What Time-Stopped, Disconnect Weirdness Is This?

June 2021

Being back in my old stomping grounds feels different this time around. This hasn’t been just a journey of crossing an ocean. This trip’s been interplanetary. And nearly as time-consuming.

I’ve stepped back into 2019. Except some people are wearing masks.

But the crowds are the same. The traffic, same. The sports stadiums and sports bars, same.

A walk into the over-sized grocery store. Signs on the doors and windows.

I can get Covid tested and vaccinated? Here, in-store?

Yet the non-masked look at me like I’m a foreigner.

I’m not. I’m you.

Born and bred.

What the hell has happened since 2019?

But my stress has eased now. I made it. I’m back Stateside.

A few weeks’ reprieve before I have to worry again about travel and all the new-normal restrictions and hoops, just to get home.

All I have to worry about for now is Covid. I can manage that.

I’m double-jabbed. I can prove it. I have papers. But no proof needed.

Not here.

“We’ve re-opened.” they said.

Different world.

It’s time. My few weeks are up. Let the stress return.

July 2021

“The Federal Govt War Room has just halved the incoming traveller allowance.” The news blared.

Shit. Waiting for the airline email telling me they have cancelled my flights.

I say ‘flights’ because flying direct is as outdated as 2019. The airline I came over on doesn’t fly into my country of citizenship.

Few airlines do.

They only want out.

Another Covid swab.

They don’t care here, but my government back home does.

I can take public transport with the masses to the airport. Sit in amongst the 1,000s. But I’ll board my flight amongst 30.

“Your documents are in order, Sir.”

I’m onboard. Re-entry might just work yet.

Landed! I’m home!

Or am I?

“Do not de-board this plane. Federal police will escort you.”

Show us your papers. Any symptoms? Where have you been?

Name? Date of birth? Passport.

I’ve arrived in a military police state.

What mind-fuck disconnect weirdness is this?

The questions and directions soon become a mantra.

Next checkpoint, repeat the mantra.

Shuttled to hotel quarantine. Police and military have replaced the hotel staff.

Hotel California’s new check-in desk sits in front of Hotel 2019’s reception counter, only not as efficiently.

“Your papers are in order. A guard will escort you to your room.”

“Stand over there. Touch nothing.”

Click. “Your room.” Door slam.

Me, myself and I. Two weeks.

No room key… guess that’s the point, isn’t it.

Phone rings. What was that they said on the prisoner shuttle bus? Something about not answering elicits a police response?

“Hello?”

Nurse asks me questions, then tells me my brown bag lunch will arrive shortly. ‘Don’t answer the door. Wait 30 seconds. Wear a mask. Always wear a mask.’

‘Reception’ calls. Checking I’ve got everything. Masks? Check. Information pack (that tries to explain government logic)? Check.

Doctor calls. Hard to get a moment’s peace here in solitary confinement.

Seems I answered a question wrong when speaking with the nurse earlier.

“We’re going to move you.”

“What? Why?”

“To a medical hotel.”

“But there are nurses here. And I’m speaking to a doctor.”

“This is a police hotel. You mentioned sleep apnea. We must move you to a medical hotel.”

Knock, knock, knock.

I put on my mask, wait the guessed at 30 seconds.

A small bottle of sanitizer and a clean mask lay on the floor. A nurse stands back, telling me my ride is here. I knew that from the phone call 32 seconds ago.

“I need you to use the sanitizer then put on the clean mask.”

The mask is on the grubby carpet. I’ve just sanitized.

I just grab a clean one from this new pack of 30 I received an hour ago.

And why 30? Aren’t I only here for two weeks?

My ride is by ambulance. I’m not unwell.

Is this going on my tab?

New hotel, new rules.

They confiscate my sleep apnea machine.

But a nurse will monitor my declining health twice a day.

“Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“Not well.”

The nurse offers me sleeping tablets. I stare, then politely decline.

I’m just trying to survive 13 more days.

I type, I pace, I use masks to sling shot fruit, watch re-runs of political announcements from 2020 and mark the days off on the walls with a butter knife.

And I drink.

In the last hotel move, while I lost my life-saving device to confiscation by the medical hotel, I gained the bottle of whiskey confiscated by the police hotel. To my health!

Another phone call.

We’re bugging out.

Has the red-zone become too hot? Is a quarantine camp a green-zone within a red-zone?

So many questions.

The PPE’d police, over the course of 12 hours, shuttle us one-by-one, to another medical hotel. Is so much movement normal in a lockdown quarantine situation? Must be the new-normal.

And so I spend my days. I barely know what day it is. Does it matter? No.

My focus is on keeping track of ‘Day 14’.

I review my butter-knifed wall scratches to double-check my sanity.

I slump into a routine.

Boredom.

Birthday! Whoop whoop!

Some are better than others. Some more memorable.

Another day.

I sit. Trying to remember what even happened 10 days ago. Why did I even make this trip? What did I do this for? Oh yeah, my family needed me and I needed my family. Mom died.

It’s why I was allowed out.

Isolation limbo, hanging somewhere between after ‘Day 0’ and before ‘Day 14’. Where am I? I return to my solitary routine.

One more day, I’m pretty sure it’s one.

I just have to cross one more border.

But I hear nothing. I’m told nothing.

But I have TV. I’m seeing they’ve just slammed shut the state border.

No one allowed home.

Wait, but that’s me! I’ve come so far! I have papers! I have a flight to catch!

“Your discharge is organised. You can go now.”

Public taxi transports me to the airport. We drive through the pandemic and Covid hotspots.

Alone but ‘free’, I sit again in an empty airport.

We board. 15 of us this time. I’m finally heading home.

“Passengers, ensure all your documentation is in order for the authorities. You may be required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.”

What? Still more weeks in isolation? I was only gone three.

Landed!

But checkpoints still linger me in doubt and fear.

A wall of authority greets us as we disembark the plane.

The questions, papers checked.

The mantra.

“Thank you. You’re free to go.”

I’m what? I’m free?

I’m home?

I step outside the airport. Fresh air.

There’s barely a soul around, but it feels like a jazz parade after solitary confinement.

I am ‘free’ again.

A song plays in my head…

“Laugh and think, this is Australia.” — Sounds of Then, song by Gang Gajang