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Joss McDonald ruminates on the meaning of ‘love’ in these discombobulated times.

Awww, Love in the Time of Cholera — Opps, I mean Love in the Time of Coronavirus. Okay, really what the fcuk am I saying? There ain’t no love happening right now for a lot of us. Unless, of course, you were one of those lucky single people who found a mate on Tinder or Bumble by way of an original pick-up line.

Maybe it was a get right to the point one such as “Come quarantine with me?” Or the more cheesy “The only thing not quarantined is my heart when I look at you?” Or a naughty one “The Coronavirus might have shut everything down, but I’m still open for business?” Perhaps a practical one, “I’ve got plenty of TP and food- want to bunker down with me?” Or the so bad it’s good line “If the Coronavirus doesn’t take you out, can I?”.

There’s amazingly been quite a bit of success with lines like these, as well as plenty of new-ish relationships where people suddenly shack up together. So much so, The Edge radio station I stream from New Zealand has featured a few time slots about this new cohabitation phenomenon. Here’s the thing – you either move in together, or you won’t see each other for at least a month, maybe two, or really who even knows?! How could anyone say no to moving in with someone they’ve been dating only a few months when the lust and passion are at it’s height?

Or, maybe you’re like me, and live in a tourist town devoid of any but approximately three, three tourists right now! Oh, and most of the “eligible” single expats have left too. Which means that, yes, you guessed it, we will not, for the forseeable future, be having any sex in the city.

I know for some of you, it won’t bother you too much. Alright, I’ll survive too, but there’s nothing like an impending warning to bunker down for an undisclosed amount of time to make you really wish you’d found your Mr. Right — or at least a Mr. Right Now.

There’s still one or two guys coming up on Tinder here a day and I think a few over. I recently matched and have exchanged messages with two who have been keen to meet. Sure, we can do a “social- distancing” date over coffee. I mean, how does that work?!

Are we supposed to sit at separate tables across the room from each other? Maybe we could write our questions on notes of paper, like in primary school, and get them passed back and forth by the wait staff- sanitizing our hands in between? Or, bring personal-sized white boards and markers to ask our questions on? Shit, but then I’d need to wear my glasses to see that distance! Ughh!

At what point do we not have to sit six feet or six meters, or whatever the new safety standard is, apart? Maybe every date we can lessen it by one foot, and if we have six successful dates, we can now finally kiss? And eventually (cover you ears mum and dad) have . . . . !

What if you don’t live alone? As whoever lives in your house is part of your “bubble”, that person will now have to pass the bubble test! What would the bubble test consist of?

1. Can cook?- You’d definitely want someone who can contribute to that. 
2. Knows how to use a mop/broom/vacuum?
3. Has good handyman skills? 
4. Is eager to play board/card/drinking games with your family or flatmates?
5. Isn’t a screamer! Yes, you might want to be having great sex, but nobody, and I mean nobody in your house wants to hear you! — Especially if they are single! *Note to self: Ask if they are a screamer in the above social-distancing date questionnaire.

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself here, as unfortunately, I have no prospective Mr. Rights in sight. Okay, yes, I have had two guys ask to meet, and so far I’ve met one. He was nice, good at conversation, but there wasn’t any spark.

Now, more than ever, I feel like there’s huge pressure on the date for it to be “all or nothing”. There’s got to be that almost instant chemistry and connection, because there isn’t time for it to build. However, just because we’re both not able to leave the country and there is an impending lockdown, doesn’t mean it’s automatically “Love during Coronavirus”. So, as they say, next!

I still have one more guy I could meet, as we’re not in a state of emergency lockdown here, yet. I’m not holding out a lot of hope, however, as my gut feeling is telling me he’s not my type – although he loves dogs, and has already said he wants to quarantine at mine because I have one.

Anyway, it’s okay, because I’d rather quarantine alone, then with the wrong guy out of desperation. Just in case, I’m prepared — if not, well there’s always Netflix. What better time for a Sex in the City binge-watching marathon, than for the next few weeks?

Samantha my girl, I’m coming for ya!

---

Joss McDonald is a resident and wordster from Siem Reap, Cambodia.
For more Joss click here.
Her relationship status remains unknown.

Some words for timely reflection brought to you by Isabell Sinclair-Irwin. Lake Hawea, Otago, New Zealand

I have survived two lockdowns and two pandemics. So far.

The first pandemic arrived in New Zealand during the summer holidays of 1947-48.  I was 9 years old.

The virus was called Infantile Paralysis. It mainly affected children, could lead to irreversible paralysis and up to 10% of infected children died when breathing muscles became immobilised. 

Today we call that nasty little virus Polio.

When the virus cut loose in New Zealand, suddenly everything and everyone beyond our farm gate was treated as infected and could not come in.  

My parents were terrified I would catch Infantile Paralysis because I had been a ‘sickly child’. By age 9 I’d already had pneumonia, double pneumonia (whatever that was – all I remember was either mum or dad watching over me 24 hours a day in my bedroom to keep me alive, and me feeling like I was on fire), English measles, German measles and whooping cough. 

No antibiotics in those days only revolting sulphur tablets. And homemade soap.

The homemade soap mum made – with carbolic acid in it I think – became double strength and almost took the skin off your hands.

Towards the end of the summer school holidays the Government decided schools would not open at the beginning of the school year. 

Every kid in New Zealand became a pupil of the Correspondence School.  At that time kids living in remote areas such as high-country sheep stations or lighthouses were pupils of the Correspondence School and received their lessons delivered in mail drops.

For 8 weeks at the end of summer 1947-48 my lessons arrived in large brown paper packages delivered to our mailbox by the rural delivery ‘mailman’.  Worksheets for English, maths, social studies and nature studies. Handwriting exercises, spelling lists, school journals, sometimes a library book, coloured pencils, pastel crayons and art paper (I loved the sticky coloured paper).

I was so excited when the package arrived in our mailbox each week.  I could not wait to read what the teachers had said about my previous week’s work and get into the new material.  I worked so hard and enthusiastically that my weeks work was completed in two days and then my mother tried to think of things to entertain me.  Being a girl in the 1940s activities for me were supposed to be knitting and baking. But I wanted to be outside.  

There was plenty of space.  

I was a farmer’s daughter.

Mum had a much harder time motivating my brother. He was 3 years younger than me and much preferred being out on the farm, a preference that has lasted until this day.

This was life for me for 8 weeks before schools reopened, and the school bus arrived at our mailbox to pick us up.

I was reluctant to go back to school.  I much preferred to pace my own learning and not having to go at the speed of others or be constrained by school bells.

My family was lucky because my brother and I stayed healthy.  I did not end up in hospital like the pictures we saw of kids living inside a metal lung that looked like water tank tipped on its side. I did not lose the use of an arm or leg and have to wear a leather sling or metal callipers like the 4-5 kids at my school that got Polio.

My parents, who were so protective, had got me through my first pandemic. 

——————-

As we all know, my second pandemic arrived in NZ at the end of the summer of 2019-2020.  I am 82 years old.

This nasty little virus has a much more scientific sounding name than Infantile Paralysis. This time it mainly affects the elderly. If we had given it a common name perhaps it would have been Mature Deadness.

When this virus tried to cut loose, suddenly everything and everyone beyond our garden gate was treated as infected and could not come in. 

This time it is me not my parents that are terrified I will catch the virus. And just like before there is no cure but this time instead of caustic homemade soap there is hand sanitiser with aloe vera.

Just like the first time around, the Government decided schools would close but this time it is my granddaughters doing school by ‘correspondence’, while I am outside doing gardening like my father once did.

My son tells me the girls work hard and enthusiastically and get their work completed early. They must get this love of schoolwork from their mother, or me, they certainly do not get it from him. My granddaughters also cannot wait to read what the teachers have posted about their work – posted online not in a letter. They too were reluctant to go back to school.  

By some quirk of fate I have been the vulnerable group for both pandemics in my lifetime: one at the beginning of my life that affected children and one towards the end affecting the elderly. 

My family has been lucky again this time as we all stayed healthy. My government, and all those people younger than me who are sacrificing so much, have been so protective they have got me through my second pandemic. So far.

Today’s lockdown piece is a brief tale of pandemic fiction, by Tom Vater. 

Deconfinement: They’d barricaded themselves in the Blue Parrot Restaurant. Neil, Brian, Amber and Eric. Long out of masks, the four friends could no longer go outside. There were too many infected. But they were starving. 

No one would come and save them. The shortwave radio on the cash counter told them as much, perched next to a porcelain ashtray from Venice that featured the restaurant’s owner’s face. Guido. Guido was dead. He’d become infected weeks ago. Brian and Neil had killed him with saucepan lids and rolled him out of the Blue Parrot Restaurant.  

In their defense, they’d been following government advice. Kill the infected. There was no vaccine. Anyone catching the virus would stop eating and keep spreading until they collapsed. If they collapsed. The authorities were overwhelmed. Business had long been shuttered. The media had collapsed. The Internet was gone. The Blue Parrot had been the center of the universe these past six weeks. At first, the food had been excellent. Then it had begun to run out. 

Amber emerged from the freezer triumphantly, a large frozen bag of something in her hands. 

“I found something.”

The others looked at her doubtfully. They’d been through that freezer. They’d scratched even the moldy packet of durian ice cream off the side and devoured it. Brian, Neil, Eric and Amber looked at each other. Brian was the first to speak.

“That freezer was bone empty yesterday. Someone’s put that bag in there. We had a deal. We’re friends. We agreed to stick it out together to the end. But someone’s broken the deal.”

Amber looked crestfallen. Eric had gone pale. Neil lit a cigarette. 

“Isn’t that your last one?”

“As you said, Brian, we had a deal.”

Eric stepped to the radio and turned it up. 

“The Ministry of Health advises all non-infected citizens to stay indoors and wear their government issued masks. Our air force will drop an aerosol campaign on the city this evening at 6pm, in fifteen minutes. There will be a bright flash of light. Do not venture outside for at least two hours.”

The announcement gave way to static. 

Eric turned to Amber,

“What’s in the bag?”

“Someone fucking cheated,” Neil interjected again. “Guys, we promised each other to survive together, keeping each other’s backs. Someone’s been eating and the rest of us have been starving.”

“What’s in the bag? Open the bag,” Eric repeated. 

Amber stepped up to the largest table, opened the bag and poured its contents on the shiny wood surface. She threw up almost immediately. Eric, Brian and Neil shrunk back as one. Perhaps not quite as one. But they all shrunk back. Amber was crying. No one said a thing. They’d promised to share. They’d also promised to keep their humanity. But one of them had failed. 

Neil shook his head, disgusted or broken, and took a few steps towards the door. He looked at his watch and grinned sadly. Then he shrugged and raised his hand and turned. 

“See you guys.”

“No,” the others all shouted. He hesitated, then shrugged again, a gesture his friends knew so well. A gesture they loved as much as they loved anything about one another. 

“Well, every cloud has got a silver lining,” he said and stepped out into the light. 

Lisa Arensen is riding out the coronavirus in Siem Reap, and stays sane and open to wonder by walking in Angkor Park.

Angkor Coronavirus Diaries, Part I

The descendants of Angkor

I.

They keep saying, in the papers,
that Angkor is empty; but
it is only empty of tourists.

It is inhabited by Cambodians, as it 
has always been. In fact, without
the lumbering buses, the rows of
tuk tuks, the crowds of visitors,
Angkor feels reclaimed. There
are families and lovers picnicking 
by the 12^thcentury moats in the hot 
afternoons, wading in Sras Srang 
reservoir with their trousers rolled 
up, fishing off the sandstone steps. 
City folk cycle on every road and forest 
path, obsess over the troops of long-tailed
macaques, and go up on their toes to pick
fruit like the Javan plum. Brave young men 
play football, gleaming with sweat.

It’s quieter, yes, and we who visit now are not 
quite like the foreign tourists or the ancient ones. 
Our modes of conveyance and our technologies
of communication have changed, but
the descendants of Angkor are still here—
walking, feasting and worshipping
underneath their sacred trees.

II.

I was on the south wall of Angkor Thom early
one morning when I heard the singing. He
was in the moat below me, a trap over one bare 
shoulder, a cast net slung over the other, and he
called out to me and I answered back, and he
said there were no guests for the boats, so he was fishing. 
I said I lived in the city and walked on, leaving
behind a boatman wading in still clear water up to 
his chest, singing an ancient love song.

Angkor Coronavirus Diaries, Part II

When death brushes closely by 

I.

We were coming back from the temples at dusk,
a wet sandy dog lying at our feet, and our tuk tuk 
swung around a corner and there was a woman 
lying on the side of the road with two men 
standing over her.

We pulled over by a roadside fruit stand,
I found my latex gloves and went to see 
if I could offer assistance. She was conscious
when I arrived, the others lifting her to 
her feet. They helped her limp across the 
road to the fruit stand as I quizzed her 
about the nature of her injuries. Nothing 
was broken, she insisted, and she longed for 
Tiger Balm. So I got her some, and rubbed it 
gently onto her swelling upper arm. There was 
red dirt ground into the side and back of her pretty 
gauze blouse, which she refused to let me rip
open to inspect her arm. There was dirt in her dark 
hair, and she was talking in that 
scattered startled way 
one does when death has brushed closely by. 

The car’s tire struck her motorbike. She toppled off 
to the side of the road rather than rolling under the 
wheels. The car, as is customary in Cambodia, was 
long gone. The other men were strangers like me, 
stopping to lift a fallen woman out of the way of more
danger. She hadn’t worn a helmet, she said, because 
she wasn’t going far from home. She had five children, 
she owed $10,000 to a microfinance institution, what 
would have happened to all of them, 
had she died that afternoon?There was no lump forming on her head, only the injured leg and arm from where the motorbike 
landed on top of her body after the collision. 
She was lucky. So I left her there with my red 
Chinese balm, the vendors talking her back to 
calmness, and I remembered that death can wait 
anywhere—not just in the spiked proteins of 
this new coronavirus, but just there, in the shadow
of the evening trees, around the corner, around the 
bend, just down the road between the market and 
your small wooden home.

II.

Last Saturday, we stepped through the ruined sandstone 
pillars of an Angkorian bridge to see the river and stopped short. 
Far below us, two young women lay side by side in the water,
fully clothed, their bodies arranged upon small boulders. 
It was an eerie tableau. Their purses and shoes lay on the 
far bank, the clear water flowed shallowly over their feet 
and jean-clad legs, their faces were pillowed on stones, limbs 
tucked beneath them. They were still as death.

My companion thought she saw one’s chest rise and fall, but 
I saw nothing, nothing but the gentle tug of the river on 
their clothes, the odd curve of one bare foot propped against 
a stone, and we could not leave them there, unsure of their fate,
so I climbed down the bank towards them, and still they remained 
unmoving, until I was only a meter away and could no longer bear 
the silence and called out, Sister! And one girl’s eyes fluttered 
open, startled, surprised, and she declared them both alive and 
well, simply two young women asleep in a shaded bend 
of the river three hours before noon. We left them there,
hearts pounding.

Philip Coggan shares a ‘lockdown day’ in Australia’s national capital.

Today is . . ?
I forget. It’s Tuesday, I’m sure of that. But I forget what day it is in the count of lockdown days. 

This is how I spent my day:

I ring my friend Gary. He lost his wife last year, but it was long-expected and he’s coping well. We’ve been meeting for coffee on the first day of each month but that’s on hold. He tells me he spent yesterday watching Netflix. He recommends Detectorists. ‘Understated British humour‘, he says.

I go to Molto Italian restaurant, across the toy lake where I live. I like Molto, I like Italian. It’s doing take-aways only. All the restaurants are doing take-aways only. I ask Carlo how’s business. Business is ‘ratso’, he says. A man goes past carrying a glass of red wine. ‘That’s Pete’, says Carlo, ‘he goes past every lunchtime, with a glass of red wine. Don’t like to ask why’.

The day is sunny and windless and there’s alot of people around – people walking dogs, people in cycling gear riding new bicycles, dads with small children, men of a certain age in sleeveless puffer jackets and flat tweed caps, groups of women of an uncertain age out for coffee in takeaway cups. 

I go to the supermarket to buy marmalade. There’s a homeless man begging outside in the sun, where it’s warm. He has a hat in front of him with lots of coins in it. I ask him if he’s alright, he looks unwell. Not corona unwell, but about to pass out from fatigue and/or lack of food unwell. 

Yeah.

What’s it like?

Cold at night.

Where (I really shouldn’t be getting into this conversation) do you stay nights?

Mumble. The guy talks like he has a mouth full of cotton wool. I’ll pass on that one.

Are people being more generous?

No. They’re tight.

Right.

Right.

Back home I phone Greg, a friend in Sydney; he was in the middle of completing the purchase of a new house when the hammer fell. I ask him for news.

‘News is good and a friend from Melbourne is coming up to help with the move’, he says. 

Melbourne? The rule in New South Wales is that you can’t travel more than 50km from your home without good reason. I fear that somewhere north of the border a New South Welsh patrol car will pull my Victorian-plated friend over and ask him what the problem is, and I doubt that helping a friend move house counts. But I don’t feel it’s my place to mention this. 

I watch the news. There’s been one more coronavirus death in Australia, bringing the total to 97. Here in Canberra we have one active case. Prime Minister Morrison offers us all his congratulations. Attention is now on getting Australians back to work. His personal popularity currently stands at 70%; pretty good for a man resembling a used car salesman. 

And so to bed. Tomorrow, as the man says, is another day.

In his third lockdown piece Ross Sinclair—Wellington, NZ—lays the groundwork for never being invited to another family BBQ while sharing some thoughts about his country’s Prime Minister.

When the kids are busy I catch up on emails and news. I find my way to a ‘human interest’ clip from CNN on YouTube. I cry and so does the interviewer. The news is not supposed to be like this. I stop it before it ends, like I stop bad dreams before they become nightmares, and I sit there remembering why I don’t watch TV. 

I get my news from Radio New Zealand. Smart people asking other smart people insightful questions. Very little ‘human interest’. 

I also listen to the Prime Minister’s daily briefings, marvelling at how lucky we are to have a compassionate leader in such a crisis. If the centre-right National Party had been in power my friend, a monumental mason, would have been busy next year—twelve months after death—when families erect headstones.

My wife wonders if Jacinda is heralding a new era of compassionate female leaders. I hope so. 

I don’t feel compassionate, I feel bored, so I post on the WhatsApp group I share with my 10 first-cousins.

“Two questions for you dickheads” I post.

“I was wondering if the antivaxers among us will be lining up for the Covid-19 vaccinations when they arrive? And to the rest of you, how do you feel now about the years of chronic underfunding of the health system under National?”

I try and offend both ends of the political spectrum. 

I succeed. 

These exchanges always descend, rapidly, into me being abused ; myself insisting that they should really listen to what I say as I am the only cousin with a PhD.

This sends them apoplectic. 

Mission accomplished. I go and make the kids a snack. 

Ross Sinclair

Today HOWL presents its esteem awards for the most interesting media headlines and bylines from these ‘Covid times’.

‘Justice of a Poetic Kind’ Award:

Shopper who used team to stockpile $10k of toilet paper, sanitiser refused refund

RNZ, 16^thApril 2020

Puns: ‘Oh dear’ Award

Selfish surfer’s behavior far from swell

Stuff, 16^thApril 2020

The ‘Not Keep Calm and Carry On’ Award

‘Shambles, chaos, ridiculous’: what the UK papers say about Covid-19 testing

Guardian, 2^ndApril

‘Interesting Question’ Award

Coronavirus: Where will be the last place to catch Covid-19?

BBC.COM > News

‘You Should Never Bake Your Covid Heroes’ Award

New Zealand TV presenter ‘deeply sorry’ for her disturbing Jacinda Ardern cake

Guardian, 16^thApril

The ‘Say What!’ Award

Coronavirus: German zoo may feed animals to each other

Stuff 16th April

‘The Purr-fect Headline’ Award

You can’t leave that lion there: big cats nap on road in South Africa amid lockdown

Guardian, 17th April

The ‘Headline that I Dream Of’ Award

‘It’s Over!’

Diary Entry No. 2: Walking a beach in Lockdown – Reflections from Ross Sinclair, Wellington, New Zealand.

Sometimes our exercise is a walk down the beach. Other days it is online dancing where I am apparently a complete embarrassment even though no one is watching.

When we were walking down the beach yesterday, we saw two police officers come down through the dunes in their day-glow vests. We had not seen police on our beach before. The authorities had ramped up police checks over the Easter weekend, ensuring people were not driving for walks. Rather than questioning beachgoers, the two officers proceeded to draw giant hopscotch squares in the sand and then play hopscotch. We walked past them without being questioned. 

Since we danced today, tonight I take the dog for a walk down the beach. All the streetlights are blazing like a normal night but the streets are empty. I try to pretend it’s after a zombie apocalypse, but disappointingly it just seems more like Christmas day night: everyone away on holiday except a few lonely souls. If it was Christmas day night at least there might be one drunken fool stumbling home like a zombie that I could have daydreamed about. 

The walk is along the beach is towards the airport where there is usually a procession of planes taking off at regular intervals. Tonight there are only two private jets taking off. Perhaps carrying PPE that billionaires have generously donated using the millions they don’t pay in tax. Or perhaps it’s just billionaires going where billionaires like to go. Like to Davos. Or to tax-free havens. Or perhaps they carry National Party politicians flying private to avoid infections from economy. All in the name of the economy. 

I reach the end of the beach near the end of the runway, and turn around to walk home. It seems darker walking away from the bright lights of the airport. The dark carcasses on the beach that I’m not imaging to be zombies are kelp washed up by a recent storm. Above the sound of the breaking waves is the sound of trucks. 

Beyond the airport is the sewage treatment station. The pipe that carries it’s sewage-sludge to the landfill has broken so there is a constant procession of tankers passing along Lyall Bay Paradeat regular intervals. One every 10 minutes. 24-hours a day. 

They are an essential service.  

One contractor has named their fleet the “Turd Taxis” and uses the colour scheme of NY yellow cabs. Another is a converted milk tanker, which just seems so wrong. At least they got it the right way around, and hopefully the tanker won’t return to the milk run once exports pick up again.

The trucks drive to fast. They must be paid by the load. When they pass there is a faint whiff of faecal material. It last just long enough for you to register it – “What’s that smell? Jesus that smells like…” – and then it’s gone.

Before Covid-19 when the parade was packed with people out enjoying the seaside, I imagine the drivers were also enjoying themselves by drawing attention to their trucks by driving too fast, and then appalling bystanders with that smell. 

I know if I was driving a Turd Taxi I would have enjoyed that. 

I feel sorry for them now as there is no one to disgust. The streets are silent as are the living dead. 

Ross Sinclair

The dawn chorus takes on a special meaning for Yaeayi, a Japanese native ‘locked down’ in France.

Like ‘other / previous’ mornings since Day 1 of this ‘world-famous / worldly-shared’ lockdown, around 7am several sprightly soprano notes commence tapping my brainwaves, and then my soul is introduced gently and connected to the natural world that lies outside my window.

I fix my ‘regards / looks’ onto the infinite horizon, infused with skyblue, embracing the universe with a spirit of ‘Peace and Love’ that I have never felt before.

I defy the power of gravity on my eyelids and let my ears fill with the notes of harmony played by the precious creatures that remain free, outside, in the ‘Covid’ world.

The notes, sometimes, are like an orchestra composed with different players participating in a movement or symphony. Other times more like a soft ballad played on some plucked guitar strings.

Each night, before navigating  my feet to my cocoon, I studiously wander towards my front window, in order to slide them carefully to make just the right space. This should not be more than 5-7cm—not too wide or it will allow in the chilled dawn air—but sufficient for the morning melody to make its way inside.

This night-time ritual is a new habit, borne of this ‘lockdown’ world, but one that has become part of it, ingrained. Now nature, not my cell phone, is my morning call; entering through the window and waking me each morning. Nature now has dominion of the land and sky beyond the glass.

So tonight like other days, I am wandering past the window, and preparing to dive deep into my blanket cocoon, wondering what notes will greet me at sunrise…

A new habit, a new ‘normal’, and one which I have come to hold precious.

PyunponpiiipoooSaasaasaa….. Piyopiyo…kasakasa–♪♪♭♭♯