Dear Yuri
Can you see it? The lights are darker and the skies quieter. Even the sirens have disappeared. Silenced by bird song.
I watch the world through two windows. Out of one, I see council blocks and treetops. Garages. Allotments. Bashment and Afrobeat spills out of balconies. Foxes criss cross the estate in daylight, frolicking in the shade of a towering TV transmitter.
Behind living room curtains, ordinary people play out their extraordinary lives. Hospital porters, bus-drivers, single mothers. Everyday people turned working class heroes. Isolated and upturned. Marooned. Capsized.
The only time this window comes alive is 8pm, Thursday. We step out of furnished cages to clap and bang pans for our NHS, our frontline workers and our good health. We wave, we smile, we retreat back into our shells.
My second window is bathed in blue light. The world that flickers into view is blue, white. 24-hour rolling news. Comedy panel repeats, dating quickly. Charity live streams and [piss] ups on Zoom. I don’t know which window is real anymore.
Rainbows on screensavers. Scrolling feed, repetitive thumbs. Tik Tok memes. ‘Don’t Rush’ challenge gone viral, while scientists scramble for vaccines.
I cleaned the double-glazing on Saturday. The picture is now HD. The leaves glow, birds dance and for a moment it seems somebody hit … pause. No cars. The odd bike. The 202 bus appears on the horizon, valiant and empty.
There are rainbows in windows. Everywhere. In chalk, on steps.
There is more hope in people than there is, in the sum total of GDP.
Or in MP’s. Or PPE.
You see, the invisible have become visible, and the silence overwhelming. Yet one thing that still keeps me together, apart.
You.
There are rainbows in windows. Everywhere.
Exit meeting.
Dan Tsu has left the meeting.