I've gone back to reading Emily St. John Mandel's book Station 11, objectively a terrible idea. There, a much worse pandemic sweeps the world and kills almost everyone within 24 hours of being infected. Society degenerates to pockets of violent isolated groups, cults, abuse, no infrastructure, no power, no running water or shops. The book switches between a telling of the story before the collapse, the collapse itself, and the story of a Shakespearean theatre group and orchestra that travel around the wary but sometimes more peaceful towns of 20 years post-collapse. Chapter 6 of the book is a heart aching lament of all that has been lost. it's the kind of apocalyptic book that makes you feel generous and very fond of our type of civilisation, which have a definite grace despite all its flaws.
"No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with the generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer but it was difficult to come by." And later: "No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light, no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position..." When I have nightmares, it's often not that a horrible thing is happening, but I am filled with a horrible knowledge of what is coming. It's not a Station 11 level virus, but I am waking some mornings, bewildered. Because I expect to wake from being in a world with a pandemic. The Director of WHO expects the known cases globally will reach a million in the next few days. I talk to my friend M, one of the best people I've met. She works with homeless adults and unaccompanied migrant minors in Washington State, some of the foster parents are getting sick now, the homeless shelters are more frightening and stressful. The publisher of the NZ Listener, North and South, Women's Weekly and a bunch of other biggish NZ magazines announced they were closing today. All the staff have lost their jobs. Lots of the printing industry in Auckland are based around those publications. There will be some sad and stressed people around this country tonight as well. People frightened about security. The overseas company Bauer is laying the blame at the feet of the virus but they accepted no offer of support from the government and some believe it was opportunistic, in their plans all along. We're probably small fry to their international markets. There were the most new cases in a day today. Over 700 cases now. My numbers seem to be 1 or 2 out but I think it must be as probable cases become confirmed or possible. I added a new graph for the new cases as my eye is on this now too. Even though loads of others are doing this kind of line graph now, that I couldn't find in the early early days, it satisfies a part of me, to enter the numbers and build the graphs myself.
1 Comment
3/4/2020 09:14:03 am
I'm so glad you're writing at the moment, Maria. I read your blog every morning with breakfast and then the words and ideas sit with me through the day.
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