Cocooning
Barbed wire in its warlike twists blocks the road that runs though the middle of our area of the city. A small opening allows one car at a time to pass through and another on the pavement gives access to pedestrians. We have to all jostle together to squeeze though. Police in pairs man this blockade, one in white medical-looking overalls, the other in camouflage. Both have guns pointed at the on-coming traffic. They have not been well-informed about this virus; they have seen its ball shaped image with fluorescent horns on so many screens and not realised this is magnified; they cannot stop it spinning down the road with barricades; they cannot shoot it like the ghost buster one of them is dressed as. They do not see it silently pass between those rubbing shoulders just to their left.
But do not let this leave you with the idea Lahore is a police-state, all curfewed and quiet. No, a little up the road essential services continue: there is gorgeous summer fruit on barrows and lines of T-shirts for sale, some rose-garland makers and a sun-glasses seller with his son are as busy as ever on the corner.
'Won't you stop by? Have a cup of tea, a sit, a chat? Kuchh nahin hota.' The very words are a comfort, a cushion against the bad news, even, if we know Welsh, a cuddle, a cwtsh. I am reassured just hearing the invitation: nothing will happen. In fact, literally, 'nothing happens.' All those boring old farts pontificating on telly about not visiting, not having chai together, being socially, what? Distant?...I mean, can you imagine? The people suggesting such things just cannot be human. For a moment I am charmed. I want to sit, to be in her neat little room, to help make chai on her camping stove, to chat with children and tousle their hair. To have Nothing Happen. But po-faced under my smug black mask, that allows for no smiles, I tell her I oughtn't to. I turn away and tell her we will have to wait for better times. She doesn't know how much corona-virus hurts.
Back home, my son is cross because he missed a video-call to Gramps. He rages against my phone. Then he shouts, expressing something I had not heard him say before, 'I want to see everyone! I want to go to everyone's house!' I do not scold him. I want to too. The only other family he has frequently visited these last few months is a white-shelled insect one, clinging to the underside of an orange tree in the landlord's garden. These days they are creeping painfully slowly out of dusty old skins. They have been cocooning like we are meant to be now. They make my skin crawl.
Back in our house, I notice the lego models he has been crafting thoughout lockdown are all vehicles: helicopters with monster-truck wheels; hovercraft; motorbike transporters; chariots with trailers and trucks with propellers. They are parked up in positions that all say, let's get outta here.
But do not let this leave you with the idea Lahore is a police-state, all curfewed and quiet. No, a little up the road essential services continue: there is gorgeous summer fruit on barrows and lines of T-shirts for sale, some rose-garland makers and a sun-glasses seller with his son are as busy as ever on the corner.
'Won't you stop by? Have a cup of tea, a sit, a chat? Kuchh nahin hota.' The very words are a comfort, a cushion against the bad news, even, if we know Welsh, a cuddle, a cwtsh. I am reassured just hearing the invitation: nothing will happen. In fact, literally, 'nothing happens.' All those boring old farts pontificating on telly about not visiting, not having chai together, being socially, what? Distant?...I mean, can you imagine? The people suggesting such things just cannot be human. For a moment I am charmed. I want to sit, to be in her neat little room, to help make chai on her camping stove, to chat with children and tousle their hair. To have Nothing Happen. But po-faced under my smug black mask, that allows for no smiles, I tell her I oughtn't to. I turn away and tell her we will have to wait for better times. She doesn't know how much corona-virus hurts.
Back home, my son is cross because he missed a video-call to Gramps. He rages against my phone. Then he shouts, expressing something I had not heard him say before, 'I want to see everyone! I want to go to everyone's house!' I do not scold him. I want to too. The only other family he has frequently visited these last few months is a white-shelled insect one, clinging to the underside of an orange tree in the landlord's garden. These days they are creeping painfully slowly out of dusty old skins. They have been cocooning like we are meant to be now. They make my skin crawl.
Back in our house, I notice the lego models he has been crafting thoughout lockdown are all vehicles: helicopters with monster-truck wheels; hovercraft; motorbike transporters; chariots with trailers and trucks with propellers. They are parked up in positions that all say, let's get outta here.
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