by Alex Burns
Tristan: Another couple of hours. Just chilling in Van with the fam at the moment! Traditional Swiss Chalet goodbye meal!
Me: Haha nice. Say hi to everyone for me. I miss them!
Tristan: They say hi and that they miss you too.
Me: Definitely coming next time!
Tristan: Yep. You are.
Me: I miss Canada.
Tristan: I miss you. But not for much longer :) How are you?
I started typing out a long message telling him all about Lucy and Alan and the general weird vibe that was going around the city, but I deleted it. No need to worry him while he was helpless to do anything about it and stuck on a plane for 20 hours. I’d tell him everything when he got back.
Me: I’m fine. Excited to get you back.
I paused, feeling like I should say something.
Me: It’s a bit nuts here at the moment though, with the whole red flu thing. Lots of people sick. Maybe you should stay a bit longer until it passes, as much as I hate suggesting it. I don’t want you to get sick!
Tristan: No way. I’m coming home. And it’s here now too anyway.
Me: What? Really? Shite.
Tristan: Yeah. It started popping up on the news last night. They’re calling it the Aussie Flu though, not red flu.
Me: Well, there goes our reputation…
Tristan: Yup. K, I better go, family is getting a bit antsy at me ignoring them haha. Love you and see you very soon :)
Me: I’ll track your flight
Tristan: …creep
Tristan: xoxo
I pulled on my warm, fuzzy dressing gown, made myself a nice hot cup of tea, and sent Mum a text message reassuring her that I was staying home. I plonked down in front of my computer and shot off an email to Meghan letting her know that I wasn’t coming in. Only after I sent it did I notice the email from her saying basically the same thing.
I opened up a news website, bracing myself for bad news. I blinked at the screen and refreshed the page. That couldn’t be right. It was a typo surely.
Over one thousand dead from red flu in Victoria alone in the past three days. Except they were calling it the Red Death now, not red flu.
One thousand dead. Jesus Fucking Christ.
That was like my entire hometown just suddenly wiped out. More. I clicked on the article, but there wasn’t much new information. Just the sky rocketing death toll, and the fact that there were so many dead they’d had to set up temporary morgues.
Apparently I’d made the right choice in staying home. Had anyone gone to work today? Was the CBD a ghost town?
I looked around the house. It was a bit of a mess. I hadn’t vacuumed since Tristan had left, the laundry basket was overflowing, and I kept finding coffee mugs in places I hadn’t even remembered putting them. I started cleaning, in an attempt to take my mind off the outside world, and have the house spick and span for Tristan’s return.
Once I’d got the house back to a respectable state, I flopped onto the couch and turned on the TV. A panel of serious and worried looking people filled the screen. I filtered out their voices and focused on the strip of text that was running along the bottom of the screen. Singapore had closed its border to all outsiders. Taiwan was considering doing the same. All Victorian schools and universities were closed until further notice. The weekends upcoming sporting matches had been cancelled. Infected people were asked to self-quarantine, while the authorities weighed up the benefits of a stricter city or state-wide quarantine. I focused back on the talking panelists when the word quarantine came up.
“Quarantine at this stage is an utterly pointless endeavour,” one of the men said forcefully. “The contagion rate of this particular virus must be particularly high, what with the speed this virus has spread. Combine that with the long incubation period and you’ve got a quarantine that will be completely pointless and ineffective.”
“But surely we have to do something?” Another panelist butted in. “We can’t do nothing.”
The man shrugged and continued speaking. “Now, on the other hand if you’re a community that hasn’t been affected yet then it would be a good idea to implement a quarantine to keep the virus out of that particular community. At this stage though, that’s not any of the major Australian cities, or even any of the major regional ones. Maybe there are a few rural towns out there that have been lucky enough to avoid contamination. They are the places we should be quarantining. I repeat,” he said loudly as another panelist tried to say something. “I repeat, quarantining a major city such as Melbourne or Sydney would be completely pointless at this point in time. The virus is already here.”
“But surely we can stop it spreading so quickly if we enact a limited quarantine? Or even a full quarantine?” a red-haired woman queried. “Schools have been closed, they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think it would help, would they?”
“They’re closing the schools because all of the teachers are sick,” the man shot back impatiently. “I tell you, at this stage, it won’t make enough of a difference. A lot of people have most likely already been exposed. They just don’t realise it yet.”
I turned the TV off and rubbed my face. Quarantine? What exactly would that mean? No leaving the house at all? What? I went back to my computer and quickly scanned another article. If the powers that be did actually end up enforcing a quarantine, that would mean no workplaces, businesses or schools would be allowed to open. The economy would take a massive hit, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about that. I was more concerned with no shops open to buy food. Like most urban residents I only had a few days worth of food in my pantry and fridge. I’d read years ago that if there was a major catastrophe, most people would starve. The food supplies worked on such a slim margin, and most people didn’t have enough food to feed them for a week let alone longer. My mother would be fine though. She had a huge pantry full of preserved food and non-perishable items.
I darted into my kitchen and scanned my small pantry. It was even more depleted than usual; I’d dropped the bundle a bit while Tristan had been away. It’d just seemed a tad pointless cooking wonderful meals while I had no-one to share them with. There were a few cans of assorted beans, some rolled oats, a couple of packets of dried pasta, enough rice to last me a month or two, a jar full of dried lentils, a small bag of flour, some old tins of flavoured tuna that had been sitting there for about a year, and a whole shelf full of different sauces, oils and vinegars. At least I’d be able to flavour my rice with something, I thought. Living so close to a myriad of shops, I’d gotten into the habit of just buying what I needed each day on the way home from work. I flashed back to a particularly broke summer while I’d been at university. I’d been in between jobs, and had had literally no money in my bank account for a week or two, and far too much pride to ask my parents for extra money. I’d spent the week living off porridge, rice, and some frozen corn I’d found stashed at the back of the freezer. It had been a depressing low point. I didn’t want to face a diet like that again.
There was a slight break in the rain, I took a chance and stepped outside to check on the state of my vegetable garden. I wasn’t expecting much, it being the middle of winter and all, but there were a few things growing away despite my recent neglect. The silver beet was growing strong, but the broccoli looked like it still needed another month or two. The rest of my winter crops didn’t look very promising. The cabbages didn’t look like cabbages at all and the cauliflower had been attacked by some grubs. The sugar snap peas were growing well, but I didn’t have enough to live on. There were still a few ripe lemons on the lemon tree, so at least I’d be able to get a bit of vitamin c.
I decided to be prudent and stock up on more food before I got forced to stay in my house, or worse, got sick and didn’t have the energy to leave.
The break in the rain seemed to be lasting, so I grabbed a few shopping bags and my umbrella (just in case) and walked up to the shops. We were pretty lucky; we had two small supermarkets, two greengroceries, t
wo butchers, and two bakeries all within a kilometre of our home, and then a big chain supermarket a bit over a kilometre away in the other direction. Lots of choices. Usually.
A couple of cars drove past, and that was the only sign of life I had before I reached the normally bustling village. I gazed up and down the street. Where was everyone? Drizzly mornings didn’t usually keep many people away. I walked towards the little supermarkets. Only one of them was open. The greengrocers were both closes as well, as was the bakery. One of the butchers was open. Half the cafes that were normally buzzing with people had CLOSED signs hanging in their doors. One cafe was open, but I could only see one lone coffee drinker in there. I shuddered. It was eery.
I walked into the open supermarket. It was so small they didn’t even have normal trolleys, just baskets. I grabbed one and started walking up and down the aisles, filling it with food. Standing in front of the bottled water, I realised how stupid I’d been to walk instead of drive. I muttered to myself, calling myself all sorts of names, but kept filling the basket up with as much as I could carry. Canned tomatoes and veggies, more pasta, rice, beans, noodles, lentils, split peas, grains, and some of those powdered packet soups that I usually avoided went into the basket. I kept filling it until it was almost too heavy to carry.
The girl at the check-out didn’t look very good, and I felt like telling her to go home. I trudged up to the pharmacy, thinking to buy some hand sanitiser and a face mask, but they were closed as well. I sighed in frustration and starting carting the heavy bags of groceries home. My arms and shoulders soon began to ache, and I found myself wishing yet again that Tristan was home.
With a profound sense of relief, I unlocked my front door and dumped the bags down. I gave my shoulders a brief massage and then scrounged around looking for my car keys.
Keys found (on top of the bookshelf - always somewhere different), I drove over to Coles. It was busier than the village had been, and busier than the day before. It started raining again just as I closed my car door. I darted under cover before I got too soaked.
I grabbed a trolley and started going up and down the aisles. The shelves were even sparser than when I’d come the day before. I grabbed as much as I could, and raided the medical aisle as well this time. Other people with the same idea had been there before me though and pickings were slim. I managed to get the very last face mask, and a few packets of bandages, some ointment, disinfectant and some vitamins. I had no idea if I’d ever need this stuff, but I took a leaf out of Mum’s book and figured I was better safe than sorry. I started to get nervous about how much my loot was going to cost, and then put it out of my mind as a problem for future!Alice to worry about. There were only two checkouts open, and both had crazy long lines of people with massively laden trolleys. I resigned myself to a long wait. The people around me looked twitchy and nervous. No one spoke much.
The rain was really bucketing down by the time I got out of the artificial atmosphere of the supermarket. I stood there in dismay for a for a moment wondering how long until it would let up, or whether I should just suck it up and make a dash for it. Getting rained on never killed anyone… I didn’t think. Why hadn’t I brought my raincoat?!
I got lucky. As I stood there berating myself the rain eased up to a light drizzle. I took my chance and bolted to my little purple hatchback.
Once I’d loaded up the car and returned the trolley, I sent a text to Lucy to see how she was. The reply came back after a few moments and I breathed a slight sigh of relief.
Lucy: Still shit.
Still shit was still alive. I chewed the inside of my cheek, wondering what to say.
Me: :’( I’ll come take Maggie for a walk once the rain stops if you want xxx
Lucy: Okay. Thanks. I’ll let Mags know.
I sat in the car for a moment, staring at the liquor shop. Swearing to myself, I got out again and wandered over. If the world as I knew it was possibly ending, or at least being put on hold for awhile, I might want a drink at some point. I bought a six case of one of my favourite wines. Even if everything went back to normal tomorrow it wouldn’t be a waste of a buy, I reassured myself as I wracked up even more charges on my credit card. I was starting to dread my next credit card bill. Oh well, with the amount of groceries I’d just bought, I wouldn’t need to go shopping again for a month or two.
Once I got home I wasn’t entirely sure where to put everything I’d bought. There wasn’t enough room in the little pantry. I left most of it on the kitchen floor with Gertrude inspecting it. Watching the cat, I swore out loud. I’d forgotten to get extra cat food. In the three years since Tristan and I had adopted her, the feline hadn’t shown the slightest hunting ability. She’d never even been able to catch a moth, let alone a mouse or bird. She usually ran around in circles under birds and meowed at them instead of trying to eat them. One time we’d had a blue tongue lizard come inside the house and she’d just followed it around from a safe distance, not touching it at all. Most of the time I was grateful for the fact that I seemed to have a defective cat, but being able to feed herself might come in handy at some point. I looked down at the fluff ball and sighed. I supposed I would worry about that if it became a problem. Mum was rubbing off on me. Everything was going to be fine, right?
Chapter Six
I attempted to distract myself by tracking Tristan’s flight from Vancouver down to Los Angeles. It didn’t work for long. I kept flicking over to other tabs and was constantly refreshing the news websites and my social media pages. People were scared. Panicking. The death toll kept growing at an unimaginable rate. The virus was spreading around the world. The word ‘pandemic’ was being thrown around. Canada and the US were reporting deaths, as were London, Beijing, Paris, Tokyo, and Mexico. Singapore had closed their border as a precaution and Taiwan’s was heavily restricted; no one was allowed in if they showed the slightest sign of being sick, and whole flights were being turned away if a single person on board was showing any symptoms. There were reports from people isolated in hotel rooms near the airport because they had a slight fever, and the authorities weren’t letting them go anywhere. It reminded me of the reaction to swine flu back in 2009. Lucy’s brother had been stuck in a hotel room for a couple of weeks then. Turned out he’d just had a normal flu, not swine flu, but they still kept him locked away.
The more I looked, the worse it got. My mind started spiralling, imagining the worst and then reassuring myself that it wouldn’t come to that. In hindsight, my imagination didn’t come even close to doing just to reality.
I breathed a sigh of relief when Tristan’s plane landed safely. Irrational it may be, and statistically I knew we were much more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash, but flying always made me incredibly nervous. It didn’t matter if it was me or a loved one doing the flying. The fact that you could track flights in real time from your computer at home was a miracle to me. Aside from being able to reassure myself that my loved one was still alive, it made going to the airport to pick them up so much easier! No more waiting around for hours for a late flight anymore, racking up those exorbitant airport parking fees. I closed my laptop and went and made myself a snack. I sat in the gloomy dining room, overlooking the backyard. The grey light and patter of raindrops on the glass door matched my mood. My phone beeped.
Tristan: My flight’s been cancelled!
I blinked at the screen and read the message three times before my brain caught up. No. No way. I called him, not caring how much it cost.
“What’s happened? Why is it cancelled? Are they putting you on a new one?” I bombarded my fiancé as soon as he picked up.
“They’re not telling is much,” Tristan said, sounding slightly panicky. “From what I can gather, it’s looking like Australia’s turning away all flights from international sources at the moment.”
“Shit,” I said, heart pounding. “I didn’t know they could do that.” I closed my eyes and put my head down on the table. Surely we were too big? We weren’t just
a little island like Taiwan or Singapore.
“What do I do, Allie?”
“I… I don’t know.” I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. Information. I needed information. “Hang on, let me have a look online. Where are you now?” I dashed back over to my desk and flipped open the laptop.
“LAX. Near the check-in desks. There are a lot of very worried and confused people here. No one really seems to know what’s going on… if it’s permanent or just temporary or what.”
“It can’t be permanent,” I muttered. I clicked around online, trying to find the information I needed. All the journalists must be sick at home as well. There weren’t a whole lot of new articles being published or updated, not from Australia at least.
“Fuck,” I said when I’d found what I wanted. There was a brief press release from the government.
“Allie, what is it?”
“They’ve closed the border. Australia. They’ve closed the mother fucking border. To everyone. Planes, ships, everyone.”
“Shit. Both ways? Can you get out? Can you come here?”
“Both ways. I’m stuck here.” I felt dizzy. I forced myself to take a few slow, deep breaths and tried to think things through logically. “They’re saying it’s just temporary, until…”
“Until?” Tristan prompted.
“Well, until this thing passes, I guess.” I felt like kicking something. Hard. Or curling up in a ball and crying. Or both.
“Right. Shit. Fuck.” Tristan sounded more like he wanted to punch something. I could imagine him rubbing his hands over his face like he always did when he was agitated. “How are you feeling?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“Me? Scared. Worried.”
“I mean physically. Are you okay?”
“Oh. Yeah. I’m still fine.”
“Good,” he said. “Good. I would hate it if you were sick and I couldn’t be there to help you.”
