Climbing out of the Rabbit Hole

It’s a mystery that stopped me writing, and I have to write about it

We’re expecting a guest. Our first since the covid outbreak of almost a year and a half ago. Our guest is due to arrive the day after all covid restrictions are lifted in England.

We’re not “celebrating freedom” by the way (we’re not total dorks). The timing is coincidental, the reasons for the visit are family-related and not hedonistic enjoyment. We’re going to be doing what most people we know will be doing — continuing to wear masks when away from home, social distancing, regular testing — and we’ll be avoiding crowds. We’re lucky we can. The “Freedom Day” lifting of regulations is already labelled a nightmare by those who have to work in crowded areas.

What does our government mean by freedom, anyway? I don’t think it’s our freedom, I think it’s theirs. Their freedom to cull those of the population they don’t give a toss about, is my guess.

And there… I’ve totally set off down a rabbit hole, just as I did when circumstances conspired to stop me writing, and to leave me with the unsolved mystery.

But hey, while I’m down this rabbit hole, what is this government playing at? Public opinion is clear — we’d like to be safe from this pandemic, please. A government that has turned itself inside out to court public popularity now going against public opinion…? Moreover, doing it on what is an actual life-and-death matter for many. Why? Is it that there is a creeping phalanx of MPs who believe that the earth is flat, the world is ruled by a giant pizza, and taking precautions in a pandemic is an infringement of their rights? I fear it might be, and the current PM is shit-scared of his MPs and ready to pander to them even at the expense of thousands of lives.

I seriously have to get out of this rabbit hole before I forget where I’m going. But honestly! Don’t we have enough of a salutary lesson in front of us from over the pond where swivel-eyed loons are starting to rule the roost. As someone said when it was suggested that the US republic would not have survived a second Trump term: We’ve not yet survived the first.

A guest is expected

A guest! We’re expecting a guest. We’ve been in lockdown (and loving it but that’s another rabbit hole) for almost a year and a half. The spare room has got a little neglected. It’s been aired and such, but it has also became a bit of a dumping ground (lockdown motto: Just put it in the spare room). Now I think about it, we’ve started calling it the Warehouse.

The other thing is the dust. We’ve been through one lockdown harvest and a second is underway. The dust is epic. The spare room has been neglected in the dust department. It’ll be more of an archaeological dig than a cleaning operation, but it must be done. At least we’re not short of masks.

The mystery develops

You know how it is when you set out to do something and find things have become tangled, and you must complete another task before you can tackle the first?

It’s like wanting a cup of tea and discovering you’re out of teabags, so no tea until you take a trip to the shops. But no trip to the shops before you get dressed. Then, as the nearest shop is a car ride away, you have to have a full shopping list to make it worthwhile, but then you get a flat tyre on the way and it turns out the wheel brace is back at home, so you call the rescue service who are busy and take a couple of hours and, one way and another, by the time you get home, hot, cross and laden with shopping, you realise you’ve forgotten to get teabags.

So yeah, it was like that.

I ventured into the spare room.

I think I’d had a vague idea that I would just walk in and make the bed. Make the bed? I couldn’t even see it. And the dust! There was no way anything could be done in that room before the dust was dealt with.

So off I went to arm myself with the relevant equipment. And here’s where it starts to get hazy.

I couldn’t go back to get started before I had the tools for the job. And I couldn’t get the tools for the job until … I’m not quite sure, but there was an obstacle to be circumvented. At one point, there was one of those things that couldn’t be done without a clear surface to do it on, so that meant a surface to be cleared and cleaned.

It all came to a crescendo with having to defrost the fridge. Well, that took most of the day. Three jars of pickle emerged slowly from icebergs on the back wall, like the gradual uncovering of prehistoric secrets as climate change melts the glaciers — and there’s a rabbit hole that I will quickly sidestep.

Here’s the mystery: How did the rabbit holes stack up to take me from wanting to make up the spare bed to having to defrost the fridge?

I don’t know. I’ve not been able to recreate them. They seemed logical at the time, but I wonder now if my subconscious was punishing me. My crime: I’d failed to carry out what should have been a simple task. The punishment: forced labour on a longer, messier, wetter one — within hearing of a radio blasting out commentary on the latest incomprehensible decisions made by a government determined to make life a living hell for the majority of its citizens.

It will take future historians to unravel the mystery of the headlong rush towards celebratory ignorance and espousal of conspiracy theories, and I expect they’ll be seriously harsh on the reputations of many who like to think of themselves as eminent and serious politicians. I don’t know if I’ll live to see it, but I do know that it’s already too late for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.

I doubt any future historians will apply themselves to the mystery of my path from bed making to fridge defrosting, but it cut right into my writing time, and I’m a mystery writer, so I had to write about it.