A Quiet Armageddon

Who knew armageddon would look like this? 

Playful clouds skipping in the sky, so bright and blue. Rays of sunlight spilling over, marking out a yellow brick road along the asphalt. 

Signs of spring are sprouting everywhere, cheeky daffodils and white blossoms and tightly curled green buds just waiting to surprise you. The birds seem happy, twittering and hopping between still bare branches of trees.  I see a cat lounging in the neighbour's driveway.

Where is the smoke, the burnt down warehouses, the broken cars, the parched streets and eerie wafting fog of post apocalyptic worlds we see in movies and video games? Instead of furtive survivers ransacking forlorn stores we have lone walkers and cyclists exchanging slightly abashed smiles as they step further away from one another to maintain the recommended 2 metre distance.

The streets are quiet but the houses are full, people in their kitchens, children in backyards, painted rainbows sending messages of love and hope.

It has been three weeks and counting since we finally realised that even our daily trips to nearby stores needed to be reduced to a bare minimum. That even close friends and family visits had to be discontinued.

Our physical contact with the outside world suddenly shrunk to a 1-mile radius and virtual contact expanded to include more friends and family members than we had gotten in touch with in the last six months.

The new world order is different from what artists and directors imagined - it is a calmer, more surreal experience.  Instead of rabid superior apes or burning meteorites, it is a quiet pandemic that has beset the world. Like an inkblot slowly spreading wider, staining the world map further and further, encompassing more countries.

Instead of fighting off manic aliens or zombies, we have to fight off impulses to go for a picnic, to hug a friend or meet up with our parents.

Enter week 3 of official lockdown.

'Chasing Waterfalls' by TLC plays in the bargain store as I walk looking for laundry detergent and powdered milk, with a cheap mask slipping down my chin. People smile and nod, the mad panic of two weeks before has settled into a subtle, more resigned slow anxiety that peaks at certain times of the day.  Things are much better now, the proof is in the availability of toilet paper and soap.

Still - two per person, please. 

George Orwell couldn't have predicted the restrictions on soap and UHT milk.

The world will never be the same again, I think as I step into my backyard. Except that it is, as the little pink buds on trees shimmy and shake, as the sparrows twitter, the rivers flow and the seasons stir.

And when this is over, and it will be over, God willing, be it 2 or 3 or 6 months, we will all be a little bit more grateful for the beauty and kindness and laughter and love that we had all been taking for granted.

At least for a little while.