Isolation

by Jenni Regan

  Alice

  5 October 2018, 4 p.m.

  Seeing what was happening and knowing I had been in that exact place suddenly made it real for me, even if I was just watching this all online without actually being there. My mind didn’t seem to know the difference. In my head, I felt like I was there, right there, in the carnage from the attack.

  The familiar fear crept over my body as my ears rang with a loud bang. The smell of acrid smoke and burning and the sight of bloodied limbs and twisted metal were everywhere. I felt again as though I was rooted to the spot as I had been on that day, the day of the train crash, years ago, which now leaped into my mind as though I was replaying a graphic video, one I didn’t have the off button for. I could feel pain all over my body, and my mind could not process where the actual injury was.

  I moved between each social media account, each dishing up descriptions and images that were worse than the last. Joining the horror were pictures of girls like me, mothers like I imagined Rachel to be and old ladies like my gran, all now missing after evil had landed in the once sunny seaside town. People were describing tattoos, clothes and any last known movements of loved ones who were feared caught up in the moment a lone gunman had unleashed terror on the streets of the town.

  I stayed up all night glued to my laptop. I watched the same footage over and over, shared the appeals and joined my online world in its collective shock and grief. For once, I clicked on the news stories being shared, desperate to glean any information, and I found out that the attacker was a young man born in the town who had shot himself at the scene. Neighbours, friends and teachers were quick to go on air to say he had been a strange boy but that no one could believe he would do this. Experts were called in to diagnose a range of mental health problems for the boy, although he had shown no signs of any. The only way for many to comprehend evil was to stick a label on it. The attack now had an official ‘brand’ and a hashtag. The various news channels were offering up coverage with snazzy graphics. Fluffy morning interviews on the sofa were replaced by hard-hitting journalists on location and in black tie.

  I slept occasionally and fitfully between refreshing the pages. The shadowy images in my brain while asleep were far worse than what I was seeing on my screen. By lunchtime, the coverage had moved from breaking news to memorials, and pictures were being shared of the mound of flowers, photos and teddies left in the town square. Crowdfunding pages had been set up to fund funerals, accommodation and even shop fronts. I found it hard to work out who was posting what on my feeds as everyone had changed their profile picture to the official #PrayforBournemouth image. Stories were emerging of heroic acts, lives cut short too soon and speculation on how and why the young man had decided to pick up a gun that sunny day.

  Nightfall surprised me that day. I had barely moved from the sofa apart from using the toilet and making the occasional cup of black tea. I had even forgotten to eat, which was unheard of for me. I was set up with my laptop, phone and iPad all in front of the giant TV which was churning out Sky News. My thirst to find out new information was currently greater than any other need, and I felt as though I belonged now to this great online world, more than I ever had before. For once, I had no words. I didn’t know how to respond, so I just sat and observed.

  The story of the gunman had by now run its natural course, and much of what I was seeing was commentary and remembrance alongside the regurgitated videos and interviews I had seen perhaps hundreds of times that day. A tweet suddenly caught my eye with its Breaking News strapline. Within seconds, it had been retweeted hundreds of times over. I clicked through, and the headline screamed at me:

  Beginning of World War Three, Fanatics with Bombs and Guns Have Invaded Every Town Centre

  Accompanying the story was a picture of men with beards brandishing guns in the middle of an unnamed shopping centre. The news hadn’t reached the television yet, and I watched for the breaking news to flash across the screen. Yet still people were sharing, commenting and panicking en masse. I turned down the television and could hear sirens wailing outside. Usually this would have made me panic, but the noise meant that at least the good guys were out there. I cursed as my phone ran out of battery. I usually had it plugged in most of the day.

  It was sudden when my world went dark. I had known the electricity to go off in the past when a fuse had blown or a storm had knocked out some power line, but not like this as an aggressive form of attack. My silence was broken by a loud ping coming from the living room, and I crawled back in there, thinking if people were watching the house, waiting to attack, then at least they might not see me.

  My heart rose as I realised my iPad was glowing its familiar blue colour. Making my way over to the sofa, I almost cried in relief when I realised that my link to the outside world was not completely gone as my iPad still had a dribble of power in it. My laptop, though, wouldn’t switch on, as it too was out of power. The ping had been from an email from Tom checking that I hadn’t been caught up in the Bournemouth shooting. He obviously hadn’t heard about the all-out war yet. I guessed that America wouldn’t carry every news story from the UK, and maybe that hadn’t reached overseas yet with all the electricity problems.

  I quickly switched back to Twitter, hating feeling out of the loop, and noticed the hashtag #worldwar3. I looked in horror at the tweets flowing quickly of people talking about hearing bangs and sirens, the army on the streets and generally all-out panic. The original story had been retweeted millions of times by now and shared on Facebook with thousands of comments of people sharing their worries and similar sightings. I was refreshing the page when the screen went black and I was all on my own again.

  Alice

  5 October 2018, 1 p.m.

  On the day of my birthday, I was feeling almost cheerful. First of all, the kudos that comes from having a birthday online is so much greater than in real life. My memories of birthdays when I was still a member of the outside world were pretty miserable. We never really held parties as such—apart from one year when I turned eleven, but this had never been repeated. Uncle Tom had, of course, made an effort to visit every year, until Gran had disowned him. Then, by the time I was old enough to go out by myself, he had moved an entire ocean away. Gran had made a real effort each year, as if to make up for the lack of a mother, but although Gran usually spoiled me and allowed me to eat what I wanted, it was just like another day.

  Not so these days, as everyone knew it was my birthday, without me having to even drop hints. They would have been alerted via Facebook or email that morning. Before I was even out of bed, I had eighty-six birthday messages. I was really touched that some of them included a cake or funny picture; these were my cards, and if I had printed out each one, the room would have looked like Clinton’s.

  I had eventually blocked and deleted all the horrible Twitter messages I had received and felt safe opening my profile again. I had messaged Stan asking if he had been hacked, but although the ticks told me he had seen it, he hadn’t answered back.

  I was now in a dilemma as he still had the cash card which was my only access to money. I was already halfway through the tins of food in the cupboard. What he also had was a film of us having sex. I didn’t want to annoy him in case it got into the wrong hands. Just a screenshot had sent my whole world into disarray, and I don’t know how that had leaked. There was also still a part of me that hoped he still cared. I was so worried that I had put him off by not doing sex in the right way. I had thought he had enjoyed it even if I definitely hadn’t, but it may not have been enough.

  A couple of hours later, I noticed that something out there was taking the attention away from my birthday. One by one I started noticing people changing their profile pictures to include a British Flag, a picture of a beach and a #prayforBournemouth hashtag.

  I then heard my mobile ringing in the kitchen. Despite being glued to my phone, I rarely used it as a phone, so I was always surprised when it rang. I picked it up before it went to voicemail. A familiar v
oice sang at me.

  ‘Happy Birthday, my beautiful, wonderful niece, and how are you today?’

  I tried to sound happy, to not allow my voice to give away the horror of the last few weeks. ‘Amazing! It is so lovely to hear from you.’

  ‘So, what are you up to today? Will you be celebrating with the old bag or escaping into town with your reprobate friends to cause havoc in the dusty department store?’

  I really didn’t like Tom speaking about Granny like that. It wasn’t good to speak ill of the dead, although I guessed he didn’t know that.

  ‘Gran has made me a special birthday breakfast and then I am off to do some shopping and have a few cocktails with my friends.’ The lie rolled off my tongue as easily as it had done for the last few years.

  The reality was I had no food in the house, and although there were cocktails if I really wanted them, the thought made me feel ill.

  ‘And how is my lovely mother?’ asked Tom, throwing me slightly. He never usually asked after her, and I hated lying a real lie—not a little white lie—to my favourite person.

  ‘Um, fine. She is actually in the cellar right now,’ I told him, thinking that it was the truth, albeit with a slight twist.

  ‘Oh, yes, she is probably adding to her panic room down there! We always used to laugh at her stockpiling, but actually, the way things are in the world, particularly with my fantastic, trigger-happy president, dear old Mum will probably be the only one that survives a nuclear war!’

  I didn’t really know what he was talking about. I took no notice of real news, but I vowed to have a read before I spoke to Tom next.

  ‘I actually tried phoning you on the home phone but there was just a tone. Has the old bat left it off the hook or something?’

  ‘Oh, maybe that was me,’ I jumped in, wanting to defend my dead gran so that Tom wouldn’t be too horrible about her.

  We chatted for a while longer about Tom and his exciting life in New York. As always, he invited me over to visit him, and as always, I told him I would love to, knowing I would have at least a month to make up a good excuse why I couldn’t come. I always made sure I only posted about my New York trips on my Instagram in case he wondered why I never visited, despite looking like I was constantly at 30,000 feet.

  We ended the phone call, which left me feeling sadder than usual. Usually a message or email was enough to keep me happy for a while, but I found that I was physically craving having someone near me. I hadn’t seen or spoken to another person since Stan, and I was feeling very lonely, despite my happy day full of lovely messages.

  After I had spoken to Tom, I went to pick up the home telephone in the corner of the room and found that it was dead. I wondered if it was a fault but figured that I never really used it so I could ignore that particular problem for now. I remembered that Granny used to moan about paying the phone bill. She moaned about paying a lot of the bills, but the phone was a particular bugbear. I had never paid any bills before and realised that I had no idea how it all happened.

  I returned to my iPad. By now, a lot of my ‘local’ friends were marking themselves as ‘safe’ and sharing news stories. I clicked on one with trepidation as the page told me that there had been some kind of incident in the centre of Bournemouth, a town not far away, where I had been shopping with Gran on a couple of occasions. It was the shiny grown-up sister to the sleepy town I lived in, and in fact, this was where most people thought I lived. After all, an air hostess wouldn’t still be living with her granny. This was the trouble with reinventing yourself online. You start with one little lie and soon you were having to make up a whole new world for yourself. In fact, the last time I had been there was the time my world had literally crashed in around me when I had been involved in a terrible train crash. I had left the home since then but never returned to that place.

  I quickly switched to Instagram where my feed was still full of lovely pictures of sunny holidays and cute pets. I lost myself for a while in the joys of pretty sunsets. After a few minutes, I went back to my social media and was surprised to see that the incident was still dominating my feeds.

  I retweeted a few of the links, adding the pre-requisite hashtag as well as suitable emojis.

  By now people had shared footage of what had happened. In the grainy videos, I could see confusion. One showed the familiar town square filled with shoppers where one girl was filming her friends. Suddenly a series of bangs could be heard like fireworks, and moments later, the film followed whoever was holding the phone, obviously running through a crowd of people.

  Another that was taken straight after whatever had happened saw abandoned shopping bags with people looking dazed and bloody. The most shared was taken from a little way up a hill and had caught the moment that the carnage had been unleashed. Screams punctuated the air as you could hear the sound of shots again as people fell to the pavements like skittles being knocked to the ground. You could hear the person holding the camera swear and scream, but I noted that the filming didn’t waver.

  Actually seeing what was happening and knowing I had been in that exact same place suddenly made it real. The familiar fear started to creep over my body and I was back there, again.

  Alice

  30 September 2018, 12.30 p.m.

  When I woke, I was shocked that it was already the afternoon. I wasn’t feeling hungry but had no energy, and thinking this was down to lack of food, I took myself into the kitchen to make my morning meal. Scrabbling around the cupboard, I managed to find some instant noodles. It wasn’t the most appetising of foods, but I was surprised to note that even the smell of the juices failed to arouse my appetite. This was a new feeling to me and the first time I could ever remember not wolfing down the food that was in front of me. Half-heartedly, I grabbed my phone to scroll through as I picked my noodles. I had amassed hundreds of notifications overnight, which would usually keep me busy and happy for at least an hour, but it failed to excite in its usual way. I couldn’t even bother posting a picture of my current meal, particularly as the idea of styling my sad snack into food porn made me feel exhausted.

  I made the first of many cups of tea and went to sit in the living room thinking that maybe the lovely, new sofa would cheer me up, but it made me think more about how my gran should be sitting on it or how Stan should be watching something silly with me. Switching on the TV, I channel hopped for a while before finally settling on some quiz show, not knowing any of the answers and actually not even trying to answer them. My phone continued to bleep next to me, and after a while, I did something I hadn’t done for a while: I switched it off. As I made endless cups of black tea, I considered fetching the box of fags that Gran always kept in her handbag. I could see now why Gran had smoked, as it gave you something to do.

  It was as I was heading to put the kettle on again that I noticed Gran’s drinks cabinet in the corner of my eye. Gran had always liked to keep a well-stocked drinks cabinet, in case of guests. I wasn’t sure why, as no one ever came over, and I only ever saw Gran drink a glass or two of sherry on special occasions. I had never tried alcohol, as the stories of my mother stumbling around had been quite the deterrent. I knew lots of the groups at school had gathered to drink at the local park, but I had never been popular enough to be involved.

  For some reason, the cabinet was calling me today. My usual way of cheering myself up—which was food—wasn’t really an option, and besides, it didn’t seem to be helping anyway. I didn’t know which one to pick so I picked up the vodka as I knew it was a popular choice. After cleaning one of the crystal glasses on my clothes, I poured myself a big glass. It looked so much like water that I was incredibly surprised that the taste was so strong and disgusting. The liquid burned the back of my throat and made my eyes water, and I spit out the part of the mouthful I hadn’t swallowed. I wondered why on earth anyone would choose to do this to themselves. I had always been a bit jealous of my friends when they were out drinking, having a good time, but if that fun was dependent on drinking somethi
ng that repulsive, then their smiles must have all been fake.

  I wondered if I needed to mix the vodka to make it taste better. There was a bottle full of pink stuff called Schnapps, so I glugged a big measure into the glass alongside the vodka. It now looked nice, like my favourite berry squash, but I knew now that the look of a drink was not a great sign of how it would taste. I took a small sip. This was better now that it had a certain sweetness, and as it went down my throat, it felt like the warmth from an open fire rather than a flaming inferno. I managed a few sips and tried to work out if it was having an effect. I didn’t really feel different but maybe it took a while to kick in. I finished my whole glass before sitting back on the sofa.

  Twenty minutes later, the room was spinning. I felt as though I couldn’t think straight and certainly couldn’t concentrate, but I found that actually this was quite a nice state to be in at this point of time. My day had been stretched out in front of me as long and lonely, and yet the addition of this little glass of poison (my gran’s words) meant that I felt I could cope a little better. I turned up the TV that was now on some show where people cooked for each other.

  With the cocktail heightening my senses, I joined in with the action, describing what each contestant was wearing. I personally thought I was actually funnier than the man with the funny voice who was being sarcastic. One of the women got an Irish band into her garden to wow her guests, and I found myself hauling myself from the sofa and jumping around, before landing very puffed out, yet laughing a few minutes later. I realised that this was too good not to share, and so I switched on my phone to tell the world an edited version of what I was doing. Realising that five o’clock was a bit early for a raucous dinner party, I made it into lunch that had spilled over into the evening, swapping the Irish music for a cheesy impromptu ‘80’s disco in the home of one of my best friends and making up a name for the cocktail I had created with a shot of the drink in a martini glass I had found. Somehow the fact that I had that pink liquid swilling around in me made it all feel more fun and authentic than usual, and I swayed across the room to pour myself another glass, tweeting as I sipped.