I-S-O-S

Drawn and quartered

We’re in Stage 3. Or at least that’s what the politician on the screen is saying. This means that public gatherings are limited to a maximum of two people from the same household. Weddings are limited to ten, and funerals to five. Dinner parties with people outside of your household now come with a $1600 fine. People are confused. “Does it mean I can’t leave the house at all? What if I’ve had no interaction with anyone so far and have to check in on my mother? “

Panicked comments keep rolling by. Suddenly, the void is witnessing a wider expanse. The spread of information is swift and tedious. Just the other day the city’s most popular beach was filled with bodies until it was forcibly closed. We’re babies, after all; having to be nudged into the right direction, moralised to a decision and paternalised with the threat of belt lashings before anyone will even listen. The virus is either in the air we breathe or I don’t give a fuck.

I go on my daily walk and peer into shuttered shops, hoping I don’t see anyone inside (hoping I don’t see the owner dangling from the ceiling). A new housemate moved in the other weekend. The old one left because he feared he could no longer afford the rent, being a Chilean international student. People move in and out of the house while they move out, settle in. I shake the hand of my new housemate’s mover. What do I do—tell them to “stay the fuck home”? I wash my hands vigorously afterwards.

Work is still business as usual. People are either desperately needing or not needing home cleaning services more than ever. Is it an essential or non-essential service? Two kindly clients tell me to stop coming, offer to continue paying me so I can stay home as much as possible, but the majority cancel with no recourse. The remaining few leave disposable gloves around the house and stay out of my sight, hoping I finish up as quickly as I can. They are skittish from something: perhaps guilt, perhaps fear, perhaps from a lack of social interaction. I scroll through Twitter while I clean, a pesky habit. A headline comes into view: A Dilemma For Some: Should I Still Hire My Cleaner?

Money seems to both shine with an added value and be completely valueless. It depends on who you’re hearing from, however. I fantasise about a rent strike, send an email to my landlord to ask about my options. But it can also mean I’ll end up with a $4200 debt afterwards. Other people are crowdfunding for expenses. The most visible win. Should I begin to peg my writing to the zeitgeist? I’m glad I don’t have any dependants. The government announces a roll-out of wage relief for those who can prove that they have become unemployed in this time of crisis. In a bizarre turn of events, a friend will make more money than her boss, who is also her friend. Meanwhile, there are more delivery couriers on the streets than ever. Some nights they are all you see.

It’s bleak, but I’m not sad. There’s a sense of freedom in finality. My brain feels the clearest it has for a long time. I don’t have any assets, I have no savings. If shit hits the fan I’ll just be one amongst billions, some kind of unnameable statistic on a graph. On my more optimistic days, I think that “the meek will conquer the earth” or something, some kind of worker uprising. Online, I see friends mourning the loss of their routines. People on Instagram challenging each other to push-ups. Others rabidly posting their “game faces” in case society forgets that they were ever relevant in a time of social isolation. Like chain mail (or germs), they spread.

STAY HOME becomes a mantra parroted by government officials, celebrities and micro-influencers alike. I know one who is still going out; instead their social media pops up on Instagram regularly scolding me to stay home. Should I tell on them? But I don’t know what others are doing if they don’t document it. Road signs scream a marquee: STAY HOME YOU MUST STAY HOME but who is looking?

Someone tweets: maybe the virus is humans. Another person types: the virus is capitalism. People are simultaneously guilty about their privileges yet hoarding them more than ever. Others indicate that they are giving, giving, giving. A torrent of affect floods my screen, data repositories of collective grief. In The Wall, about a woman who finds herself the last human being on earth, Marlen Haushofer writes, “I may be in a position to murder time. The big net will tear and fall, with its sad contents, into oblivion.”