excerpt from a short story I wrote in lock down last year.

Oh I am so bored, so very bored. Locked down, isolated, lonely and bored. There is nowhere to run anymore. I can’t even run away from myself. This is my two hundred and thirteenth day in lock down.  Yes, I know the whole world is in lockdown but all that matters to me is that I am alone in my own little world. Four walls of grey paint (it’s probably not paint but dirt now that I’m staring at them). Four walls of enclosed space with a few windows looking out onto the grey (it really is dirty grey) courtyard below. In this space is my studio apartment. One main room with a kitchenette and a separate room for my bathroom. There are only 3 windows and no balcony. Had I even suspected I was going to be in some sort of lockdown for more than 2 weeks, no way would I have signed a lease on this tiny, claustrophobic space, even if it was cheap! But there you have it, I didn’t know, didn’t suspect. No one did.

I used to like to look out of the window as I washed the dishes in the sink. I have a few potted herbs on the sill, so the look and scent of the mint and thyme, made me feel good. I was ready to face the day. Back then, I had a cup of brewed coffee in my hand and was about to head out to work. Now, the smell of mint makes me nauseous, and the thyme has shrivelled up from lack of watering. Now, my coffee tastes stale and bitter. I no longer grind fresh coffee beans but use them again and again for economy.

I gaze out and from this viewpoint, I see every other window in my apartment complex has the blinds down. Why? Are they so afraid others who are now home every day will observe what’s going on in their space? Do they really care that much? Or maybe it is all a conspiracy and there are no people, families, or strangers behind those blinds. In that case, maybe everyone in the world has died, and I’m being kept here alone in some sort of weird experiment. Ah, is my mind starting to go around the bend?

Yesterday I looked up what makes people go crazy when they are in isolation, say in prison or when held captive.

The writer, Sarah Shourd was kept in isolation after being arrested while hiking on the Iran border, and imprisoned in a tiny cell in Tehran. After about two months, her mind started playing tricks on her. She heard phantom footsteps and flashing lights, and spent most of her day crouched on all fours, listening to sounds through a gap in the door.  “In the periphery of my vision, I began to see flashing lights, only to jerk my head around to find that nothing was there,” she wrote in the New York Times. “More than once, I beat at the walls until my knuckles bled and cried myself into a state of exhaustion.”

Sarah saw and heard things that were not there. Maybe the same will happen to me?  Frankly I would welcome some disturbance, even if it were only a phantom or hallucination. Anything has to be better than being totally on my own. Surely everything would revert to normal afterwards? Maybe not, but still I wanted to test out a theory. 

I believe writers are basically hallucinating when they write. Those little characters and scenes that playout in our head, what are they, if not phantoms? The crazier they are, the more real they seem, to me anyway, and I guess eventually to the readers. Those phantoms exist in our heads, then we write them down and they move from head to paper and take on a life of their own. For instance, The Lord of The Rings —is that not the most bizarre story ever? What sort of person imagines those strange creatures from a weird place like Middle Earth? Tolkien must have been pretty batty at times and hallucinating. See not every hallucination is unhealthy?  Now that idea has got me thinking.

Should I let my imagination run away with me while I am in lockdown?  After all there is nowhere else to run. What if I really am the last person on earth? Shut up in this tiny apartment, being used as an experiment by someone or something. A bit like The Truman Show maybe.

Now I can’t stop worrying about it and keep checking through the window for signs of life. I can’t remember the last time I saw a person on the streets. I know it is forbidden to step outside, we can’t leave the complex, even for exercise. It’s late afternoon so if there are people anywhere, they should be finished their online work and starting up their evening rituals. But I see nothing. Nothing stirs, nothing opens, nothing closes. Not even the flutter of a curtain. I unlock my window. Outside is stillness, no wind or breath of fresh air. It is as if nature itself doesn’t want to distract with any movement.

I hear a slight scratchy noise behind me. I turn quickly but of course there is nothing to be seen. The noise is coming from the bathroom. I vault over, and fling open the door. Inside there is a tiny grey bird flapping around in the small space. The bird’s wings and claws scratch on the bare white tiled walls. I notice the window was left open, and the bird entered and is now unable to find a way out. My God, this is like a scene from a Hitchcock movie! What luck, I think. Something to distract me at last. I enter the room and close the door softly behind me.

To be continued…..

Lisa C.