I dream of taking the boy to watch Bohemians of all teams and realise we’ve never been to a soccer match. Suddenly I fear Covid could snatch that chance.
Dreams I would have preferred not to have had woke me through the night.
Zombies: I dream of them a lot – hostile and overwhelming threats, the interpreters say, common enough to spawn a genre. I dream of a woman from my past, a woman not yet met and a conflict in the present – and am startled with the revelations they bring.
I dream of taking the boy to watch Bohemians of all teams and realise we’ve never been to a soccer match. Suddenly I fear Covid could snatch that chance.
I’m alone today. The boy followed the dog 16 km north. He was better off fixing up the garden with his step-dad than with me in this claustrophobic court-yard. That’s OK. I’m good at passing the time and he’s well cared for.
My back and lungs hurt, my eyes are swollen and I’ve a pain in my stomach. That’s OK too. It’s not the virus. I’ve been rationing out my weekly arthritis medication. Seeing how long I can go in the event of a collapse of the State or hyper- austerity. I can push it a few weeks now. Age is slowing an overactive immune system.
Prick of a disease though: Half a generation older and I would have been fully disabled without the biological medication. As it is, I’m a kickboxing fireman.
It’s all about the little things these days. The obvious one being a tiny fat-encased packet of information that for reasons known only to the keepers of creation’s secrets, needs to replicate at all costs? What drives DNA I wonder? They say viruses aren’t living things, so how can it have an ego to force it’s destiny? You’d think it would just give up. Humans know nothing of the forces that hold them hostage.
I take the lead from my captor and find it’s the littlest things that can free me from it’s grip. With a limited number of places to go, in the 2km radius, the smallest things have grown large.
Flowers, birds, trout leaping from the river and the grand old heron who watches over it all like a local Brehon-era chieftain. I find a childlike interest in the universe on my doorstep and desires of elsewhere seem pointless and wasteful. In this strange time, my soul is beginning to rouse from a four-year slumber.
And it scares me. Soon the fire inside will burn too hot to suppress and then I will be forced out of my isolationist comfort. A fireman poet might call it ‘soul pyrolysis’ which would be a great name for a R’n’B’ album.
I realise it’s Sunday, so I offer these lines to the same ‘Great Mystery’ that has shut down half the world.
I know not what you are.
I know not what I am.
I know not what you want.
I know not why I do.
I know not of your paths.
I know not how to follow.
I know not of your place.
I know that I am lost.
