I woke this morning with a vision of the future. It was like this:
I think a lot about Covid 19, (as well as wondering what e.g. Covid 18 was, and why it never got off the ground like this one has? ) but this time my thoughts went further
I dreamt that we had emerged serenely from the present crisis, which means we had made a come-back after lockdown, and were once again pursuing our daily round. Shops were open and word trading had resumed. Schools were open, as were restaurants and other activities were bidding for our custom as before. The familiar had returned and the streets were humming with life.
Of course the more thoughtful among us were ruminating about what we had learned from the crisis and considering what would never be the same again. There was a lot of self-flagellation and looking to see what could replace that which we had so blithely done in the past, but on the whole, it was largely the same world that we had left so precipitately a few months before.
There was a great heaving of a sigh of relief – relief that we had survived mostly, but also that our world was still there – waiting for us to take up the challenges of the daily round – but never again, we told ourselves - now it was all over.
But then came the distant rumbling of thunder. What was that, rumoured beyond the horizon? Had Spring suddenly given way to a lesser season? Was there yet to be another global crisis, sweeping towards us?
Once again we were fighting that which we were ill-fashioned to tackle.
It was another pandemic of truly global proportions. But this time we were even less prepared. Yet another Virus had emerged from the dark recesses of nowhere. Once again we were told that it was “an entirely new strain”; that an animal Virus had successfully mutated and was now claiming the world for itself. Forget that this second might be less infectious than Covid 19, but what left us bereft had been the losses we had suffered from the previous national crisis. Coffers were depleted; health workers depleted in numbers too, and our resources had far from recovered the earlier assault. Coming so soon after the last, this crisis exploded on a world that was already exhausted - financially, emotionally and materially. We no longer tried to buoy up our spirits with reminders of our will to survive – there was no Queen to speak of our heroism in the face of disaster, nor leaders of consequence to rally our flagging spirits. We were beaten.
And soon there was another and another virus following on.
We had long given up our hopes of a return to normality as we grasped what was left of the world as it had once been. We were shattered.
Piece by piece we abandoned the life we had once taken for granted, and let Nature take over. Weeds flourished in the streets, cities crumbled, houses fell apart, and people forgot about what had once been called civilisation. Debates about Democracy appeared an irrelevance now, and even control faltered, because there was no heart in enforcement. Regulation became meaningless and what was left of the population reverted to self-isolation – not as it was once had been, as part of altruism, but now as an act of self-preservation against anarchy.
Out of the few, gradually grew the many, and with succeeding decades some form of society came about. But apart from an incipient interest in the past, it was a very uncomplicated society that emerged. Humanity had learned its lesson.
Or had it? Perhaps the mistakes of the past were awaiting their return, ready to be made again by these new people.
Clare Blatchford is on old lady of almost 90, but still thinks of herself as young!
