Beware the Cocooned
I had my usual glance at the online papers this morning.
It was the usual Virus, Virus and yet more Virus. The main headline did catch my attention however –
Coronavirus: People may be asked to stay at home while ‘cocooners’ are out under new plan
Now this brought up a vivid mental picture……….
Thirty minutes before the appointed time, vans with loud hailers will tour the streets telling everyone to get indoors. Those near their homes will rush in, do a headcount to make sure all are safely in and then lock and bolt the doors and windows. Those too far from home will have to find themselves a suitable shelter.
Soon there is no sign of life. The only movement is a plastic bag caught in a breeze and a stray dog sniffing around the litter bins.
At the appointed time the sirens will wail across the city. Slowly but surely the geriatrics will emerge from their homes onto the deserted streets. Some will have walking sticks while others will use Zimmer Frames, Rollators and the odd electric mobility scooter. They hobble around looking a bit bewildered.
The curtains twitch in the windows. Children peer out at the sight of all these old people. Parents assure them that everything is fine and that soon those people will have to return to their Homes for the Bewildered and the streets will soon be clear for everyone to emerge.
An hour later, the sirens sound again. This is the thirty minute warning. All the geriatrics start to make their way home. Some have been too scared to venture beyond the front gate so they are all right. Others will have wandered too far and will not make it in time, or will have got lost or can’t remember where they live. Those will be picked up by the police and locked up for breaking the curfew.
Finally the sirens sound a third time. The streets are clear of Wrinklies.
It is safe to go out again.
What a perfectly horrible picture!
You mean the Morlocks don't get them?
By the way, if the quote is actually a link it doesn't go anywhere.
The link was meant to refer to the original article, but seeing as the headline only referred to a small paragraph in a long piece I didn't bother with a link. Why it decided to link to itself is anyone's guess!
Already happened round these parts – we oldies never venture out until after the deadly school-run is over, that period when all the yummy mummies in the huge 4WD's they can't really drive fill the roads with their fertile incompetence.
Only when their precious Tarquins and Arabellas are safely in school-custody dare we take our own turn to go about our later-life business away from home, always aware that, like Cinderella's midnight clock-chime, if we fail to return to our safe-spaces of home before early afternoon, we risk the hordes of Fagin's trainee-shoplifters flooding out from their day-time child-care cell, running amok and turning our otherwise peacefully ordered lives into a chaos of puerile pubescent panic, mainly because Tarquin & Arabella's mother prioritised her lady-lunch and bikini-wax ahead of collecting the offspring yet again.
Who needs sirens?
How right you are! Glad my lot are too old for this.
See you now have until 18 May. Maybe. Then a 5 step pathway, subject to. Well actually, subject to your government's ability to pay for any extension. And that's fast vanishing into a completely collapsed economy.