Satire

It’s Not Actually Quiet Around Here

No Lock-down Happening Here

Inspired by a piece from a writing sister of mine Agnes Louis

I love reading Agnes’ work. In her charming and creative way, she paints the world around her as she sees it and gives us a grand view of her perspectives. I’ve been following her for some time now, and this latest work of hers got my brain matter to spinning.

This afternoon as I read The Quiet, I could feel the serenity of what she felt, actually see how she saw it…Until the block party on my street got into full swing.

Those two ladies in the picture sitting at a safe distance from one another talking? Uh, uh. Not around here. Especially not now, since our governor GregAdouchbag has decided his coffers were getting too low and has started to “open” Texas back up again.

Not that it mattered GregAdouchbag. No one on this block (except for the missus and me) has ever bothered to shelter-in-place anyway. Where face masks and latex gloves are at a premium, they’re certainly not around these parts.

Why should they be? Not a single person (again except for the missus and me) chooses to wear them.

Instead, everybody got wind of a stupid commercial running on local Texas television stations about celebrating May by holding a cookout on the front driveway of your home and partying hard with all your neighbors.

Oh yeah, the caveat was staying in your own driveway and remembering to keep a safe distance. Which evidently to most of the people around here, means waiting until you’re sh*tfaced to cross the street and sit with your neighbors on their driveway because you just ran out of booze.

No quiet Agnes. Sorry. Just drunken laughter, whoops, and hollers and music booming from multiple radios and boomboxes.

Party like it’s 1999!

Quiet? Really? Where is all this quiet Agnes talks about?

Around here, the streets are full of cars because the stores are opening, and I ain’t just talking about the grocery stores. I’m talking people with no masks and no gloves milling about in farm to markets. I’m talking people parking their cars in school parking lots and dragging out their grills and having tailgate parties.

I’m talking folks walking across the street to a city park that’s supposed to be closed opposite these same school parking lots and having a birthday party for their kids.

There’s no quietness in this city.

People are coming out of their homes in literal droves. A simple trip to a UPS store for us became a moment of sheer terror in a coronavirus war zone.

Crazed individuals, desperate to either drop off a package or pick one up, were jamming into the tiny foyer, none of them wearing masks or gloves, all bunched up at the door within inches of one another.

And everyone was laughing and chatting as if nothing was happening and nothing had changed.

For them, I supposed it hadn’t. For them, this insipid microbial disaster doesn’t seem to exist. Why?

Because GregAdouchebag said so. Right now, he’s scoffing at the CDC warning us about wave two of this COVID beast. He’s telling every Texan who’ll pay him a moment of their time that the worst is over. He’s telling us all it’s time to quit hiding and come out. Come out and get the industrial machine of this great state of ours back in action.

And people around here are doing just that. They’re partying and celebrating and slapping themselves on the back (without gloves and masks) and opening things up again.

Including restaurants.

Today my wife and I went to pick up a call-in order at a fav restaurant of ours. As we waited in the pickup space for someone to deliver the food, we watched as a man and his daughter — or a husband who was married to someone who could have been his daughter — walked into the restaurant.

When the woman/barely out of high school bride/daughter opened the door, I heard the sounds of people’s voices and music floating out of the restaurant.

I don’t know where it came from at that moment, but suddenly the refrain from a Billy Joel hit Goodnight Saigon began twirling around in my head.

And we will all go down together.

So, sorry Agnes, I’d love to say I can enjoy the solicitude and peace of tranquil MRT stations, streets barren of traffic whether motor or pedestrian and the sounds of nature’s wild taking back their world.

But I can’t.

On this side of the planet, especially here in GregAdouchebag’s state of Texas, there is no quiet.

Around here, there are only stupid people. A lot of crazy people who seem content to party till they drop or until they become the targets of wave two.

Although I hear it’s pretty quiet in ICU, right?

Thanks So Much For Reading

Let’s keep in touch: [email protected]

© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.