This story is inspired by this painting by Alex Coville.
Louise walked slowly up the ramp from the beach, feeling sad
and alone. She had been excited to hear that the beach had reopened after the
COVID-19 pandemic which had closed just about everything. She had missed her daily swim in the ocean
and had been looking forward to getting in the water again. There were still a lot of restrictions and
she was still not allowed to see her family and friends, but she hoped that
time would come soon.
Earlier, she had looked out the large front window of her
beach house. While she had a great view
of the ocean she couldn’t see the beach itself because of the large rocks at
the front of her property. It was hard
to tell if there were any people down there, but she hoped there weren’t. And she hoped the ones that were there were
being respectful of the pandemic protocols.
She put on her bathing suit, grabbed her face mask and towel and headed
down the ramp. When she had broken her
hip last year her son had built the ramp for her to make it easier for her to
get down to the beach. She really
appreciated that ramp.
Thinking of her son made her heartache. She had not seen him or Karen and the kids
for three months. Other than video chat
at least. While she appreciated the
video calls, nothing replaced the real-life visits full of laughter and hugs
from little arms. She missed those two
little girls with every fibre of her being.
The way they giggled, the way they wanted to show her every single
thing they owned, the way they smelled in the summer when they came for a day
at the beach. Louise feared she would
never see them again with this virus refusing to go away.
When she got to the bottom of the ramp she stopped dead in
her tracks and stared at the beach in horror.
It was jam-packed! There were
people covering every single inch of sand.
Louise had never seen it so busy.
People must have flocked here at the first sign of the beach
reopening. It seemed every person in her
small town was there. As she scanned
the shore she noticed it was mostly young people and none of them was obeying
the safe distance guidelines and none of them was wearing masks. The air was filled with the cacophony of
various boom boxes. Louise was
shocked. What was wrong with these people?
Did they not realize the pandemic was
still going on and the only reason they were allowed on the beach was if they
followed the protocols? Looking up and
down the beach she didn’t see anyone who was enforcing the rules. Then she spotted a couple of police officers
on bicycles but they weren’t doing anything at all.
Louise’s heart sank and she walked along the sand looking
for a place to put her towel so she could go for a swim. Usually, it was very quiet down at her end of
the beach and even on the busiest days she could enjoy a peaceful dip. But today there wasn’t an inch of space to
be found. People were everywhere and so
was the garbage. Louise felt anger
burning deep inside her as she looked at all the food containers and wrappers
littering the beach and the water’s edge.
Were people really so selfish and irresponsible? It seemed that way.
She had only walked a few yards when she realized she was
putting herself in danger by walking so close to people even with her mask
on. It had been her intention to walk
over to the police officers and demand to know why they were doing nothing
about this crowd. But she had health
conditions that would make it devastating if she caught COVID-19. She couldn’t risk it.
So here she was walking up the ramp to her home. Her heart was heavy despite the warm sun
shining down on her and a fresh salty breeze in the air. What was going to become of this world? People were acting as though the virus was
over which was so dangerous. It wasn’t
even close to being over, the numbers were not going down, people were still
dying and now they were finding out more about the virus and how it presented
in different ways in different people.
There was going to be a second more virulent wave if people didn’t
follow the protocols set out on the advice of health officials. There was so much disrespect for authority
these days!
A few minutes later Louise sat on the deck with an ice-cold
drink and looked out at the ocean. She was
grateful for the rock barrier that blocked her view. She could pretend she was the only one in
the world and it calmed her. Sitting in
the warm sun, enjoying her drink and the peace and quiet, she was startled when
her phone announced a video call.
“Nana! Look at us!” her oldest granddaughter yelled. “We’re swimming!”
She laughed as she
watched the two little girls splashing around in the pond their father had
built. How she wished she could be there
with them. Watching the lights of her life, she prayed for their safety and for
the day when they could be together again.
