Steve Braunias
Steve Braunias on the strange new world — and his nomination for New Zealander of the Year
People are disappearing. There were rumours going around that everyone was inside their homes, waiting it out, staying safe, climbing the walls but that was a while ago and now even rumours are disappearing.
Europe is disappearing.
Summer is disappearing. Auckland had just about the best, longest summer in living memory, a groundhog summer, day after day of the same bright, hot, rainless day, the sun baking the earth to a crust, warming the ocean, lying on its back on the lakes and creeks and swimming pools — there are still traces of summer around but autumn is closing the door. I looked outside the window just before. Rain was bouncing off the inflatable crocodile in my pool. Its smile didn’t seem as wide as it used to be.
International airports are disappearing. Wolves are roaming the covered car parks and a cult led by a refugee who claims to be the son of Jesus has taken over the departure lounge. But there are some good deals at duty-free.
Visitors to the office are disappearing. They’re not being made to feel welcome. They want to see the manager but the manager’s at home, climbing the walls.
New York is disappearing.
Sport is disappearing. But only in the sense of this season and upcoming fixtures; old sport is making a tremendous come-back and fills the Sky Sport channels: 2003 NBA replay. Highlights of Black Caps vs Australia 2nd One Day International at Eden Park, 2007. “Join Kirstie Stanway, Israel Dagg, Piri Weepu and Justin Marshall to relive the classic moments from the last 25 years of the Crusaders vs the Hurricanes.” I’m about to go downstairs and dig out my back copies of Goal, World Soccer and Football Monthly from the early 1970s and follow the action. It’s going to be very exciting.
Non-essential domestic travel is disappearing. But I really wanted to take the Intercity bus to Thames. I wrote a column in January about spending a day in that lovely Coromandel town and a reader sent me a letter inviting me back for lunch.
It was a strange letter. It was unsigned. It began, “Today, I have posted two letters, one to you and the other to Penny. Dear Penny is an ex-thames girl now living in Dunedin and she could not find online your exquisite description of Thames. Oh! How we love this genre. It eclipses your observations on The Bachelorette.
“Please, if you ever catch the bus down here again, we would be delighted to welcome you at the Rotunda and provide you with a sumptuous feast of marinated mussels, seafood fritters, baked potatoes, seafood chowder and sensational salads.
“Penny would even fly up from Dunedin. We think you are a gifted writer. Please consider this and advise in due course.”
That was so kind and so appealing. But I daresay dear Penny is stuck in Dunedin and I dare not catch the bus.
It could be worse, though. Imagine if you had a long-distance romance! Imagine if you and your lover lived in separate cities! Imagine if your love life was classified “non-essential”.
My love life is disappearing.
China was disappearing but if you believe everything you read that comes out of China, it’s back on track — and I really want to believe everything I’m reading that comes out of China about it being back on track and no longer disappearing. Are toilet rolls still disappearing?
London seems in a hurry to disappear. Crowds still gather and holler old pop songs in each other’s stupid, droplet-smeared faces: “All I need is the air that I breathe …”
He’s doing an incredible job and I hereby nominate him as the New Zealander of the Year but I wish Dr Ashley Bloomfield would disappear and that there was no need for him to appear every day as a kind of angel of death. But for that happen the crisis has to disappear.
When will the crisis disappear?
NEXT WEEK: Ashleigh Young