Action Stasis – Lockdown

[For back story go here: Story so far at 30 Nov 2020 and previous episodes.]

[For other back story click in-links]

Sandra hauled another package over the doorstep. This one was a hamper of beauty spa products. There was nothing better to provide reassurance in the face of another lockdown than a bit of luxury in ones bathroom. That and luxury coffee, luxury shortbread and luxury flapjack. Anything with luxury in the title was a good start. The luxury of just being able to go out your house for a walk becoming a little harder now.

Despite the tempting and soothing aromas issuing from the cardboard parcel that now sat by her front door, Sandra resolved not to open it for another two days at least. It would be ironic and not a little annoying to contract something from the germs of the delivery person or packer, involved in completing this luxury order. It was a risk she wouldn’t take. Two more days of Imperial Leather soap on a rope would be a small price to pay.

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Daniel was staring at a wall. It was a nice wall. Or at least it used to be. It was one of the plainer walls in his house and one on which he’d hung a motivational poster. ‘Be Brave Be Honest Be True Be You’ it read over the aerial image of a team of rowers powering up a river at dawn. Staring at it now he was uncertain of the connection between the image and the slogan, feeling that the image was possibly more to do with being in a team rather than being yourself. There again maybe it was trying to deliver two messages for the price of one – you can absolutely be yourself and part of a team at the same time. Or maybe the boat was the thing that was brave, honest and true – although that would just be weird.

Underneath the motivational poster Daisy had scrawled on the wall. He had walked in on her doing it and he had told her off. Part of that telling off had included telling her not to scrawl on the wall using non-washable pens. But like the poster his message was probably at odds with what was happening. 

Schools were shut. Daniel explained this to Daisy and then went to get her some Krispies and orange juice to make her feel better, given the sadness and frustration she now expressed. By the time he returned Daisy had further expressed how sad and frustrated she felt by drawing on the wall. She’d written ‘Badd Scool’ and next to it drawn a sad looking animal.

“It’s a sad Unicorn,” she said in her defence. “She’s lost her sparkle.”

Looking at it now, having banished the artist to her bedroom, Daniel confessed he knew how the unicorn felt.

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Wayne was watching the news. He didn’t do this often and to be honest it felt like there wasn’t much point since it was always the same thing. And today it was the same thing only more so. But at least he wasn't in it. He looked across at Dave behind the kitchen counter, but Dave was paying no attention, lost between mixing a batter of some kind and trying to grind coffee beans in a hand wound grinder. 

Watching diverse politicians, empty streets and the usual line up of pontificating people Wayne had a dreadful sense of deja vue, but he suspected this was shared by many other people out there. And like many other people out there he sighed heavily and reached for a magazine to try and get his mind off it, although he wasn’t at all sure you could or even should. These were rock hard times and he knew he needed to weather the storm as well.

He couldn’t remember who said it, or whether he’d just thought of it himself but he had a theory that when an artist successfully came through a hard experience, when they’d been through the wringer and come out not unscathed but having survived, then they were in business. The fans loved their artists to suffer – to provide insight by going to extremes they couldn’t dream of – and that was where the unique vision came from. The only problem with the pandemic was that everyone was sort of doing that.

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Bentley’s cat jumped up on the sideboard, looking towards her owner for food, but naturally not about to get any because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bentley himself was looking at a tin of tea bags, assessing how long they would last and wondering if he could justify a trip to the shops just for that or if he could cajole someone else into doing it. When, he wondered, did his need for essentials become justification for an essential shop?

The cat found a sugar lump loose on the surface and started to bat it around in a crazed game of square-football. Bentley half smiled, half grimaced and turned away to fill the kettle. As he turned back there was a swift flash from the toaster and a high pitched crackle. The cat shot off the sideboard in a mainly vertical direction, legs splayed to the four winds.

Somehow she landed upright and untidily but within seconds had reset herself, licked a leg clean and stalked off nonchalantly into the other room. Bentley made tea and later found the cat curled up tight as a ball dead centre of his sofa, wishing the central heating would come on. Bentley stroked her head and obliged.