Peter Viney's Blog

In the Days of Covid-21

 A fictional story of the near future

It was the highlight of the week. The green and yellow Asda truck was at the gate. It had been worth checking every half hour all day to get this delivery slot two weeks ago. There wouldn’t be another for eight days at least, unless he got lucky with Tesco.

The driver started filling the two plastic tubs with the order.

‘Many thanks,’ called Steve from the sanctuary of the doorway, safe with the length of the drive between them, ‘You’re the true emergency service!’

The driver waved and mumbled something through his mask.

‘Sorry?’ called Steve.

‘Quite a few substitutions again, sorry,’ shouted the driver.

‘We’re grateful to get anything,’ Steve said.

He watched the truck trundle away. He took off his fleece. Bare arms could be washed. His T-shirt was tatty round the neck, but then he’d worn nothing but T-shirts since Covid-19, fourteen months ago. What was the point of shirts and ironing if you never left home? Time to carry the shopping in. They had stopped wiping the bags and packages with Anti-Bac. It seemed too remote … an appointment in Samara chance to get it from bag handles. He stepped over the post by the door … they still left that three days before they touched it.

Twenty-four roll pack of toilet paper. Good. Though why did they order it every time? Jenny said they might as well, just in case. It would go up in the spare room with the other ten packs, and the packs of chopped tomatoes and dried pasta, though they had managed to keep that pile topped up quite easily. That was next to the cabinet with paracetamol, and Ibuprofen … they’d stocked up before it was reputed to be the wrong analgesic for coronavirus. Then there were the three bottles of Byrhh fortified wine … a major source of quinine, another rumour from last year.  A case of large bottles of tonic water for more quinine. Lucozade sport to keep hydrated in case of fever. Then the box of nicotine patches that had seemed potentially useful in a French study last May. There were two boxes of masks, bought at vast prices on the internet.

Jenny was in the kitchen, ‘Put it all in one place, so we can Anti-Bac the surface afterwards,’ she said, ‘Did we get the golden caster sugar and organic cocoa?’

Steve looked, ‘No, they substituted granulated and drinking chocolate … can we make cakes with that instead?’

‘It didn’t work out last time,’ she replied, ‘Oh, good, two packs of eggs … how much butter did you order?’

‘The Asda unsalted kept coming up as out of stock, so I just ticked two of all the unsalted butters.’

‘We got the lot. Twelve bars … still, we’ll use it.’

‘Shit!’ Steve exclaimed, ‘The milk is best before tomorrow, and the salmon and lamb mince are both sell by today.’

‘I’m sure the lamb mince will be OK tomorrow,’ she said, ‘Or we could freeze it.’

Steve picked up the packs of frozen seasonal berries, ‘There’s hardly any room in the freezer even for these. I’ll have to squeeze them in.’

‘Do you remember going to Waitrose,’ she said, ‘And getting a coffee and the free newspaper if you spent ten pounds?’

‘It’s more than a year since we saw a newspaper,’ said Steve, ‘Or went to Waitrose. Thank God for Asda and Tesco. Funny we never shopped at Asda before all this.’

‘Papaya …’ mused Jenny, ‘I wonder why none of them stock it anymore.’

 

Steve pushed his glasses back squarely. This pair was getting wobbly too. The two year old pair had lost an arm last July, and in spite of ministrations with sticking plasters were unwearable. This prescription was five years out of date … it was the spare pair he’d kept in the car. The car. Friday – he should run the engine for fifteen minutes and move it two feet. The full tank of diesel had lasted a year.  He ran his tongue across the inside of his teeth. Plaque. He had never enjoyed visits to the dental hygienist. He had never thought he’d miss them.

***

 

They kept the carpet rolled up permanently now for the fifteen minute daily aerobics on YouTube. Steve picked up the TV remote, ‘The News is on in a minute.’

‘Not again.’

They sat down to watch. Boris addressed the nation, clad as usual in his Churchillian white boiler suit. 742 deaths today. 439,546 so far. Lockdown. Keep safe. The situation would be reviewed.

Then there was a piece on children with special needs performing We Shall Overcome via Zoom on a variety of instruments. Jenny wiped a tear from her eye. Then there was a short film of Magda, a cleaner in a Covid ward, who hadn’t seen her ten-year old son for months for fear of infecting him, but she felt it her duty to keep smiling, keep working, above all, keep him safe. There she was taking off her PPE to Facetime him, tears running down her face.  Dr Malik was next. He’d lost his mother and father to Covid, and was still working sixteen hour shifts, sleeping on a camp bed in the hospital. Then there was Joan, delivering groceries all around the village to the over-70s from the combined post office and petrol station, the only local source out there in deepest Dorset. Unpaid volunteer work. Heroes. Steve’s hands were sore from the nightly NHS clap. When it started it had been just once a week, not daily. But everyone did it at eight o’clock. There never seemed to be any news anymore. Just inspirational stories. Anyway, once they’d stopped making Eastenders and Coronation Street, TV was just re-runs. Still, he had quite enjoyed watching the 1974 cup final last night, and fortunately had not remembered the result.

Facetime. It had been such a strange Christmas, watching the grandkids open their amazon sourced presents on Facetime. They spoke to them every evening. They were growing so fast. Christmas dinner? Well they had tried so hard for turkey or even chicken, but the lamb burgers substitution had been tasty and went quite well with the bottle of cranberry sauce.

They’d thought it was all over in September when the schools opened, though the over-seventies were told to stay locked down. Then Covid-20, the fiercer mutation had started spreading and that lockdown lasted till mid-January. The restrictions had been eased, in fond expectation that the new drug treatment would work.  Though not for the “old and vulnerable” a phrase that irritated more every time he heard it.  There was a theory that cold weather might halt the virus, as hot weather had failed. That didn’t work either, the virus had shifted again, so they called the new one, the one the drug didn’t stop, Covid-21.

‘Have you noticed there’s never any actual news?’ said Steve, ‘Just the death count, then every night there are three or four more inspirational stories. It’s a bit like Fahrenheit 451 where the TV is endless heart-warming stories.’

‘There was the Rees-Mog bit,’ said Jenny, ‘That was funny in a bizarre way.’

That had been in February. They’d always wondered why he was never among the parade of ministers on the five o’clock news with nightly exhortations to keep safe.

‘Boris must have known all along,’ she added, ‘And kept him out of the way. Still, he got him in the end.’

Indeed. Then it came out on Facebook first and spread. Right at the start his company had bought up most of the world manufacturers of toilet paper and flour. He’d made millions what with that and manipulations of supermarket and delivery company shares. Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? Finally, he’d been censured in parliament (on video conference), and a further investigation had led to the warrant for his arrest. A Russian oligarch’s private yacht (if you can call a three hundred million pound boat with helipad, ‘a yacht’) had borne him to safety in the Caribbean tax haven of his choice. The helicopter footage of him sunbathing on deck in a striped 1920s one-piece woollen bathing suit, monocle and top hat had amused the nation for several nights.

‘We should send a destroyer and take him back,’ muttered Steve, ‘No, we hear about all the shenanigans in America after Trump cancelled the 2020 election, because it’s all so weird, and at least we haven’t got deranged bearded men with automatic weapons storming Democratic state legislatures. All the Trump stuff makes us think we’re better off here.’

‘We probably are,’ said Jenny, ‘I mean, after they shot the mayor in New York, it’s been chaos.’

‘Apparently he has no constitutional right to stay in office’ said Steve, ‘I mean, does anyone think the 28^th Amendment was legal?’

‘I doubt it. But they’re stuck with him until 2024. Unless there’s a 29^th Amendment extending his emergency powers again.’

‘There will be,’ Steve shook his head, ‘The news – it’s like soma in Brave New World, with free paper tissues to wipe your eyes or blow your nose’ he paused, ‘Jenny, what do think is REALLY happening out there?’

Dart Travis ©2020