As sacrifices go, theirs is fairly palatable
AT the start they paid it little heed, it was a foreign illness, for foreign people. They went about their lives, carried on as normal, oblivious to what lay in store. Then the foreign illness became a little less foreign. ‘Italy, sure that’s only a couple of hours away,’ they said, their concern growing.
But their concern was vague, undefined. So, they welcomed Italians into the country for a postponed game of rugby, watched with furrowed brows as they mixed freely on the streets of the capital.
‘Doesn’t this thing kill people?’ they asked quietly, ‘should we be allowing people to come here right now?’ They did allow them to come. What’s more, they repaid the favour, travelling in the other direction, for a bit of skiing, as you do. And why not? Sure, wasn’t their leader on his way to America? Off for his annual jolly with the POTUS, sharing shamrocks and anecdotes, laughter and joy.
It was from there, from thousands of miles away, that their leader delivered his message; striding forth like a modern-day Churchill, putting on his best ‘serious-face’ and announcing this was the winter of our discontent. The foreign illness had arrived and the people’s lives would never be the same again. And how did they react? Like any normal person would: by stocking up on toilet roll, fighting one another for non-perishable goods, and drinking themselves senseless.
Give them some slack though, they were scared, unsure of themselves. To their credit, they did as they were told. They stayed indoors, watched The Tiger King, watched the news, the figures, the speeches, the coffins, the empty streets, the convoy of army trucks in Lombardy carrying the dead, the temporary hospitals, the tears, the sadness, the terror; and they cried, they lit candles, called home, and cried.
But they walked too, hesitantly at first, tiptoeing outside, afraid the virus might assail them from the skies. Then with growing confidence, with smiles. Suddenly, they were all walking, their chubby, chocolate-filled frames wobbling with glee as they engaged in this fancy new pursuit.
And they walked right out of lockdown, into the summer, onto the beaches, to each and every county in the country. ‘‘ Tis over now,’ they declared, chastising those predicting a second wave, shouting down the doom l ords as they pointed to dwindling figures, the decreased R rate, and some magic app the HSE were working on.
Yet the app couldn’t save them. And the doom lords weren’t doom lords at all. The second wave duly hit and back into lockdown they went, although not so willingly this time. They grumbled as their fat rear ends were shoved through the door, all hopes of shifting that Covid- weight destroyed. They didn’t walk so much second time around. It was dark outside, rainy, and cold. So, instead they bought tins of sweets and reminisced about the first lockdown, when The Tiger King was new and we were all in it together.
‘We’re fed up of remaining vigilant,’ they moaned, ‘can we not just go to the pub?’
Oh, the pubs. They opened and closed more often than the peoples’ permanently munching mouths, forcing thirsty, stressedout, drinkers to congregate in houses, shebeens, barns, ditches, anywhere with a bit of shelter and somewhere to sit. But the pubs, along with almost everything else, returned in time for Christmas. In a moment of weakness, the new leader declared festive season open and the people rejoiced.
‘We needed this,’ they said, as they prepared to see their loved ones again, did up their son’s room just the way he liked it, planned the game of charades for Christmas night. Retailers, in hibernation for half the year, purchased new stock, hoping to claw back some lost revenue, clear bills which had piling up since the summer months. Business boomed, but so did the numbers.
No sooner had their families booked flights home when a new announcement was made: ‘Christmas is cancelled, sorry about that, we made a mistake.’ The people bore this blow like they had all the others, with stoic determination. They spent Christmas alone, apart, accepting this was one more sacrifice they had to make. And they ate, they ate and they ate, until their BMI went over 100 per cent, and realised that, as sacrifices went, theirs wasn’t so bad.