* * * * *

The Sabbath.

My back is sore. My bones are starting to stiffen. I’m missing my circuit-training classes and the swimming pool.
I miss not being able to take ‘the boy’ to the beach, or to visit his friends and drink tea with their mothers. I miss hugs. I miss giving workmates a cheeky dig on the arm. I miss handshakes. I miss full Irish breakfasts.

I really like the peace and quiet though.

* * * * *

I keep having these strange experiences, especially as I lay in bed; it can happen anywhere though. I can instigate them consciously if I allow myself. They are getting harder to suppress so I roll with them, because – why not? I can’t really describe them. Out-of-body only it’s not. More like into-body. An awareness of the consciousness without a name, a nation, an education or memory. The thing that peers out through the eyes and knows not what it is. The second greatest mystery of creation.

No one has an answer they can stand over satisfactorily, although they fight to the death over their claims. It is all a bit bizarre really – the absurdity of life – accident of chaos or otherwise. Making war and contributing to Gross Domestic Product is probably not the best use of such a gift.

* * * * *

I was gardening on Friday. I dug out a bush. At its root was a lump, and from there a bough that split in two, and from there thick branches that split again into branches, and then thin twigs that continued to split and course a path towards the light.

It was an image that came to mind this morning as I transitioned from sleep into a state of awakening. Is that like the human race, I wondered as I considered pulling back the duvet and allowing myself to drift? Are we all just branches of the one great lump, splitting through time into endless directions?

I often think about things like that. I can’t help it. It’s just the direction my little green twig took.
I didn’t design my hardware. I didn’t arrange it so my mother would ride my father ad infinitum back to the first horny amoeba, picking up all the genetic mutations along the way.
Or maybe I did? But that’s for the advanced level psychonauts…

* * * * *

I try to suppress such intangibles. What use are they? School never taught us anything about them, so they could not have been that important. I was probably just odd.

It’s not like I can ask the bank manager for a loan by staking an ethereal claim to a slice of creation. The financiers are not interested in spirit. They want flesh and muscle to build the things that make them rich.
I tried to please them. I have scars to prove it, but they tanked the economy and unashamedly asked for more of our sweat. I never managed to qualify for a 25-year plan to own a piece of a planet they didn’t make. Who sold the first piece of land anyway? He must have been a thief.

* * * * *

My back is sore and my bones have stiffened. My brain has got set in its ways. I will never again be able to use my body to shift tonnes of plaster, concrete and stone like I did in Tiger years. I could pick strawberries and tend the land. I could see out my days doing that, if it paid the rent so ‘the boy’ has a bed to sleep in. It doesn’t, so I can’t.

High functioning autism. Low functioning servitude.

I have the fire brigade for now and I’ll practice writing a bit.

What has this to do with Covid? Simple: If we can’t explore outside, are we not forced to look inwards? Are others doing the same? What do they find? Anyone out there thinking similar things, or am I just an oddball who needs a short vacation in Our Ladies?

Great Mystery,
Inwards or out,
Hear me,
Guide my steps.

One of Covids most noticeable symptoms is so common that you don’t actually have to be infected to suffer from it – outrage.

Last week we were all outraged by the Dubs. “Stay away – build a wall – make them pay for it,” said the outraged culchies, in between posting pictures of Atlantic sunsets.

Pretty soon outrage had spread to the capital and was directed against Bulgarians. “Stay away!” said everybody, not thinking too much about what they would eat without their labour.

I’d thought about going fruit picking myself. I like the outdoors and a change of scenery is always nice. I checked it out a couple of weeks ago when the media started mentioning it. They have been teeing up this story for weeks now. Imagine that! The money is pitiful though, you’ve to pay for digs, and my back is aching just thinking about the work.

I don’t know if people noticed the fresh fruit supplies in Aldi have been running low for weeks? I knew it was going to come to this. I was going to mention it last week, but everyone wanted me to insult them instead. I’m grateful to the gardened elite who have our backs – jealous AF, but let’s not go there – read the earlier entries. We might yet need the gardeners’ help shoring up our food supplies.

It’s great that people are rolling up their sleeves, but without sounding like a scratched CD, the average person doesn’t have access to land. Community gardens are great. I was all set to get digging in my local one before the emergency struck (closing community gardens). Not that an area the size of a penalty box would feed this town for long. I’d like to see more allotments.

Fortunately, Ireland is called the Emerald Island for a reason. I think it is to do with all the grass. There should be loads of land to spare for communities to become more resilient. I’m told, however, that landowners are obsessed with holding on to the acreage their great-grand pappies inherited after everyone else living on it had starved or emigrated and they prefer to plant Christmas trees nowadays. Something to do with the English.

Queen Victoria, who was a bit more culpable than the average Lancashire mill-worker, never got to eat strawberries in her Christmas porridge though, despite ruling over a global Empire and plundering Irish food reserves. Even a social welfare recipient in the 21st Century is, in many ways, better off. If you were really determined, and went without food, clothes and heating, the dole could get you to Bulgaria and back twice a week. When Victoria sat on the throne it took her three days to get to Leicester. She probably thought flying machines were a conspiracy dreamed up by the Prussians to distract everyone from their true plan of uniting Germany and creating a New World Order.

It’s just another area in life where Covid is exposing the weaknesses in our current systems. If we want cheap fruit for 12 months of the year and don’t want to plunder foreign resources, we need cheap labour, or we can do it ourselves. Maybe we should think about what we are eating and – when we are eating it – share it among ourselves a little better?

Hopefully, this week’s outrage will focus us on a more equitable system of food production.

Of course that won’t happen, the real winners will be the suppliers. If the toilet roll hysteria is anything to go by, there will probably be a run on strawberries. They stretch my budget at the best of times, so I opted to feed the ‘the boy’ discounted Easter eggs for breakfast. Food is already starting to go up in price. Aldi’s own brand pot noodles are up 50%. I’m outraged! I have no idea what single fathers are going to feed their children now.

It’s all a bit samey from a writing point of view. I had a big think about that last night. What could I do to change it? It’s a reflection of reality right now so, in a way, it’s OK. People with a bit more to worry about than me have had told me they got a great laugh out of the “dark sarcasm”, so it’s been worthwhile. I explained back at the beginning how gallows humour has been my number one coping mechanism, forever. A response to powerlessness, which we are feeling right now.

It’s too easy to write though. It takes a lot more thought to write something serious and meaningful.

I decided there were a few things that were within my capabilities to change. Eat porridge for breakfast, go for a quick run, hoover the floor – which I paid ‘the boy’ to do. Think about the junk under the stairs. Small bits add up.

I went for that 12.56 kilometre circumference hike the other day. I realised human beings need a horizon. It’s impossible, surrounded by concrete, to feel fully alive. I think it’s why our amoled screen devices are designed with 16:9 aspect ratio, a life support for the billions in supersized metropolis.

Out in the townlands there are no need for such things. My long evening stroll took me through the Fianna Fail heartlands, where kids laughed on their trampolines and played soccer on the lawns that their fathers had freshly cut. If I had a lifestyle like that, I too would vote to keep the plebs impoverished in their dense urban factory farms.

It highlighted what was lacking in my life. The sound of children playing outside is the purest of noises. It’s primal, no amount of self-help gratitude lists will replace that. It’s something sadly lacking for parents in apartments. I’m glad I co-parent, what the boy’ misses with me he gets from his Mam and vice versa, I hope. Still, it makes me acutely aware of the inequality pre-loaded into the few short years of childhood.

I pray he’s not missing out. If he isn’t, I am. Instead of children’s uncontrolled, high pitched, giggling, I get the menacing, metallic, rumble of diesel engines, the shrill sirens of emergency vehicles and the whirling ferocity of angle grinders. It forces my spirit inwards and causes my breathing to shallow and my shoulders to hunch. Sometimes, I feel as if I want to blow something up. It’s obviously why townies need yoga and mindfulness. More life support for the urbanites.

I read yesterday that Icelanders have been encouraged to hug trees to replace the contact that isolation is depriving them of. I felt sorry for people missing out on cuddles. I remember when I used to miss them. In the end, you became self sufficient as the body down-regulates to live half a life.

It’s not like I haven’t met lots of nice people over the years, I’ve stayed friends with the ones who didn’t harass me through Facebook messenger. I daresay I could have allowed myself to love a few, but tragically there is always a flaw – too young, too boozy, too far away, awkward access arrangements. “Been nice knowing you, but…” It was so much easier when I was young and dumb. Ultimately though, something greater was looking after me; I needed the years to myself.

I’m not depressed, far from it. I’m just connecting with myself so I can lay down a map to change. For years the future has been shrouded in a dense fog, but I’m beginning to see a faint silhouette on the horizon of what my life should look like. Whether storms will dash me before I get there, who can answer?

Two or three weeks ago, I was prepared to roll up my sleeves, clench my teeth and deal with whatever the virus was going to throw at the fire brigade, but that hasn’t transpired into anything like I thought it would. I was ready, but I’m beginning to let myself relax and in doing so I’m getting to know the man in the mirror.

Covid isn’t my number one priority right now. It’s afterwards I’m thinking about. Right on cue I heard the bloke who runs the chippy say, “I’m surprised I’ve gone so long without catching it” – he’s accepted that keeping a business afloat makes his infirmity inevitable. I wondered if Typhoid Mary* thought the same.

* Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born cook believed to have infected 51 people, three of whom died, with typhoid fever, and the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. Source: Wikipedia. 

Another day, hey! I wonder how long people can sustain this? If I’m feeling it in my busy little town, with all it’s closeby walks, I can’t imagine it’s easy for people in the cities or in the remote wilds for that matter. I know the editor was certainly feeling the pressure out in the townlands.

I saw pictures on Sky News from Michigan where a backlash has started. Armed militia are protesting against tyranny with handguns tucked into their pants, groins pushed proudly forward. Although a friend neatly summarised the information age when he said, “Do you think the media publish pictures of that to make the rational doubters look stupid?” Yes, yes they do.

It’s a bit like the pictures of crowded parks in London that Facebook loves to judge. They’re in a city where there are tens of thousands of people within a 2km radius who are entitled to exercise. They are exerting the same rights as you and I, just without the luxury of a wild Atlantic view. They say a camera doesn’t lie but, nothing befuddles the truth like a good meme.

Had a fire-call last night as I was chatting with ed. A pile of straw had gone up in flames. As mentioned, Covid protocol means spreading out into different vehicles. I went as a passenger in the big, red, water tanker. I think we should give them names and paint smiley faces on them like Thomas the Tank Engine. The water tanker is the slowest of all the vehicles and sways from side to side due to its, er, fluid load. By the time we got there I was seasick, but all the hard work had been done, which was nice.

The driver of the tanker was smirking as I hopped back in. Back at the station, the Station Officer gave me a pitiful look as he filled in the paperwork. The two other newbies looked at me and turned away whispering. I was starting to get a bit self conscious, more so than usual.

“Is that supposed to be on you?” said another lad. I looked in a wing mirror at my N95 mask. Nothing looked odd. It was when I changed out of the bunker gear that I noticed someone had tied four feet of warning tape to the back of my tunic!

“You can put that in the blog tomorrow,” said a smart ass. So, I did.

I was guilty of social exclusion yesterday. Some demographics were miffed that I didn’t include them in my rant. It seems people like being insulted. (Not the vast majority of people, though we accept you may exaggerate for effect – editor).

“What about essential workers?” moaned one reader. What about them? They do valuable jobs, we get it, they never shut up about it. The way they are carrying on you’d think they were hauling ammunition through the jungles of Vietnam, not restocking hand sanitizer – which they now do with a wide swagger that looks like they are carrying invisible televisions under each arm. They’ve been wearing those rubber gloves and face-masks so long the skin underneath looks like the outside of a snackbox chicken. Don’t worry, I’m sure Leo Varadker will say something like “so much was owed by so many to so few” as he pins the purple heart medals onto their fetching little pinafores. Firefighters understand.

Enough about judging others though. I’m the only problem I have.

Under no circumstances will I decide that the lockdown is boring enough to organise the storage under the stairs, paint any wall, hoover up more than once a week, or eat anything other than fried gluten, extra-saturated dairy and dead animals. I’ve a pain in my heart which doesn’t stop me enjoying cigarettes more than ever before and the clean washing has been in the machine since the sun came out, days ago.

I’m so bad my life coach has stopped answering my calls.

Just thinking about it all makes me want to take a nap. You know what’s really terrible about all that? I’m coming to that conclusion that I’m happy! Which means I might never change.

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.23.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]Editor’s note: Harry rang this evening and, while we were discussing his diary, his emergency bleeper went off. And he was gone! No doubt, we’ll get an update tomorrow. He wrote the following earlier today. 

Warning from Harry: This post may offend you. Turn back now!

It has been a month since I started writing this. It hasn’t unfolded like I thought it would. Which is good. I thought we would be in the tens of thousands by now and the fire service would be stretched to breaking point alongside our brothers cheap replica rolex datejust turn o graph 36mm 116263 mens watch and sisters in the ambulance service, but out here in the west, at least, we are sitting this one out. Which is good for all concerned.

I went for my usual morning stroll. The river is getting really low, which bodes well – from a fireman’s point of view – for gorse fires. What is bad for one is good for another. Just ask the fish. They are easy prey for the otters now. You can see their desperation as they make astounding three-feet-high leaps out of the water, in a life or death bid to escape their predators. A cormorant has joined the hunters, adding to their woes. The heron has a new pretender to the throne.

I’d back heron in a fight though, or at least I thought I would. I strolled the half kilometre or so towards home and turned to see the cormorant had silently followed me all the way. I wasn’t sure if it was coincidence, or I was his new prey. I startled him and he took off showing off a wingspan a lot wider than it looked in his streamlined fish-hunting pose. Nature is amazing, unless you’re a trout. I hurried back to the main-street in town in case the birds were planning a coup.

Town was so busy it felt like being locked down at Cheltenham. It makes a mockery of the whole 2km radius thing; surely it would be better if I made myself scarce, reducing population density for a bit? Barely anyone around here believes the official version of events. I’m noticing a cultural divide: You can tell who people identify with by their Covid beliefs.

The working class believe it was the Chinese and that they have won World War 3. The farmers agree with them, but they are not bothered because it kept Sinn Fein out of office. They stand on the footpaths chatting freely like 1940s Londoners defying the Luftwaffe.

The hippy type, attracted by the local Steiner school, believes there is no virus – it’s just the body expelling toxins brought about by 5g, while oxygen is the secret to purifying oneself. They don’t “spend” money, they “energy exchange” it for imported organic rarities in defiance of capitalism. And they are outside forcefully exhaling the Covid toxins into the universe. Namaste!

There are the builders, they will agree with anyone if they think they’ll get the ride. They are naturally immune to the virus. When your diet consists of cheap christian dior imitation breakfast rolls, Marlboro’s, concrete dust and scaffolding bars, you’re really too bloody hard to catch anything. They too are outside, making it pay. I miss the building sites.

The super spreaders, I would imagine, are not the children – who hope this goes on so long that exams are cancelled forever – but the over 65’s. It is for them that life has ground to a halt, so they must be feeling really important right now as they carry on like nothing has happened. I can understand though that cocooning for an indeterminate length is something of a high risk strategy. If it goes on too long, old age could take you. It’s a bit like 21 Pontoon – do you stay put and lose, or gamble and lose?

My favourite people are those who stay locked down, like the religious types who are having a reasonable old time of it. The Evangelicals, of course, are delighted. This is a sign of the times: “The Lord is surely returning”.

The Catholics are taking it in their stride too. A local priest told me, “This Covid thing is all bulls***.” Fortunately, Jesus has taught them to respect authority so they mostly do what they are told. Allelujah!

Also behaving themselves are the social-justice-types who are at home making face-masks for the community out of recycled toilet paper. Normally they would be marching for civil liberties, but have politely given up their rights because the unelected patriarchy – strangely, the only source of information that isn’t a conspiracy – commanded them to do so. Bless their cotton socks.

Anyway, I might go for a stroll, around and around and around the town. The circumference of a 2 kilometres radius is 12.56 kilometres which is a rather long hike. I will update later in the unlikely event of anything interesting happening, or if I find a hitherto undiscovered tribe to offend.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

How’s everyone doing? Gone mad yet? It must be really hard for people. My journal tells me it’s groundhog day. This is my third attempt at writing this, because – what have I left to say? I’m sure the pressure is going to crack some unfortunate souls in the coming days. I’m truly sorry for everyone suffering right now. Lord knows, I know what suffering is. If you know me ring me, even if it’s 5am in the morning.

I spoke to a friend yesterday whose daughter lived in a Dublin apartment block. “She’s lucky because her balcony gets the evening sun”. Small mercies are everything in the lockdown lottery.

And I have plenty of them. I find new things to be grateful about everyday. Needless to say I pushed through the funky feelings of yesterday and the day before. I’m lucky, I’ve the tools to do that now. They were hard earned.

I’m reaching something of a mid-life peak, peripheral artery disease or otherwise. It turns out the things that bothered me have become assets during this brief interlude in history.

I’ve not really that much to lose, no mortgage or car repayments to worry about. I’m delighted I didn’t invest in a pension – kiss goodbye to that x. I didn’t think I had any friends till this all started. Now I can’t get off the phone, it’s a simple formula. The people I miss are the people I care about, so I phone them, or they me. To top it all, the pretentious artistes have left my airspace. I can hear my own thoughts.

The sun has reached a height in the sky that gives the courtyard a bit of light and life, which is lovely. I can sit with my door open listening to the little boy next playing outside with his father. It’s really cute. He’s four years younger than my boy. It’s like a rewind. They have lived there since he was born.

I remember when he was a baby and I could hear him crying in the night. It used to break my heart. I was grieving the break up of my family back then. It all felt a little close to the bone.

Right now I’m watching him have a water pistol fight with his dad, who’s obviously learned a thing or two about tactics by watching ‘the boy’ and me play over the years. They were both laughing that uncontainable belly laugh as father became the boy he once was. It was beautiful, like watching ghosts of my past.

Daily writing is the best thing I have ever done so big thanks to my Editor and everyone else who has been so encouraging. It’s been life changing. I’ve realised how transient my moods are, proving I can’t ever buy into my own thinking, freeing my brain for more creative pursuits.

I’ve picked up some good writing habits, found a little rhythm that suits me and have become more productive and imaginative as a result. A reverse snowball my friend called it yesterday. I didn’t see how it was a reverse anything, surely that would mean getting smaller?

A short story I’m working on led to a spiritual experience last night as I realised how little time I’ve left on this earth. I won’t be able to unthink that thought now. It was one of those big, perception-changing moments and it was amazing.

I’ve a backlog of ideas. I’m going to dedicate myself to (Oh Jesus, I can’t think of the word and I use it all the time!)* doing a lot. I’m blessed, right now I have work that affords me time to do that.

I don’t know why it took Covid to show me these things. If you’re following my ramblings you know that, in the physical realm very little has changed for me on lock-down. A lot of people have suggested this might be a good time for a period of reflection. The more spiritually inclined I have spoken to have suggested a great psychic awakening. I don’t know about that as I can’t speak for anybody else, but I’ve certainly changed. The trick is sustaining it.

* Prolificacy! (The quality of being prolific or highly productive – ed).

I took a day off everything yesterday, even speaking. The poor boy (Harry’s son – ed) tried to engage me in conversation a couple of times, but I just grunted. It’s Ok to do that too now and again, or everyday. You gotta do what you gotta to do to get through. Doobie doo.

I did write a bit of a diary but it was nonsense, more nonsense than usual, so I abandoned it. I don’t think I’ve much to say any more. “I’m locked down – I’m good – I’m worried – I’m happy – I’m scared. Nothing particularly insightful at all.

As it was Easter, I was going to write something pompous about resurrection and try to tie it in with our current experiences, but it didn’t go the way I had planned. I thought about passing it off as post-modernism. There is definitely a school of thought I belong to, I don’t know which one, but I bet it has a padded cell.

I managed to write the first draft of a short story. I’m writing a second one now, it’s taking a bit longer. I think it might be overly ambitious. It keeps me amused though. I always get embarrassed by work I get published. I don’t know why. It holds me back.

It’s the same in other areas. I bought a cheap second-hand laptop off eBay today and felt ashamed that I’d spent the money.

I might have hit the wall. I see it coming nowadays though. I ought to, I’m old enough. I usually get one day a week when I feel like that. Sometimes it feels easier to just wallow. The trick is day two. That’s when I get the option to sink into depression or force myself out. After that it gets a bit harder. If it carries on ‘til tomorrow, I will hijack the dog for a while.

To take my mind off myself I rang a friend while I was in bed and asked her how lockdown was? “Try being perimenopausal with two hormonal teenage girls?”
I knew straight away it was a trap, Naturally I said the wrong thing and she hung up, so on that great start I went downstairs for coffee.

I thought I’d find some news not Covid related. Luckily a big asteroid had just missed the Earth. Less fortunately a radioactive fire was approaching Reactor 4 in Chernobyl.

I really didn’t need to read about the greatest economic shock since the great depression. I’m not over the last one yet. Last time I didn’t know what to expect. I do now and have far less energy to deal with it.

It might be a good time to take up drinking again. I haven’t had one this decade. I’d rather decided I wanted to live to my full potential. I had a plan to make one last big hard working push to pull myself up by bootstraps and get out of the rental trap before arthritis and peripheral arterial syndrome (bad circulation – ed) overwhelmed the last of my youthful vigor.

By the time this next recession is over, I’ll be in need of all types of medication – only austerity will have butchered the healthcare system so I’ll more than likely be dead.

I knew it was foolish to dare to dream again.

Nature isn’t worried about economics. It’s amazing how quickly the leaves unfold. One day bare, the next everything is looking green. The birds are happy to have some foliage to cover their modesty now mating season has arrived.

Sap was also rising in young adults who had congregated by the river. They must have been defying the lock down – they couldn’t all live in the same house? It’s only natural though. There comes a point in every lockdown when even the trees begin to look alluringly exotic.

I’m in great old form these days. Writing daily is really helpful. I have found a nice little routine that works for me and I’m never short of ideas. I guess it’s like any other muscle. The more you use it, the more you have in the tank.

A journal is a reflection, like a mirror. Suddenly you become aware of yourself. I look back on my thinking and see what needs to change. At this stage I don’t know if I am writing the journal or is the journal writing to me.

Anyway, whatever, it’s cheaper than a therapist. The only problem with peace-of-mind is that it makes for boring writing.

Which is why I decided to enter a short story competition. With three more weeks on lockdown what else is there to do? Fiction, I decide, gives me the freedom to tell the truth of humanity, which, for whatever reason, is too uncomfortable at the level of fact. There are so many pressures in non-fiction – litigation, paymasters, gentle editorial suggestions where a word or two changed can change the whole tone of a piece. 

The newspapers might write of critical conditions or life-changing injuries. An author could tell you what that really looks like. In the fantasy realm there is no need for euphemisms for all the pain, the grief, the blood, the rage, the sex, the fear, the love and the hate. Fiction makes it palatable.

I’m thinking of characters I might like to create. Naturally, I draw on my own experiences and those of people I know and it’s illuminating. Viewing myself as an outsider looking in teaches me why I don’t fear Covid.

I’m middle-aged now; an expanding belly pays homage to that. I was too young to buy property in the boom and I’m on the cusp of being too old now, not that banks give money to retained firefighters anyway. An ill-advised journey through college ate up years I couldn’t spare, time slipped by and now it’s almost too late. 

I have a son closing in on his teenage years, nothing unusual about that – I’m just another single parent renting in the 2020’s. As thousands could testify, it is not the most comfortable place to be. 

There have been lots of nights awake, staring at the sleeping boy, wondering if there will be a bed for him to sleep in or a room for him to bring his mates to in months and years to come.

Any bad break – an injury, mental health problems, an illness, a landlord’s bankruptcy – threatens homelessness or a hotel room and alienation from my child and I’ve rode that rodeo before. At best, the rest of life will be subject to the whims of owners who call the moment the rent is late, yet ignore texts to fix the broken upstairs window that spells doom in the advent of fire.

Those are the nights I Panic: Fear – Thoughts Turn Inwards – Depression – Self-Hatred – Self-Annihilation – The child – I Have To Live. I will the thoughts into a box in the reaches of my mind and force the lid closed.

And that is where they remain. But the void has been kissed and it infects the heart like a callous lover you would have been better without, but can never forget. I face it – I heal – I move on. 

And then comes the threat of Covid: Am I supposed to quiver? A quick death in a hospital bed is better than a decade on the streets, more socially acceptable than self-obliteration. 

Just because I am happy today does not make those realities any less true, either for me or the thousands of others who voted for change. I will continue to journal, but I feel I have reached the boundaries of what I can write without causing too great an offence. Yet the desire to speak my truth burns too hot to suppress. Now is the time to step into that.

I have served my time in the valley-of-death and don’t want the experience unrecognised. From this position of peace I will reach into that locked box and tell a tale of human experience more truthful than anything I have ever had published before.

We had a fire call late last night. Nothing major, a small bog fire in a local beauty spot. We donned goggles and N95 masks to protect us from each other and drove around the back roads in three vehicles.

It wasn’t spectacular, no roaring flames to guide us to ground zero. We smelt the smoke and followed our noses to the smouldering pile of peat and gorse branches. We laid out the forestry hose and stumbled our way through the darkness and undergrowth towards the fire.

We have a great team spirit in our crew. I have an unspoken deal with another newbie that we take it in turns to attack the fire. It was his turn, but he turned back to fetch something leaving me, hose branch in hand. I was ordered up the smoking heap.

I’m quite possibly the worst firefighter in Ireland, but I have always enjoyed climbing things, especially when it is pitch dark and they are on fire. Which sounds way more heroic than it actually was. I’m not the boy I used to be though, which is a good thing – last night I dreamed I jumped off a roof, which I definitely did in reality once before into a pile of sand. I’m a little more careful now my bones are beginning to creak.

The lads were in great form, we laugh a lot. I love the slagging – it makes the waiting for calls worth it. I generally leave with a spring in my step, and last night was no different, so I celebrated with a takeout pizza and watched Contagion on Netflix. A really good movie but possibly a bad choice in the current context. It left me convinced the garlic mayo was incubating covid.

I’m sure you can think your way into symptoms. I spent a sleepless night wondering was it the pepperoni and chilli that was drying my throat or was I coming down with something? I woke up phlegmy and the boy just coughed but it is pollen season. Christ, the paranoia!

A young Traveller couple knocked on the door to use the toilet. I guessed she might be pregnant so I let them in. I have a strong core belief around not shutting the door on people.

While the girl went upstairs, the boy moved towards the couch.
“Stay back,” I said, feeling uncomfortable that, in Covid days, kindness includes talking to people like they are a dog.
“I haven’t got it, I’ve had the cure.”
“Bull – no one has a cure.”
“I’m telling you I do.”
This was going nowhere, so I kept my distance until the girl had finished her ablutions. I felt a bit bad about the skidmarks on the toilet. Still, beggars can’t be choosers.
“Thanks Harry.” He wanted to start chatting.
“Go, I’ll see you another time.”

I read a first hand account of a nurse in New York and it broke my heart. While I sit around eating lots and reflecting on the minuscule issues of my life, there are people out there fighting to keep people alive, risking their own lives in the process and I’m powerless to do anything about it. The HSE emailed me with a ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ in response to my application.

So, the best I can do for them right now is tighten my lockdown. Morals will have to be reviewed: No more public lavatory service, no more take-out food and no trips to the Spar close-by for Kit-Kats.

I’m a little behind the curve in all these social changes. I naturally resist perceived erosions to freedoms. It takes me a day or two to catch up with popular thinking, so it took me a while to jump onto the kill-holiday-home-refugees bandwagon. I know morality changes depending on circumstances. There is a rising movement threatening direct action against second properties – from people who would normally be way left of that type of thinking. I get that, in times of famine there is an argument for eating babies, but I need to get my head around it first, just in case the groupthink is wrong.

Interesting times for social scientists. ‘Shifting ethics in Pandemic Times,’’ which might make a PhD proposal for someone with the inclination.

People are not staying put. Last night’s figures scared me and the first-hand account scared me more. There might be another little spike in a week or two as a result of the Easter mobility. This week we have gone from “seeing the peak,” to “the surge is yet to come.” It’s a roller coaster with lows of sanguine acceptance and peaks of hyper-vigilance.

I resolved to stay vigilant. Other people can do what they want.

Familiarity breeds understanding. All I had to do was open my eyes.

I’ve learned, quite accidentally, that by retracing the same route once, twice, three times daily, the senses become attuned to changes. As a result I’ve learnt to track the whereabouts of the otters in the river which has brought me great joy. It might be time to invest in a camera. I feel bad that my awakening coincides with other people’s grief, but I neither asked for nor expected a renewed peace in nature.

Over the years, many well-meaning people had tried telling me how healing the Great Outdoors is, but I’d stopped feeling anything good. Everywhere I went, I saw the detritus, flotsam and faeces of humans, even in the wildest of spots. I didn’t care if it was chemtrails or contrails – all I saw was a beautiful blue sky corrupted by Man. Sapiens had wrecked everywhere I looked; what was supposed to inspire me about that?

I’m not alone in these notions. On this morning’s walk I met a local man riding a bike. He pulled the brakes and skidded to a halt on the gravel track. A hard-working and community minded volunteer who coaches sports to kids and reads poetry to the public. I had always presumed I wasn’t cool enough for his time. Before social distancing no-one wanted to talk to me; now I need a big stick to keep them at suitable length.

He seemed nervous, almost shaking, he couldn’t look me in the eye, a sign I recognised, of a brother in pain.
“What’s that?” he pointed at some white froth in the river, “pollution.” He answered himself.
“It gets pretty bad,” I agree, “Sometimes it’s like an Ibiza foam party.”
He showed me photos on his tablet of fertilizer run-off. He didn’t carry a phone, he didn’t like to be permanently connected.
Inevitably the conversation turned to Covid: “It’s 5g you know.”
“Er, Ok.” I wasn’t going to go there.

I’d disengaged from the Facebook arguments a while back, because all sides of the argument had become expert ‘Radiologic Technologists’, but nobody, except me, seemed concerned with what Cambridge Analytica would do with access to our washing machines? The 47th president will probably be called Daz.

“It’s making us all sick. We are going to do something about it. Will you help us?” he said.
“Who’s us?” I replied
“Well me….and you.”

I took his phone number out of politeness despite it being unfashionable to protest against telecommunications masts since 2005. Although I did not agree on this subject I could certainly empathise with his torment.

Here was a man whose mental health was visibly affected by the powerlessness of living in a rapidly changing world. To rub in salt, that change wasn’t natural, inevitable or even accidental. It was a change that was forced by very large corporate and government players who didn’t think to ask him what he wanted the world to look like for his two young children. It was hurting him badly and I had been wrestling with my own internal quarrels over enforced connectivity this week.

Two nights previously I was admiring the moon with a lit menthol cigarette in hand. I saw a satellite gliding through the stars, which sounds almost graceful reading it back, but in reality it’s just more human flotsam, ruining a stellar view. At first I thought it was the International Space Station – then I saw another one and another, then another, until I’d counted thirteen, bloody hell! 2020 was turning out to be quite the year – raging fires, pestilence and now aliens.

I knew nobody on Facebook would believe me so I asked Reddit. It turned out I wasn’t mad: Elon Musk’s SpaceX programme, its own website unashamedly proclaimed, was launching, “thousands of Starlink satellites in the coming years and hundreds this year.”

42,000 to be precise. What I saw was the opening salvo, deployed last November. It is happening fast and there is nothing – unless you are North Korea – anyone can do to stop it. Planning laws, apparently, do not have a remit for outer space.

So that’s it, within months the night sky will be ruined. Never again will an artist paint an unspoilt milky way. Van Gogh is officially obsolete. The Orion Nebula has caught crabs. I really feel for the 100 or so uncontacted tribes of the world who must be thinking all kinds of end-time prophecies when they see hundreds of man-made piles of space-crap ploughing their flight paths through the morning dusk. They might not realise but it’s the ultimate colonial f*** you.

Or maybe they do realise and have unleashed ancient magick against Elon’s imperial sky demons – because a map of the nations most affected by Covid is eerily similar to a map of the most conquest inclined nations of the last five hundred years: the Grand nations of Europe — Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Britain — the USA, and oddly, the Ottoman Empire. Why is that? Arrogance maybe?

Friends have suggested reasons including increased testing, increased mobility, and pollution in the densely populated industrialised lands. My two cents is that developed nations can support a population of people who are the most vulnerable to Covid. The median age of fatalities, we are told nightly by RTE is up around 80, which according to the World Health Organisation is 20 years higher than the life expectancy in Africa.

When you live in one of the African nations south of Sahara – where 1 million people, most under five years old, die of malaria in a year (Source: WHO) – I imagine Covid might not be the most anxiety inducing thought of the day.

Or at least it wouldn’t be, only the anti-malarial medication that so many desperate parents can’t afford is being touted (mainly by Trump) without overwhelming evidence, for effectiveness against the virus. Not that evidence matters anymore, because the rabbit is out of the bag and the ensuing scramble for hydroxychloroquine will lead to greater shortages for their children as adults from rich nations claw each other’s eyes out for supplies. Either that or suddenly the world is going to miraculously discover the hitherto lacking, capacity to produce enough for all. Or maybe we can all nobly agree not to take medicine off babies? Yeah, didn’t think so either…

The lockdown is taking its toll on the Polish upstairs who have started early drinking, banging metal kitchen utensils and shouting ‘kurwa’ and ‘dupek’ a lot. Which would be fine if they closed the windows. I wonder how everyone else is?

My heart felt heavy this morning, I dreamed of a large box – inside that box was another box, and then another and another like a Russian doll. Some boxes hold burdens that need to be dropped, others hold truths to be accepted and others still hopes, stifled by weight. I hadn’t planned to use this time for spiritual voodoo, but it’s happening anyway. If you hadn’t realised, by now, that plans mean nothing, what hope is there?

I decided to shake off the dream by taking a walk. There is a cross on a hill nearby I haven’t seen up close. I turn out of my courtyard and negotiate the main street. It’s as busy as ever. I’m paranoid of people’s infection status. The footpath is tight and zig-zagging through the slow-moving townsfolk is frustrating, so I step onto the road to maintain distance. The SUVs can wait. I diplomatically suppress a cough till I round a corner and leave the crowd behind.

I take a dirt track behind a row of townhouses. As I distance myself from the town’s epicentre I see how the quality of lock-down increases with the size of the patio. Paddling pools, trampolines and flower beds tease me with their promise of children’s laughter. Pretty soon I’m into the townlands where road frontages border half-football-field sized gardens. I decided to leave ‘the boy’ (Harry’s son – ed) with his mother’s garden a while longer.

It’s a lot warmer under the bright blue sky than it is in my dank flat. Now I’m left carrying a jacket I don’t really need. The morning’s heaviness lifts as I absorb the light. I wonder how far away from the fire-station I am. I check with Google maps – 2 kilometres, it informs me, the limit of the curfew.

I’m less worried about that. I have travel documents on the phone and I’m more of a danger to old folk 10 metres outside my front door than I am here. It would be safer for all concerned if I pitched a tent on this spot and sat out the crisis. Rules are always arbitrary. I am concerned about missing a fire-call though. Running 2 km in five minutes is at the limits of Olympian ability and I came last in my latest fire training course.

I head back and pop in to Aldi for a loaf of bread. I see a retro style popcorn bowl for sale and wonder who would need one. Heavily-discounted Ireland RFU apparel is testament to the cancelled sports season and there are rows of Easter eggs. Usually, they have sold out by now and, most years, my kids go without. This time there are loads at reduced price. I pick up three to keep Jesus happy.

Size matters, the biggest eggs are for the children you love the most, decreasing in size to represent the smaller amount you are willing to spend on the crotch goblins who are just annoying obligations. They need to know where they stand, right? There are deluxe eggs aimed at adults, possibly for significant others. Just as well I don’t have one – she wouldn’t get an egg anyway. I spend 99cents on one for ‘the boy’ and the same for his Mum’s other two kids… All children are equal.

As evening drew in, the crew from the fire station gathered, carefully maintaining social distancing, to pay tribute to fallen comrade Dublin fire-fighter Dave Mcloughlin. It was the first time we had been together in more than a month. So far we’ve had a walk on part in this crisis, which wasn’t what I had expected. The sombre nature of the occasion gave me pause to reflect on other frontline staff who will be exposed to danger on a continual basis and may lose some of their own.

Covid grief hasn’t touched me yet. I know I said it wouldn’t, but I thought of someone particularly vulnerable yesterday and I desperately hoped I’d see them again.

It’s getting closer to all of us. Friends of friends have passed on now. Ireland is a small country.

I think we are doing well as a nation overall, but then again how can I tell? It’s just the various media that tell me that and they’re not going to say otherwise are they? But I think we are doing well. I also think we are in it for the long haul. If they lifted the restrictions on schools in a fortnight would you send your kids back? I wouldn’t. I don’t see the Government taking any big risks. I wonder what the exit strategy for this is?

Theoretically, you could keep a country on complete lock-down and minimise all deaths of any cause indefinitely. There has to be a certain amount of fatalities per day/week/month that is acceptable, the price for freedom and a functioning economy. Somebody has that figure in mind. A decent journalist should ask.

We lost one of our finest today. Dublin Fire Brigade firefighter and paramedic Dave Mcloughlin died suddenly and peacefully. As yet no cause has been released.

Rest in Peace David.

We salute you.

* * * * *

Yesterday was a tale of two leaders. In a reflection of the UK’s worsening fortunes, Boris Johnson is in intensive care with Covid.

The UK were slower to react than Ireland. Initially, I thought the herd immunity plan wasn’t a bad idea – get it over and done with rather than sit around waiting. It transpired I was wrong; it’s lucky I don’t run a country. Tragically it’s the people not making policy who are paying the price. Per capita, the average Brit is more than twice as likely to die from the virus than their Irish counterpart.

I don’t think it’s karma that Britain’s PM finds himself in an ICU. I just think it’s maths. He’s only been in power a few months – has a peacetime Prime Minister ever had a more eventful start?

I give him the same best wishes I give to everyone else suffering from any threatening situation right now, Covid related or otherwise.

I am glad we have a doctor in charge here. It attunes him more readily to the dangers of Covid. I hope both leaders will have a greater respect for healthcare after this. I could be wrong again though.

Leo has opted to join the HSE assessment helpline. PR masterstroke or otherwise, I like it. In times past kings would fight with their men.

There is plenty of room for cynicism, but Leo’s speeches have been fairly rousing, despite unashamedly borrowing quotes from movies and historical statesman. The light-hearted memes spawned from that have only served to make him more popular. Identifying the original sources for his statements could become a drinking game.

If I was an advisor, I’d tell him to keep upcycling old monologues. “Whether tis’ nobler in the mind” to do such a thing is open to question, but the Queen has taken to quoting Vera Lynn and I’m talking about Covid bombardments, so hyperbole is suddenly in vogue.

Ireland seems to have some degree of control over this. Infection growth rates are below 8%. Simon Harris said to expect the lockdown to be extended, but Leo has said when we reach 5% we could look at lifting restrictions. At a press conference he was quoted as saying: “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.”

I got up as usual at 9.30 this morning, woken by the cooing of wood pigeons, but my routine went out the window. I proceeded to waste the next 6.5 hours and I can’t for the life of me figure out what I did in that time. Still, lockdown innit! It’s an asset.

This had me wondering how many of my previous depressions are down to not living up to expectations – my own and those of wider society. Doing eff all today was fine when it was judged fine by me, by the media and by Facebook’s stay-at-home wardens (who should really bring their pitchforks to my main street).

But, when the economy is booming and expectations to perform are high, low days like this would be enough to have me begging the doc for Effexor. It’s nice to have the pressure off. It’s also nice to hoover the carpet once in a while – this evening’s big mission.

Dreams I would have preferred not to have had woke me through the night.

Zombies: I dream of them a lot – hostile and overwhelming threats, the interpreters say, common enough to spawn a genre. I dream of a woman from my past, a woman not yet met and a conflict in the present – and am startled with the revelations they bring.

I dream of taking the boy to watch Bohemians of all teams and realise we’ve never been to a soccer match. Suddenly I fear Covid could snatch that chance.

I’m alone today. The boy followed the dog 16 km north. He was better off fixing up the garden with his step-dad than with me in this claustrophobic court-yard. That’s OK. I’m good at passing the time and he’s well cared for.

My back and lungs hurt, my eyes are swollen and I’ve a pain in my stomach. That’s OK too. It’s not the virus. I’ve been rationing out my weekly arthritis medication. Seeing how long I can go in the event of a collapse of the State or hyper- austerity. I can push it a few weeks now. Age is slowing an overactive immune system.

Prick of a disease though: Half a generation older and I would have been fully disabled without the biological medication. As it is, I’m a kickboxing fireman.

It’s all about the little things these days. The obvious one being a tiny fat-encased packet of information that for reasons known only to the keepers of creation’s secrets, needs to replicate at all costs? What drives DNA I wonder? They say viruses aren’t living things, so how can it have an ego to force it’s destiny? You’d think it would just give up. Humans know nothing of the forces that hold them hostage.

I take the lead from my captor and find it’s the littlest things that can free me from it’s grip. With a limited number of places to go, in the 2km radius, the smallest things have grown large.

Flowers, birds, trout leaping from the river and the grand old heron who watches over it all like a local Brehon-era chieftain. I find a childlike interest in the universe on my doorstep and desires of elsewhere seem pointless and wasteful. In this strange time, my soul is beginning to rouse from a four-year slumber.

And it scares me. Soon the fire inside will burn too hot to suppress and then I will be forced out of my isolationist comfort. A fireman poet might call it ‘soul pyrolysis’ which would be a great name for a R’n’B’ album.

I realise it’s Sunday, so I offer these lines to the same ‘Great Mystery’ that has shut down half the world.

I know not what you are.
I know not what I am.
I know not what you want.
I know not why I do.
I know not of your paths.
I know not how to follow.
I know not of your place.
I know that I am lost.

The dog went missing last night. Which wasn’t a concern to begin with, he’s always been a bit of a wanderer. When a few hours passed, I grew a bit concerned – so I rang the cops.
“What’s your name,” asked the female Garda who answered.
“Harry,” I replied.
She didn’t recognise me from either work or the warrant for the unpaid fine so I could tell she was new to the area.
“What kind of dog is it?” she asked.
“Shepard,” said l.
“Shepard? He shouldn’t be out on his own.” She sternly stated the bleeding obvious.
“Er, that’s why I’m ringing you?” I said, trying not to sound sarcastic to a rookie who was still finding her feet with her newly bestowed authority and was obviously not familiar with the way things work in this town.
“Well maybe if you take a 2km walk he might turn up,” she replied, making sure I was aware of the rules.
I wondered what would happen if I strolled for 2.1k… could I use the old English defence of “still working in imperial units… m’Lord?”

I read yesterday that four billion people are now on lockdown of some sort. The dog obviously isn’t one of them. He turned up at his other family’s house. The fact it was 16 kilometres away and he is 91 in dog years with arthritis of the hips didn’t phase him one bit. Which is fine by me – he can go and vomit on them for a bit. I just hope he didn’t catch anything from the dog upstairs.

A computer virus infected my Facebook, spreading to everyone in my meagre contact list. It turned out to be a blessing. Everyone on said list messaged me about it, leading to conversations and phone calls with people I hadn’t spoken to in years.

There’s been a lot of catching up on lockdown. I’ve been speaking to my Dad, maligned as he was in previous installments of this journal, on a regular basis over the last two weeks. I’m still mustering the magnanimity needed for my mother, but I’ll bite the bullet later today.

I rang the sister of my ex over the dog – the floodgates opened as if she hadn’t spoken to another adult human in weeks.
A friend from the firefighters recruits course rang me: “I’m bored off me f**** tits.”
“So you thought of me? Cheers.”

I did the dog walk earlier, sans the dog, meeting the ‘happy-man-with-baby’, yet again. We had a descriptive old chat about childbirth from the dad’s eye view.

All sorts of new connections are being made and old ones rekindled. Who would have thought that it would be boredom that heralded a revival of human love? I don’t remember that bit in the Bible. Connection is our greatest asset right now.

Like Ivy, the virus that started as an obscure news story, in a faraway country, is slowly – or at breakneck speed depending on your perception of time – tightening its stranglehold. I sense foreboding and a heightened air of gravity. Is it just my flightful feelings playing tricks again or are my faculties trustworthy? Either way I am adjusting my mind set accordingly. An ambulance drives up and down the main street, sirens ablare. It’s an ominous backdrop to this entry.

The Critical Incident Stress Management team (CISM) have emailed all firefighters asking them if we want to avail of counselling. Why now? I ask myself. What are they hearing elsewhere?

We have been issued with a letter allowing us to travel freely to work and incidents. Til now, Gardai have told me they have just been “advising” people. So why now? Is it simply protocol or are we preparing for a more rigid enforcement of the rules?

Strict instructions on how to manage the PPE stock for ourselves and the casualties – to prevent shortages – have been issued. Is it just prudence or has the ‘surge’ been deemed inevitable?

On either side, our neighbours are in danger of becoming overwhelmed by the tragic toll. I feel the vine begin to choke.

I was wise I feel, not to have expended too much anxiety on things to come up to now, but my focus is starting to narrow, my resolve starting to harden and my thinking starting to prepare for whatever is about to be unleashed.