These are desperate times and so desperate measures are required.
People are confused, their eyes dart right then left and they stand stock still, although not for too long lest they be pulled up by the authorities and told to move on. People aren’t quite sure, and so no one is moving fast, no one knows what to expect.
Desperate measures for desperate times. People adapt and do what they can to survive. The Fear is almost done perhaps, but the waiting – the interminable waiting – is in full swing. People wait, they tentatively go about their lives all whilst thinking to themselves how much their lives have changed, and they wait.
Do they think this is the new normal, or is it hard to adjust and to keep swimming as the current switches like a whip without a second’s notice? Some go with the current while others buck against it.
Places once viewed as naught but pit-stops have become all important places to meet, to catch up, to reconnect, albeit at a distance and in almost hushed tones so as not to affect anyone else, so as not to give the impression that one is flaunting the rules and congregating, mingling, whatever the opposite is of social isolation, of distancing, of doing for the good of the People what one should.
The supermarket and the bottleshop, these are the places where people meet now and so both, usually quick-stop-move-on types of places, ring with the laughter of friends reacquainting under the bright lights, in front of the craft beer fridges, leaning against the cold meat freezer, flirtations in the pasta aisle, catch-ups lit gold by the coolroom glare, recollections of isolation to the smell of BBQ chicken fresh off the rotisserie.
People wave from passing cars far more often than they used to and one wandering the streets is all too keen to wave back. It doesn’t matter who’s flung an arm from a slow-moving truck, it’s Someone and so the interaction is enough to elicit a response and a retelling of the episode once the wanderer has returned home. Home, wherever that may be.
People read the news more than they did and yet the news is dying.
These are desperate times and so desperate measures are required. It’s the new normal, but how normal is it, and when will the waiting end? You’re lonely, bored, sick of the whip-quick current switch and so you head to the bottleshop, hoping someone you know has the same idea so you can catch up, a casual elbow-lean on a stack of promo beer on the shop floor and interaction is once again achieved. Before you’re required to move on once more.