5 Minute Story Challenge – COVID Dystopia
2 O Clock, Monday May 11th, Lola and Ron are confined to the four walls of their inner city apartment. Lola is hard at work on the front line supporting the nation’s health service in the fight against a worldwide pandemic. Ron continues to help the rich and powerful move their ill-gotten funds to their offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands.
This is the 13th week in which they are isolated from the outside world, their minds have slowly succumbed to madness. In Lola’s mind Ron is now nothing more than a spiralling, swirling kaleidoscope of ‘’Simpsons’’ references and childish gibberish. For Ron, Lola has morphed into a never-ending conveyor belt of ‘’Tik Tok’’ dances and scripted HSE responses.
The silences are deafening and the walls are fluid. Conversations have descended to meaningless shrugs and grunts, meals consist of Nine cent Tesco noodles and chicken goujons. Outside contact has become a myth formed in one of Lola’s stress induced fever dreams.
Nostalgia consists of the lost want of pets and the cold, bubbly thirst quenching sip of a freshly pulled pint of Heineken. They hold on to the hope that this will all soon be over.
The world will have reset, trees can breathe again, the ice caps haven been given a a rest bite can begin to reclaim their place in this world. Life will make sense again, pint will be drunk, pets will be rubbed, friends and family embraced and the virus will be no more than a fable for the grandkids.
-Rø
RØ 