Flip the Script

I’m sure I’m not the only one struggling at the moment. I’m not going to say that we are all in this together because we will all be finding different things difficult. Some of you might be angry about Dominic Cummings and others might be furious that everyone seems to be picking on a man with a four year old. Some will be wanting lockdown over now and others will be feeling like it’s too soon. You might be following government advice to the letter and feel cross with those who are bending it or be living your life as normal wondering why other people are getting so stressed.
You might have lost your job or saved loads of money on petrol and eating in restaurants.

We are at the point now, where we can’t even say that we are all in the same storm, even if our boats are different.

I didn’t write yesterday, as an act of self care and also to give you all a break from my ranting brain.
The truth is, I’ve got stuck. I’m finding it difficult to move on. I think it’s because there hasn’t been a satisfactory conclusion. It’s like getting to the last ten pages of a novel and being told you can’t read the end.
“But, I want to know if they lived happily ever after,” you protest.
“Don’t worry about that. Just move on. Why don’t you read another book?”
Impossible!

When you get stuck with a story when writing, one thing you can try is to ‘flip the script’ write the story from someone else’s point of view, or look at it from a different perspective. It usually helps.

Oh, who am I kidding? That’s not going to cut it this time. I could stand on my head and look at the whole thing with someone else’s eyes and I still wouldn’t understand. I can empathise but I don’t understand and that bothers me.

I noticed that they’ve changed the lightbulb again. In yesterday’s briefing the green alert stripe has gone and we have a blue bulb. Test, track and trace. Not easy to say after a few beers. Anyway, with no app we now just have to remember anyone that we were near for more than a quarter of an hour if we get sick. This could be interesting, as I can barely remember my name when I’m ill.

This isn’t helping anyone. Ok. Stop wallowing. Get to a point where you can write about the baby blue tits.

Flip the script.

This is the story from the virus’ point of view.

I’d just like to take this moment to say, “thank you,” The last few months have been quite a ride. No, really. You have no idea. There you all are moaning about me, changing my name once people gave me a nickname. I’ll be honest, I quite liked Rona. It made me sound friendly. Much better than COVID19.

None of this was my fault. I was quite happy pootling around in Asia giving bats a mild cold. I didn’t expect to get trapped inside a pangolin and then get transferred to you humans. It was hard at first not to kill you and I would like to apologise for that. It’s always bad manners to kill your host but your lungs aren’t what I’m used to.

It takes a while, you know, before you get the hang of it. I had a fantastic time with Super Spreader Steve, I didn’t kill him and Brighton is great. Have you been? If not, you should. They’re very friendly. He went to lots of very nice pubs. The football and the races were also fun. I got around quite a bit. 

Westminster wasn’t great though. There were a lot of people there I would have preferred not to see the inside of. Honestly, for the cleverest people in the country, you wouldn’t believe how grubby their insides are. I could hear them all, bleating on about hand washing and keeping distant from other people, all while they were going from the toilet to the bar, dipping their hand into the bowl of free peanuts before squashing into a packed room to shout at each other and shake hands without washing their hands once. I know soap kills me but hypocrisy makes you want to kill your host. 

Then people started to get a bit wise to me and made it harder for me to travel around. I understand your point of view. Honestly, I do. I mean, I’d do the same if you kept killing me but in my defence I was having a lot of fun. The rest of London is amazing.

Two months ago I found myself inside a particularly grubby creature. He had been in all the meetings about how to stop me but decided that this would be a good time to visit Durham. Have you been to Durham? It’s not Brighton is it? It’s a bit gloomy up in the North East, even the sun doesn’t go there often. 

So, I’ve decided that I’ve had enough. It’s taken me a while, I know, but you humans are not as much fun as I thought. It still might take me a while to get out completely but after being in Dominic Cummings and going to Durham I’ve decided I prefer bats.

Sorry, once again if I’ve killed anyone you love but it really wasn’t my fault.

That’s better. Script flipped. D.C. did us a favour. I’m off to feed the birds.