You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

June 16th,  2020

Day 1 (Again)

Despite the sometimes acerbic tone some of the entries in this diary have taken, I am, at heart, not a cynic. The fact of the matter is that for my entire life I have pitched my tent in the unruly, but happy camp of the romantics. Hafiz lives one tent over and Basho somewhere across the way. I consider myself in good company and would not change a thing. That being said, at this moment in time, writing in bed with Goldberg’s Variations playing in the background and the last minutes of this unique and irreplaceable day slipping into history, I am gobsmacked and the cynic in me is laughing and laughing.

Earlier in the day I’d made a run down the 309 and into town for supplies for the pathway that is my current project. I was loading thirty bricks and three bags of bedding sand into the back of my car at PlaceMakers when Bopper, a genial yardman there, came up and asked if I’d heard the news. Bopper always has some tidbit of gossip or chatter on the jungle telegraph to relate so I humoured him and asked what was up? He proceeded to tell me that we had two active cases of Covid-19 on the books and that it happened because somebody was let out of quarantine to attend a funeral in Wellington. Bopper being Bopper, I took everything he had to say with a grain of salt, finished my supply run by strapping two 4.8 metre retaining wall boards on the roof rack, paid my bill and raced home to crack my computer, log into the Ministry of Health to see if he was right.

Here’s what the numbers say…

 

So here we go again… 2 New cases. Zero Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active and probable cases and factoring in 22 death is… Sorry, but you’re going to have to do the math yourselves. I can’t wrap my head around it.

 

 

After 24 days of no active cases in the entire country, we let two women fly in from the United Kingdom via Australia, placed them in a ‘managed isolation’ facility for 14 days but then let them out to drive 642 kilometres in a private vehicle to Wellington to ‘comfort’ a relative after a death in the family. ‘Compassionate exemption’ was the term used to describe it on the government press release. An entire country with five million souls free of Covid-19 and totally out of lockdown and we decide that the ‘needs’ of two people outweigh the possible consequences of spreading a highly contagious virus among an unsuspecting population. A six hour journey and they had no contact with anybody? Right. Who the hell made the decision to let them do that? It beggars belief.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121851190/coronavirus-our-expectations-have-not-been-met-says-pm

The early press release was couched in wordy bureaucratese to make it sound as though everything was under control, but things were clearly were not. Ever hear the phrase that an elephant is a mouse built to government specifications? Well that press release was the government version of somebody saying, ‘it sounded like a good idea at the time’. Several hours into the news cycle and already the powers that be are stating that, “No more exemptions will be allowed”. You think? It’s tantamount to them announcing that, “Several dozen horses have escaped from our stable but don’t worry, we’ve closed the doors now”.

The contact tracers that have been sitting idle for 24 days are hot on the trail of everyone who was on the flight, all of the people in two international airports in two countries, the staff and other people in the managed isolation facility, every person at the funeral in Wellington and anyone that anyone might have come in contact with these two caring but selfish knuckleheads on their journey by car from Auckland to Wellington. Details are few and far between this early in the story and I cannot wait for the finer points to be revealed in the coming days. There will doubtless be more tap dancing from the powers that be as this unfolds. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has got to be saying, “They did what?!!” to anyone on her staff brave enough to go near her while all over the country a feeling of dread is beginning to replace the cautious optimism we had during the past three weeks.

 

 

It is said by the wise that there is very little difference between Saturday night and Sunday morning. That’s kind of where we are now. The process of tracking and tracing and isolating (this time without any compassion, I hope) will ramp up to full speed. Sweden will say, “We told you so”, the threat of lockdown will loom again and everyone will be watching the numbers once more and furtively checking their supply of toilet paper.

As for me, I am officially over it. If it all goes south and I end up taking a long dirt nap would someone please mine these pages and cobble together the story of my end of days? I’ve chosen the title and put together the cover below to save you some work. Thanks.

 

 

Cheers, D.

Goodnight and Good Luck

May 24,  2020

Day 64

A couple of things right off the bat. The quail haven’t left, the meteorologists were right about the rain and Hong Kong is in trouble.

In other news today a salon worker in Missouri infected 91 customers over seven days last week, Sweden stands by their plan and Putin’s approval ratings have dropped from 100% to 97%. In Moscow a third doctor who worked for an ambulance service has fallen to his death after expressing dismay about two doctors who earlier died in similar incidents. A government spokesperson is reported to have cited ‘unwarranted agitation for parachutes for health workers on the frontline of the fight against Covid-19’ as the cause of his ‘inadvertent and totally unrelated high speed convergence with the earth’. In Norway, BOC Aviation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the state owned Bank Of China, has purchased a majority share of Norwegian Air after the cash strapped startup completed a debt for equity swap in order to survive the downturn in revenue caused by the Covid-19 contagion. Media representatives for BOC Aviation were unavailable for comment at the time of the transaction as they were busy threatening Australia with ‘new much needed regulations’ on the import of beef and ‘technical inspection issues’ affecting the shipping of coal and iron ore. Elsewhere, North Korea still has zero reported cases and credits this to Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s ‘Superior Leadership and Beneficial Practices’. The Hermit Kingdom has offered to help the world combat Covid-19 by teaching these principles to all countries except Turkmenistan, citing a long standing dispute with that former Soviet republic about which nation had zero Covid-19 cases first. Resolution of this dispute is proving to be difficult as President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has banned the word coronavirus. And in New Zealand toady, Ministry of Health figures were posted on their website and this is what they say…

Zero New cases. 1 Recovered case. Ratio of recovered cases to confirmed and probable cases is 96.8%. Five Zeroes on the board. 27 Active cases remaining.

 

 

 

And in our final story tonight…

 

Goodnight and good luck.

 

 

 

The Things Not Meant for Me

May 11,  2020

Day 51

3 New cases. 15 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 92.5%.

 

And this, since it represents progress toward wherever it is we’re going to be in a few weeks.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300009818/coronavirus-new-zealand-will-start-to-move-to-level-2-on-thursday

New Zealand is moving in three step phases to Alert Level 2. Most businesses will be able to reopen with new guidelines for social distancing in force and certain provisos re maximum capacity of establishments in place. I’ve got some timber to buy and there are some time sensitive documents that I have to get into the bureaucratic pipeline so I hope the government will be open for personal business. Those are the only things I’ll be out doing over the next few weeks other than, as you have no doubt figured out, watching the numbers.

We appear to have dodged the bullet, but as that fellow from Sweden warned, we still have to maintain our quarantine of incoming visitors and figure out how to cure/treat/prevent/mitigate Covid-19 for the long run. So there’s still people out there pulling the trigger and bullets will be flying and all it takes is a few bad breaks and happy people sharing a beer (Bars are the last in line for reopening for just this reason) to reverse the gains we’ve made thus far. But it’s another step in the right direction and that is good.

 

 

 

 

I started writing this diary because things were, across the board, on the cusp of going seriously awry. I had done what I could to prepare in a material sense and as lockdown loomed I realised I was like a passenger on a hijacked plane, cell phone in hand and little time between the slowly unravelling present and the implacable unknown future. Only I had more time than those poor souls who can only text a few lines to their loved ones before their plane disintegrates around them. It was a gift I did not want to squander. I had time to gather my thoughts and put pen to paper with that long arm from the grave to say…

That I apologise to all I have hurt in my long life. It was not my intention. I was young and ignorant, untried and unsure. I made decisions that experience has taught me could have turned out better had I gone another way. Much later, when I was older, Clavell’s description of prisoners of war in Changi fit me well. Of them, he wrote, ‘These men too were criminals. Their crime was vast. They had lost a war. And they had lived.’ In the eyes of the woman I loved my crime, too, was vast.  Like all the people who had ever hurt her, I was a man. My mistake was thinking that she would know that I was different. In the end her constant fear became a self fulfilling prophecy. I am sad at how things came to pass, but I was not those other men and to be tarred for so long with the same brush became unbearable.

There is the brother I never knew because I never asked about his life. It is a shame and a sadness that is hard to bear. My brother deserved more and I am sorry I never gave it to him. There was a sister once who wanted to be right more than anything else and got exactly what she wished for. Nothing to apologise for there, but had I known then what I know now, I’d have altered my course a few degrees to help her find a better way.

To my co-authors whose long and heartfelt labors of love saw only the slush pile of various agents offices, I apologise. The stories were good and true and though they float now on Oblivion’s Sea with countless others, there was worth in the writing.  I know this to be true and I offer this knowledge in exchange for the time we spent filling them with life. That they were stillborn, silenced before their time, is unfortunate. I apologise not a second for striving, but wish that you had been spared the long ordeal of being tied to my falling star.

To the keeper of the light across the channel, I would have loved to love you better. I am a slow learner and thank you for the patient way you showed me.

 

Every villain is a hero in their own mind. I never meant to hurt anyone. I’m sorry if I did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These Shoes

100 words for Friday Fictioneers based on the photo prompt below from David Stewart. (I once spent a long day sleeping and sick underneath just such a gazebo, listening to people walk above me unaware as I waited for a friend. I cannot imagine a lifetime of that.)

(Copyright David Stewart)

 

Officer Sloan cruises by the gazebo.

“You alright, Sam?”

I nod and smile.

Long ago a robbery suspect shot him. I called for help with his radio and kept pressure on the wound until I was tasered and arrested. Dash camera footage changed their minds and since then the police department has looked out for me. Like elephants, they have not forgotten.

Am I homeless? Guilty as charged. Hopeless? You tell me.

You’ll never know anyone’s story until you ask. Never know where you’ll find yourself until you’re there. Never know how it happened until it does.

Be nice.

 

 

 

Two Wolves and a Sheep vote on what to have for Dinner

A 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers, a restive flock of writers shepherded loosely by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, based on the photo prompt below provided by Sandra Crook.

This is a story that has been written many times. To prove my point there are at least four clues in this version that point to a previous incarnation. If you find them all I challenge you to then examine the events of the last fifteen years with the same attention to detail. Then return to your grazing.

 

.

Heinrich Luitpold, head of the DHS Border and Transportation Security Directorate sat in the back of his bullet-proof BMW and smiled as his driver fumed. The conference recently held in headquarters suite 1-C had yielded an action plan that would lead at last to a final solution.

In 2019 increased fees charged by TSA to travelers would finance new uniforms and prominent, respect worthy badges. By 2022 agents would be given arrest powers and weapons. In 2025 the mandatory registration and RFID chipping of all citizens would commence.

“Relax, Franz,” said Heinrich, “We are no longer concerned with the sheep.”

 

 

The Department of Homeland Security Border and Transportation Security Directorate is the actual name of a department of our government.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

“Don’t rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world stood up and stopped the Bastard, the Bitch that bore him is in heat again.” – Bertold Brecht

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because Freedom is Dangerous

Here is my story for Friday Fictioneers, a gathering of writers from around the world who meet each week in Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s cyber garage  to share their 100 word inspirations based on photo prompts such as the one shown below from Dawn.

This week’s picture is of Union Station in Washington, D.C., a city created by Congress to keep the nation’s Capitol distinct from the states and to provide for its own protection. (Seems they were doing then what they do so well now. Go figure.) It  is also famous for harboring a disproportionate population of vermin whose actions are the subject of my story. (I’ll let you know my cell number as soon as I’ve settled in.)

“Destination, sir?” the TSA agent asked.

The elderly man standing trackside looked his interrogator up and down, taking in the blue and gray uniform rife with none too subtle bells, buttons, whistles and decals.

“Do I know you?”

“I’m a Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response team member. We’re authorized to….”

“Visible Intermodal what?”

“VIPER Team, sir.”

“Has it crossed your mind how ridiculous that sounds?”

“The Department of Homeland Security chose the name.”

“Ever wonder who chose theirs?”

“Your destination?”

“My ticket says Denver, but it’s looking more and more like Lubyanka Square, Moscow. ”

“Please come with me, sir.”

Future’s So Bright…

Crosses to bear. Some are heavier and more visible than others. Some of the heaviest are  invisible except for the tracks they leave behind. We all carry something.

This 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers was inspired by the photo prompt below from Ted Strutz. It was written from the edge and is a plea for you to shade your eyes and peer into the darkness beyond the circle of light in which you stand. The people out there that need a hand don’t always know how to ask for help. You may even find yourself out there sometime. Do what you can. It matters and it helps. Aloha, D.

Carnival in town.

Ruth stood in impenetrable shadows watching happy people silhouetted against the glare of tent lights. She used to be happy there, too.

Darkness embraced her as she washed down a handful of pills with warm beer.

Take these, the doctors said. Better? Try this instead.

Haphazard prescriptions held no keys for the locked doorway to her troubled mind.

Let them hone their skills on someone else. Tonight she was going to show them what dosage the cure required.

A song from a brighter past wafted across the midway. She smiled ruefully. Downed a few more pills….

(the song she heard)

 

 

 

Post Script: I want to share something that Valerie Davies shared with me in the comments section. I’d never heard of Don Ritchie before I wrote my story but I can’t thank Valerie enough for telling me of him and the way he helped those in need. (Valerie’s story is pretty amazing, too. Check out her ‘about’ page to read about a life well lived.)

Twists and Turns

This afternoon I got into my truck to drive into town and saw Widget, my Australian Heeler, walk out from his place in the shade of the mock orange bushes on the side of the house. He’d come out to see me and the least I could do was return the favor. I got out, knelt down and rubbed the sleep from the corners of his eyes and when he was looking square into mine I asked him to please come find me in heaven. I told him I’m going to need his help and that I hope he’ll meet me whenever I show up. Widget’s brown eyes showed no sign of comprehension, but if you don’t ask, the answer’s always no. So I asked, and personally, I think he’ll be there when the time comes.

Back in the truck and driving down the long driveway past the barn and stables, the arena full of weeds, and out the gate I thought about the time with Widget and about the changes that will happen in my life because of how I spent those two minutes. Each decision changes everything that follows and each day is filled with an almost infinite stream of moments. Twists and turns that lead to….more twists and turns. And whither then? What’s out there waiting round each corner? The only answer is the one the grizzled New Englander whittling on the front porch of the general store gave to the tourist asking whether it was going to rain that day; “Hard tellin’, not knowin'”.

Tomorrow I’m taking grandkids to a resort hotel down on the coast. They want to go on a water slide that corkscrews for a hundred and twenty feet of distance and thirty or so feet of elevation change and empties into a pool near a cave-like grotto. Almost twenty-six years to the day, the very same hotel was about to open its doors to customers and I was doing punch list clean up work for the terrazzo company I was working for. The pools had just been filled and were being inspected for leaks and new hotel staff was being trained. Most of the construction crews were long gone but there was still quite a few workers like myself on the grounds, aware that very soon we were going to have to move on, find other work or take a long unpaid vacation. (A resume of mine had been in the hands of the Operations Manager of Atlantis Submarines in Kona for a few months but that’s another story, and at the time I had no idea what, if anything, was going to happen there.)

Four o’clock rolled by and someone put three garden hoses at the top of the water slide and turned them on full blast. Another someone found a bottle of dishwashing soap and slicked up the first twenty feet of the slide walls with it. Word spread fast and in no time there were about ten construction workers stripped down to their blue jeans and whooping and hollering as they followed each other down that slide to splash into the pool overflowing with soap suds. We were celebrating, that much was clear, but what?  The end of the day? A job well done? The unknown that waited somewhere out ahead of us?

It didn’t take long for someone to chase us out of there, but for a few beautiful minutes we were just kids having a good time, the first of many to come, sliding happily down that slide and headlong into the future. Tomorrow I’m going to have to pay for the pleasure of revisiting my past. My grandkids will think I’m there with them, little knowing that I’ll be time traveling with a big smile on my face, moving backwards along the twists and turns of the past decades until I meet myself one hot afternoon a long time ago, the first guy down the water slide.

(the slide now)