The Second Wave

A polarised society can’t survive much

The sirens started up again outside the window as Paul rushed to close the curtains, falling over his feet and delaying himself further. He knew he should have turned the lights off first, but had unfortunately drunk a bottle of whisky and got his order wrong.

‘What are you doing!’ Dani screamed, flipping the main fuse. ‘They’ll see us!’ Paul apologised, slurring horribly. She looked at him in disgust and quietly closed the curtains before dragging him onto the sofa. ‘I was saving that whisky,’ she told him in her silent disappointment voice, ‘for when the blackouts end.’

‘I know,’ Paul replied. ‘I just didn’t want to be here any more.’

‘You’re so bloody selfish, you know that? What if I don’t want to be here either? What if I don’t want to face it on my own?’ She stalked out of the room, slamming the door.

The first wave of the virus had ended fairly quickly, lockdown lifted over a number of months, and everyone had been released, blinking like moles, into the sunlit uplands of the hottest summer in living memory. Gentle forays to the beach, followed by longer stay-cations, before Paul and Dani had braved an overseas flight in October, finally touching down on foreign soil and wondering how long it would take for it to feel normal again. The locals shunned them, pointedly turning their heads as they passed and refusing to acknowledge the stuttered ‘Buongiorno’s. It hadn’t mattered though; they were simply too glad to be on holiday.

The world had celebrated too soon of course, come December it was clear that they were in no way out of the woods. There was a spate of 20 somethings choking on their own blood in broad daylight and the terror was back. No-one felt safe any more. The government had learned nothing from their first stint, finding themselves over a barrel by the 1922 committee, the Telegraph, Sun and Mail, they refused to be ‘held hostage’ by a virus. To ruin the economy. Stuff and nonsense, they said. Banging on about R rates and claiming it wasn’t that deadly.

A man died on the street outside Paul’s house this morning. He coughed, blood came out, he clutched his throat and screamed, the weirdest sound, all gurgling and high pitched. Successive waves of coughing brought…

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