Cormac McCarthy narrates a day in lockdown

Youve lived this way for three score and seven days. Dawn brings with it only the certainty of a unit of hours the same as the last and the same as those that will follow. At the work desk and zoom calls youve remained impassive and stoical with kin and friend and foe alike. Youve paid heed to the unprecedented times and unchartered waters and the all things considered and the in the circumstances and the hope youve been keeping well but in truth it feels like youve been trapped in some deep fevered dream since late february. At least you have all this empty time for reading and practicing guitar and personal betterment once youve take care of this pile of dishes and straightened that droopy couch and watched jamie carraghers top ten premier league portuguese strikers born in september beginning with the letter v and shit is it that time already. 

By noon the sun is out so you go outside and try to snap from this slothish condition by running vigorously in endless loops round the park to fulfil tuesdays state sanctioned exercise. You dodge the invisible forcefields of dog walkers and joggers as if you were each parasites cast into this world to linger in some warped malevolent tandem. Theres evidence of a creeping disdain for the rules with two, three, four households lounged together on the grass like some forsaken band of hunter gatherers delighting in a new patch of land they know not to be cursed while up ahead some swaggering youths block your way like a pack of ravaged stray hounds. Amid your distraction and your straining lungs a passerby throws out an arm in vexation at your proximity and suddenly you understand that you yourself have disregarded these strange new edicts and youre plunged into a mire of introspection about the hypocrisy and futility of it all but you but try not to navelgaze because you can feel the 5k PB might just be in reach this time.

Back home guilt turns to rage at the sight of the governments supposed PR mastermind weasel lecturing the citizenry on why it is fair and just that he receives no punishment as his deeds were in fact manly and gallant and youre just too stupid if you dont understand so stay in your box room pleb. But only half privately he cares not if you do break these decrees because he sees the weakest among your herd as stock to be sacrificed at the altar of capital so 'stay alert' indeed for nothing but the reckoning to come.

Tearing your eyes from the screen you search the cupboards for sustenance but discover in aggravation that youre lacking onions and tinned tomatoes and you wonder if you can maybe make do but you think it would be nice to have a beer or two anyway and besides you dont have anything for breakfast tomorrow so theres no choice but to ride out into the breach again, defenceless against this satanic pathogen and the whim of god and man but for this makeshift cloth draped haphazardly across your mug. 

Trudging alone in this ghostown you look to the windows in a forlorn hope for solace at the childrens watercolour rainbows and the goodwill scrawled on cardboard for the medicine men and attendants of the aged. You assume your place behind the designated marker outside leith tesco superstore persevering with dozens of other solitary vagrants as if you were survivors in some burnt out post-apocalyptic hellscape of a once illustrious citadel. From point to point you gradually shuffle til you reach the entrance and edge through the door only to be met with a curt voice and a raised palm. One in one out mate. But moments later some other exile slips back into the void and the hand moves to beckon you. Right, on you go then. Cheers.

The moonshine gel douses your knuckles stinging the scabs from the fraught and obsessive handwashing. Navigating the shop is a taxing endeavour as you try in vain to source a packet of coriander through the oneway system as if you were lost in some purgatorial storybook maze. Then a stand-off with another anxious soul as you turn into a new aisle exchanging shifty glances that seem to say whos going first and dont get too close amigo. Theyve run out of brown bread so you scuttle over to the hardy keyworker unpacking boxes eight hours into her shift and in the face of her fabled sacrifice in this biblical saga you feel reticent verging on apologetic to make a request so trivial and banal but find yourself mumbling in muffled tones through your now snot stained rag: 

Scuse me, do you stock rice cakes. 

Yep, on the other side of that aisle.

That one. 

No, that one there.

Right, thanks.

Fleeing the store you make it back to your bunker in time to witness the setting sun washing the worlds eternal canvas in crimson and amber splendour silhouetting a flock of migratory birds setting off for pastures new. Your spirit soars with wonder and you take this as a reminder that all is not lost and that a new day will soon come. And that day is tomorrow, friday the twenty second of may in the year of our lord twenty twenty when tanjore south indian restaurant finally reopens for delivery.