Nadine Persaud - Everything Must Change
The air is clearer now and the light is different.
The roads are quiet during the day but dead at night. In the beginning, sirens would echo in the stillness. Now, it is only blue flickering lights bouncing through the windows each evening that remind us there is still life outside.
In the first week of ‘lockdown’ we visited my parents, delivering milk and bread because they were in isolation with mild symptoms. We had been instructed by The TV to ‘socially distance’. So there we stood, my daughter and I, hovering two metres from the door of the house I grew up in.
We were barred from entry, indefinitely.
The sun had brazenly appeared that morning and we closed our eyes and tilted our heads to the sky to enjoy its warmth. After months of boringly grey winter, we were suddenly immersed in a world of pastel blossoms and green shoots. We went into my parents garden so that we could enjoy the space we didn’t have at home. My daughter ran around and collected flowers. My mum watched her from inside the house, showering praise and encouragement through a small crack in the door.
I was driving home when I saw NHS chalked onto the cinema wall. The roundabout is usually the busiest area of the high street. All the businesses were shuttered up. There was no movement. It was a tumbleweed gif. I pulled over and took a photo. A police van appeared and in my head I quickly practised my explanation for this ‘non-essential stop’. I had seen on The TV that there are now only four justifiable reasons for you to be outside of your house.
The TV said we were permitted to exercise for one hour per day. I cycled aimlessly around local streets and discovered an entrance to the recreation ground. The gates opened up into a panoramic view of London that I’d not seen before.
Even from that distance, you could feel that the city had stopped.
On the hill, there was a cherry blossom tree that had school ties hung from its branches. They moved with the breeze like silent windchimes and I allowed myself to feel overwhelmed for a minute.
During the first week of lockdown my household were taught how to practice social distancing. We were advised by The TV to avoid everyone we came across, including each other should one of us fall ill. I could not teach my child the intricacies of this practice because I was learning myself.
She is six years-old and knows that none of the adults have the answer to anything at the moment.
I want to ask her if that is scary but I already know the answer.
We walked through our local park on the first warm days of the year and saw people wearing masks and gloves, crossing paths to avoid us whilst smiling apologetically. The playground was locked, the bouncy castle gone and the cafe was shut. The TV had warned old people that it was not safe for them to be outside and like pot-smoking teenagers, they scurried away ashamedly from passer-by’s hoping they would not be noticed.
The park looked so beautiful.
The apocalypse is not what I thought it would be.