IMAGES OF LOCKDOWN

Images of Lockdown

There’s a single pure white dove in the cherry tree, looking like a Japanese painting as jt settles amid the clouds of pink blossoms. It stretches its wings, balancing with perfect poise before folding them again, pecking delicately at invisible insects before fluttering to a different branch. Is it a sign of hope? We are marooned in a sea of silence, cast adrift in time without the anchors of work and human contact. But somewhere, this small white bird seems to say, there is the promise of a receding flood and the dry land of normality. It flies off, a piece of cherry blossom in its beak, to its comfortable dovecote in a nearby garden.

Down on the ground, next door’s fat black cat stalks across my driveway, belly low to the ground. Behind it is an unfamiliar tabby mimicking his movements. They disappear into the undergrowth before exploding out again with raucous yowls of indignation, streaking across the now empty road. I hear the brawl continue from beneath parked cars, a crescendo of fury rising into a morning of painted skies and pale sunshine. They would eat that dove for breakfast given half a chance.

Later, on the fields, crows gather in groups, chattering together, taking off and landing among a herd of cattle who, protected from the chill breeze by their thick tan overcoats, move as one across the green expanse. We dog walkers skirt round each other with nervous smiles while our dogs bound over, offering enthusiastic greeting to both canine and human friends, crossing the ‘safe social distance’ between us to reach up for a friendly touch or a treat. Their faces are open as ours are closed; we stand back from gates and wait with exaggerated courtesy for wide empty spaces on these narrow paths, not stopping to chat as we used to do, but passing quickly as if negotiating no-man’s land and hurrying home to safety.

Now, to be human is to be separate, connecting only through a glass screen. Your face appears as if by magic, small and blurred, in my unsteady hand. Your voice is familiar but cracked and broken, not by your recent illness or by deep emotion but by faults in technology. I speak into the screen as we share our drinks in separate spaces, you a glass of wine, me a cup of now-cold coffee. The physical distance between us is small – a five-minute car ride or twenty minute walk - but we dare not cross it yet.

Time stretches and reforms, the days merge into one. The danger seems ever present and yet somehow fictional too and the strange, dystopian dreams that haunt my nights seem almost more real than our present world.