Order is the Covid theme today, or perhaps more to the point, the lack of it. An instruction to stay confined to barracks took effect on 23rd March. We, feeling a little more vulnerable than our similarly aged peers, took to the bunkers on March 18th. Our original expectation was 12 weeks, so adding on our three days of premature lockulation, we expected to be out of it in 87 days. Today then should be just over a fortnight to go before “Yippee, we’re outta here”.
In the beginning was order. We knew where we were, what we had to do, keep busy, keep active, stay positive, stay at home and not to under any circumstances covet a cuddle with anyone. Our motivation was both civic and selfish being as much afraid of catching Covid-19 ourselves as we were keen to keep down the risk to others and to avoid ourselves becoming an avoidable burden on the NHS when they might be overwhelmed and needed to save others.
We got it! But it was patently obvious that others, some others, did not see beyond their own needs. True many had inescapable pressures but just as many others did not and who sought merely to get round the rules just to carry on feeding their hedonistic, social and addictive urges.
All that order has disappeared. We the quarantined have been forgotten, lost in a kind of limbo not knowing what comes next, still afraid of the risk, wearing out, dying out even by getting nearer and nearer to the final curtain with or without any virus danger, our lives on hold and no expectation of freedom anytime soon.
The government itself is in chaos, planning all the while, beneath the radar, to unleash an economic Brexit disaster on top of Covid, robbing us of our income from savings, destroying our pensions and in parallel planning for, probably purposely engineering a second wave which now seems to be the harsh and unsettling future and ever greater disorder.
All the time I am hearing people in similar circumstances asking “what is next for us?” , “what about those who are shielding?” “has anyone heard anything?” and the truth is we are locked down, out of the way, out of sight and out of mind, while the government unleashes the beast of Covid-19 amongst us and the devil take the hindmost!
Order has disappeared and we seem to be entering a vast unknown. We the quarantined are not being directly informed or communicated with and must therefore stay at home, and not go out. We are alert, alert to the government changing the message to be alert when the individual most responsible did not ‘stay at home’ and the message required adjustment to accommodate this fact before it got out. We will roundly curse the government for abandoning us and create our own sense of order and security.
To that end it was cathartic putting some of that order we thirst for into the hedges. It does not need to be pretty, just neat, looked after and not encroaching on the paths. Above all it needs to be straight. Right now the only thing being straight with us is ourselves and the hedges.
But our gender neutral Fu Pigs remain on duty. They guard our demesne, embodying in their concrete stubbornness our determination to enforce order and sense in our lives even if our own government has chosen to rob us of that order and replace it with confusion, risk and danger.
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