QUARANTINE DIARIES

I’m built for disaster. I say that entirely from the safety of my first world existence, from the comfort of my desk, but most of me believes that should the world genuinely turn to shit, I’d be one of the rangers crisscrossing the wasteland. 

In reality, no matter how much I back myself to remain mentally unbroke, no matter how much I relish the relative suffering and hardship of a four-week lockdown, how much I thrive under the restrictions of cloistering myself away and eking out an existence in a world that still has essential services, and doesn’t need me to buy new bugout boots and stockpile mountains of tinned food and knives, I am a high-risk individual. 

I have diabetes. Not only does that mean that in a true Mad Max end-of-the-world scenario I’m tethered to a supply of essential medicine, it also means that in our current situation I find myself more susceptible than many to our unseen enemy. I take the fact that I am young and relatively fit as some solace, but when there are international footballers hooked to ventilators on the other side of the world that thought offers little protection. 

I’ve already done a week of isolation at the time of writing this. I left working at my office the moment the government recommended it, and now I find myself in the immensely gratifying position of pretending I’m living in a survival scenario. Simultaneously, I find myself completely at the mercy of those around me, and the greater public, to observe lockdown procedure and keep me safe. Like an octogenarian, I have to trust the rest of the world, and especially those I live with, to wash their hands, to be the designated shopper, to stay indoors, to not make exceptions. 

Even though I did just cop a sick pair of bugout boots, and even though a mass wave of deaths might seem or be unlikely, all I can really do is hope everyone else follows the rules as closely as I do.