so angry and full of sad feeling, that he did it without thinking. He was an imaginative child and that was where he played, in the recesses of his imagination. Never did he pretend to walk the plank, for instance, he would do it for real. He would feel his stomach drop as he took his heroic step from the salt slicked board. The water was a cold embrace, pulling him down, until he emerged, miraculously free of his bonds to scale the ship and rescue his fair maiden (usually much to his despair, the cat). If he wasn’t a four-year-old he would have made the most believable actor and told the most fantastic stories.

The sky was leaden and not a glimmer of sun pierced it, but Colin felt its warmth all the same. He turned to see where it was coming from and watched as the old, dead pear tree (the one mum had been talking about cutting down forever) elongated and reached its dry, gnarled branches to the sky. It continued to get taller and taller, ripping through the cloud so the sun shone down like it was a summers day. As the shining rays touched the bark of the old tree it burst into life. Shoots opened into waxy emerald foliage and nestled among the leaves were the most golden, juicy looking pears Colin had ever seen. They each had a perfect rosy highlight to their rounded, succulent body and Colin suddenly found himself hungry. He hadn’t eaten his breakfast because of his mum’s outburst so how could he resist his favourite fruit of them all?

The cat, who had transformed himself into a sleek and majestic tiger was already slinking, in that way only felines can, towards the pear tree. Colin paused; he wasn’t supposed to go near the pear tree. Mum said it wasn’t safe.

“Come with me,” purred the tiger, bracing himself to jump elegantly to the first branch. “This tree is the path to other worlds, worlds with giants and fairies and even llamas. All you have to do is climb. We can take the pears with us as presents and make some new friends now all of yours have gone away.”

“Can we find some friends for my dad too”? asked Colin. He didn’t wait for an answer though, because that was the last thought of the real world rudely intruding on his mind before he lost himself to the magic of the pear tree. He could hear the whisper of the fairies even from the ground and as he began to climb, following the tiger he saw flashes of silvery wings in the higher reaches. He thought of seeing a real llama. What were they anyway? He had only seen pictures and they looked like a mythical creature that he really wanted to meet.

A beautiful glittery-skinned face appeared between two branches. It was only about the size of his four-year-old hand. He couldn’t quite decide what colour it was as it seemed to change with every passing millisecond. If rainbow could be one colour, he supposed that would be the colour of the fairy in front of him. She was tiny, like a doll but she didn’t have the stupid stuck out plastic arms or ugly fake hair. She moved like water, as though there was barely any substance to her and that, if he had wanted to, he could pass his chubby, dimpled hand straight through her. She was quite simply the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Colin plucked a pear from a nearby branch and shyly handed it to the fairy. She accepted it with a grin and kissed him smartly on the cheek. It seemed she didn’t talk much, like Colin’s dad, as she took a huge bite of the pear, spraying juice everywhere, without ever saying a word. She gnawed away at the pear until there wasn’t a pip left, then with a laugh that sounded like the ringing of a tiny bell, she rose from the branch on kaleidoscope wings.

Colin felt immediately sad. He thought he had made a friend and now she was leaving him too. He hung his head and sighed. Right then, a little hand appeared in his view. The fairy was holding it out to him, trying to get his attention. She wanted him to take it and come with her. Colin was overjoyed. He wanted to be the fairy’s friend and he would follow her anywhere.

She took off from the branch again and indicated that he should do the same. She took hold of his hand and nodded enthusiastically in encouragement. Colin looked to the tiger to see if he had an opinion on whether this was likely to work but he was busy cleaning between the toes of his huge orange paws with his rough pink tongue and didn’t appear to have an opinion either way. This was a problem he had had before when he went on adventures with the cat, he just couldn’t stay in character, he was always just the cat.

Colin took strength from the touch of his new friend’s hand. If she could fly, why couldn’t he?

He stood up on the branch which gave him a view back through the breakfast room window. His parents were still there but they weren’t part of this adventure, they were just characters on the TV screen that the window had become.

As he stepped out into the open and wonderfully free air and it began to gather speed around him, he saw his parents notice him. He watched his father’s open mouthed, but silent howl of horror. His mother threw the newspaper that she has been waving away from her and ran for the back door. Why did they look so sad, so scared? Colin wanted them to be proud of him. Couldn’t they see he was flying?