I have woken up to a world that is different to the one I went to sleep in. The world I lived in yesterday was different to the one I lived in the day before that.
Events are changing so quickly at the moment that it feels like a strange, redundant experience to write something now that won’t be published for two or three weeks – at this moment, I can’t imagine the world in which this blog will be published.
A month ago, I don’t think I had even heard the words “COVID-19”. A week ago, I was starting to realise it was a little worse than flu. Just two days ago it became clear we weren’t going to come out of this the same society as the one that entered it. Yesterday, Europe was recognised as the current epicentre of the epidemic.
Historical documents
In this fast-forward world we’ve been thrust into, writing something now feels more like a historical document, a testament to how things were before the world changed again, and again, and a dozen times before you read this.
A few days ago, I was buying a present for my son to take to a children’s party this weekend – now, half the parents have sent messages to the mum that they don’t feel they should go, even though we’re not officially locked down.
Everyone is very sorry, but they feel it’s “the right thing to do”. The hastily-assembled backup plan is to gather everyone in the local park so presents can be handed over and Happy Birthday can be sung to the heartbroken girl, who doesn’t understand.
I’m not really sure I do, either…
We’re all just going through the motions right now. The children will be children, while the parents look on, watching fearfully for dry coughs, and we’ll all laugh and joke about it while we stay a metre or so apart from each other.
The only thing to fear…
The unforeseen consequences of this thing are… well, hard to foresee. Whole industries have just been switched off, like a West End show when the bad reviews roll in (except in the world I live in today, West End shows don’t exist any more).
On the brink of it all, I wonder if fear itself will do more damage than COVID-19 ever could.
Economic ruin kills people, too. I don’t know what this will do to our own industry – although veterinary work is generally recession-proof (benefits do exist to making money out of illness and disease, after all), we’ve never seen anything quite like this before. I wonder how many animals will suffer as the world changes.
I’ll be there soon
The world I live in today feels stranger than the one I went to sleep in last night. The bug is everywhere I turn, and it’s hard to keep the hysteria on social media from my mind as we try to make some order from the chaos of this rapidly changing world we all find ourselves in today.
This is how it felt today, on the brink; a historical document from a world very different to yours.
I can’t quite imagine the world you’re living in as you read this, but I’ll see you there soon regardless.
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