2020

Welcome to 2020. Before we go any further we would like you to fill in a questionnaire. There are many questions to answer and many answers available but please think carefully before you answer. Its January 1st and usually our questionnaire is filled with bubbly questions.... questions like what is your new years resolution... how many stone would you like to lose this year... and is this the year you find the love of your life or have the best sex ever.

We like bubbly questions... we like to keep it light... keep it airy and open... we cant fail that way. Everyone has hopes for a new year so we can generally figure out the answers before we write the questions

This year however the rules have changed. Take a seat because I can assure you by the time we get to about question 5 you'll be either laughing at the ridiculous things you hear or you'll be crying for us to stop... to halt the questions and rewind a year

This year all the rules have been fucked out a window and the questions are written by god knows who....

Question 1 

Did you mean it when you said you wanted the weekend to last forever. Answer slowly....

Question 2

How many times have you cursed under your breath when invited to a family event trying to find an excuse not to go. Answer slowly....

Question 3

Weren't you lately lying in bed wishing you didn't have to go to work tomorrow. Answer slowly.....

Question 4

Did you ever lie in bed unable to sleep and imagine how you'll die... you know the scenarios.. fast, slow.. with family... suddenly... and then lie imagining the grief you leave behind. Your funeral. The music. The people there supporting your family.. crying for you... remembering you...

Answer very slowly....

Question 5

What if I told you every illness... every suicide... every breath you take as a last breath will go unrecorded. Every pain, every ache unrecognised. Every last conversation you have, forgotten. 

Wiped out by a virus, a virus that leaves everybody you know and those you dont torn apart and left sinking in an ocean of pain they cant swim in. Choking in a vial of uncertainty and ache. Shredded in the doubt of the person beside you. Those who wear a mask, those who dont. Those vulnerable and those who see the vulnerable as those who'll pull them down. Those who reach out to help and those who smother that help while trying to just simply survive. What if this goes on for months, and we struggle and worry and fight and pray that this will end and we can once again go back to wishing to lose a stone or get the best sex ever.... answer ever so slowly.....

That was question 5... I dont know if you're laughing or crying but I'm pretty sure neither of us are mentally prepared for question 6.......

January 1st is now a memory, a reality and it's gone. We cant go back...

So maybe let's take a breath together and pray that question 6 is the one question we can answer, that we are asked to reach out and survive together, that we suddenly find ourselves in sinking waters ready to save each other from certain drowning....

Maybe just maybe all hope is not lost...

Valerie Masters