photo by florian klauer
ONE NIGHT IN February, I dreamt that a sun-shaped meteor was hurtling towards the earth.
This was a few days after reports that five British adults and a child had contracted the new Coronavirus in France.
Far from being any sort of premonition, my poor brain had just picked up snippets of news I’d overheard about the virus, spliced all the signs together and in some desperate attempt to get me to Pay Attention, resorted to packaging a warning in an apocalyptic nightmare: ‘Oi stupid! That virus is coming here!’
I awoke and dismissed the dream as the result of a hyperactive imagination. Then one morning in early March I woke up with a tickle in my throat and with the feeling of some child-sized creature squatting on top of my chest.
The World’s Worst Hypochondriac
The first reaction of any sensible world-class hypochondriac when something serious actually happens is denial. It didn’t help that my symptoms didn’t match the rather vague list of indications that now circulated the various medical websites. I had no temperature, no persistent cough, just a feather in my throat and an ache in my chest that spiked each time I breathed.
As we were advised in England not to go to our GP, I checked NHS 111 online which told me to call my doctor. I was worried that she seemed almost as uncertain as I—add to the fact it was still technically flu season. But this was unlike any flu I’ve ever experienced.
‘Should I call you if the symptoms get worse?’I said. Her answer suggested that if I really got any worse the only thing I’d be doing was waiting for an ambulance.
I immediately quarantined myself from my family to keep them safe and took to wearing face coverings indoors, frightened that any cough or sneeze would ultimately lead to their doom. Then the next day the symptoms all but completely vanished.
What? Had I just caught some weird little cold instead?
One of The Lucky Ones?
To say that I felt like an utter turnip would be a complete understatement, especially as I watched the really heartbreaking stories of Covid-19 unfold.
The truth is I was one of the lucky ones.
To belabour this point, two old clients popped up one after the other and asked me to ghost-write a fiction series and some online content. And as the likelihood of lockdown loomed I knew that unlike the millions whose jobs would be affected, at least I would have some income.
Photo by Donovan Reeves on Unsplash
The Creature Strikes Back
Then just as I started the first new project and exactly two weeks after the first symptoms struck, I woke up at three in the morning gasping for breath and with an intense prickling sensation in my chest—as if the little branches inside my lungs had all been set on fire.
This was it, I thought, I’d be calling that ambulance after all. And in a haze of panic stumbled downstairs, slipped my father’s old oximeter on my finger to find my oxygen levels had plunged to fifty-five per cent.
However my first thought was not to call emergency services like a normal human being, but to make a cup of tea (Earl Grey, hot) to soothe my galloping heart. Yet as I applied this peculiarly English form of first-aid, I finally calmed down and my oxygen levels started to rise.
When enough oxygen reached my brain, I thought surely this could only be a panic attack. But in case I forgot this was no ordinary fit of terror, pinpricks of heat still smouldered inside my lungs like tiny embers each time I breathed. Gradually I started to feel better and now exhausted stumbled back upstairs and into bed with the hope I’d wake up next morning.
The Creature Surfaces Again
I awoke next day to find that heavy little creature had crawled right back onto my chest. But he had clearly taken to beating my skull with a rock during the night, as the dull throb of my head testified. Worse still, from time to time, that strange tickle in the back of my throat would now erupt without warning into a shallow cough.
However my temperature still stubbornly refused to rise and by now testing for Covid-19 had stopped. So I had to stay home and suck it up with the hope that whatever the heck this was wouldn’t turn up with horrid new surprises.
By the end of that day my breathing improved but remained somewhat laboured as that creature continued to squat on my chest. I still had a whole series to finish but I also had the privilege of working from home instead of battling the virus on the front line.
Work Still Beckons
With each cycle of the illness my symptoms grew worse. I wrote an email to post to my clients just in case the virus won.
However I was still well enough to sit up and write the first couple of stories. It helped that I had outlined the series in the beginning, giving my writing some scaffolding to hold onto on the days when each breath became a slight wheeze. Then once again the creature would slink away and its accompanying symptoms gradually receded.
Meanwhile around the 24th March, pubs, restaurants and theatres began to shut, people had started to strip shelves of loo roll and hand sanitizer and it seemed as if the government and their advisors were only just starting to chase a horse that had long ago bolted.
As I had symptoms fairly early, lockdown came much later than I expected. I clapped for carers from my window, still unaware that my neighbours and I were also applauding people marching towards their deaths.
Like most, I videocalled family, played quizzes, swapped safety advice. Donated to those raising money for PPE, download folding@home on my computer to help with covid-19 research. Just like most, I did what I hoped might help.
All The Birdsong
Several weeks after my extended quarantine I would venture out, drove down near empty roads, spotted a scatter of rainbow paintings pinned to the fences of empty schoolyards. Watched ravens and magpies colonizing the spaces usually occupied by humans, spied the more frequent calling cards of foxes and heard the morning birdsong, all that birdsong.
I also drew quizzical stares as one of the few who wore masks, gaped at the black and yellow striped hazard tape and covid-19 warning signs in DIY stores, witnessed the strange aversion some people have to following arrows in shopping aisles.
The World Re-Opens
A few months later I finished the projects for both clients. Then the world began to open shop by shop and people crowded onto the beaches as if by lifting the lockdown the pandemic had magically vanished. However the creature would still surface from time to time as if to remind me it wasn’t quite done with us yet.
But each flare-up became much milder than the last and where as I once woke up with my lungs on fire, the creature has now left me with only a slight wheeze as a souvenir of its unwelcome visit.
In the end I was fortunate to be well enough to complete work for both clients, but even though these days the symptoms themselves have largely disappeared, they are a lingering reminder of what could have been.
To Fresh Beginnings
I am now writing the long overdue sequel to my novel, a Christmas Romance with the Earl. Based at springtime in the village of Birling Grove I should’ve started it a year ago, but my plans got waylaid when a writing client re-emerged. And sadly I am not someone who can juggle more than two projects without completely draining the well.
So the choice has always been a difficult one, whether to write for other publishers and get paid now or to write directly to my readers. Yet even though the latter choice is harder, it is always the one that gives the most pleasure.
As for writing during these challenging times? I don’t think that having a lucky roll of the dice during a pandemic is ever a teachable moment. Especially in a world where we know that the most vulnerable are often on the frontline, where our leaders can place self-interest before doing the right thing and where even the greatest superpowers can be brought to their knees by something too small to be seen with the naked eye.
However what I've seen we can do in difficult circumstances is to keep plugging on as best as we can, keeping others and ourselves as safe as we can and try to do our own little bit in whatever way we can.
Then perhaps by doing that we can create a kinder, safer world for the rest of us.