To dance with a stranger or to die in the plague … should we hasten slowly?

By Moston writer, Dorrie Jane Bridge

Here I endeavour to represent Josephine Bloggs who is trapped on a planet of disease.

I want to get out of my prison, and to have people come in and transform it to a home.  I want to wander around the shops, handle the goods, eat in the carvery, sharing the serving utensils without a second thought. 

I want to debate in ‘live’ meetings and to go on holiday and enjoy trying to speak other languages – to dance with strangers.   I want to leave behind all things ‘virtual’.

I want my grandchildren to be safely placed in school without feeling they are being left in a battlefield.

I want to go out to work and socialize with colleagues who are working for the same cause.

I want to practise my chosen faith in my place of worship knowing that all other faiths are doing the same freely.

I want to get in the builders or the decorators, the electricians – to spend money or save money.

I want to save my business, be it big or small, by surviving and thriving.

To go to the cinema and be annoyed by the popcorn eaters or the theatres and stand on my feet clapping for encores.   Cheer and sing at a football match.

Do crafts or draw a paint, or play bingo in silence – study in college or join groups. Make music.

I even want to see my GP  come out of the inner sanctum, and to have the benefit of hands on diagnoses.

To somehow jump from a bemasked state of nervous optimism to some kind of normality.

I even want all of this here in the UK on June 21st. 

SO what do I NOT want

I don’t want our leaders, of whatever political colour, to take us, like lambs to the slaughter, into another cesspit of disease and struggle. I am sensitive to their dilemma and to the needs of our economy and our jobs and businesses.

I don’t want to follow gently nor to fight vocally, with innocence and ignorance as our guide with false optimism taking us down familiar pathways.

When the final easing of restrictions comes – be it June 21st or a year hence, it should not be ratified until it is recognised that though the plague may have waned it is threatening to surge once again.

By moving with greater caution and continuing vaccination, until the great majority are covered, we may avoid a coming winter of isolation and all its evils.

To quote Emperor Augustus …  Hasten Slowly.

#covid #holidays #uk #indian #bolton #manchester #plague

Dorrie Jane Bridge