Walking Covid

When I went for a walk the neighbourhood had taken on the hue of post apocalyptic films made in 1962 – the day after the bomb, predicted in the imaginations of the circumstance: cars stopped dead and silent streets. people-less and in arrest. I’d an eerie sense of a fugitive’s life, weaving between the wheelie bins, marking the end of time.

And the birds sang, oblivious, flitting about intent on reproduction as ever, driven. Bees, much threatened and discussed, moved round me, touching on stray purplish flowers opening on waxy leaved creepers, lobelia, for love and on. The news slipped on and away with each step, grinding caution into the rules governing exercise, resisting the urge to pause on the bench in case the weight of it fell on my shoulders again, to the door. Turning the key, washing my hands, resisting the tv.