The First One (May 2020)
Lockdown One
The sunlight through the window stifles, a blanket of languid warmth not conducive to productivity, or anything else. The radio chatters irritably in another room, as trains of thought arrive suddenly and flash away, passengerless still. Whatever terminal they are destined for most certainly isn't here, and their scheduled arrival time most certainly isn't now.
This is life, in all its distracted, frustrated glory. Pacing out the days in blinks and sighs. Guilt born from inactivity. Waiting for another fruitless day to end, as the potted plants on the sill stretch in their need, striving for growth through refracted rays.
I was lucky enough that, after the first weeks of sheer terror from the enormous upheaval had passed, lockdown was largely a tedious affair. Once I realised that my local shops would continue to sustain me (and, especially happily, that the pillaging hordes hadn't discovered the stash of bread flour in my local health food shop), the whole strange situation morphed into something entirely hum-drum.
I'm eternally thankful that I experienced no tragedy in this period, and that I was able to continue working remotely with no risk of furlough, but here's a self-pitying piece of writing about how boring it all was anyway. I don't think the train metaphor really works, but like the last sentence.