This morning I went to the Polish Café by the tube station to buy lunch. It is only doing take-away sales. The corner shop was busy but had run out of eggs. A long queue outside the butcher. A sign on the chemist’s door: “no Ibuprofen, thermometers or hand gel”. Oddbins also have a sign: “dogs welcome”. I bought a bottle of sherry.
Why couldn’t I make that paragraph more interesting? Because I’m not Scott Fitzgerald. Turn the clock back a hundred years. The Chairman’s consort sent me this:
“From F Scott Fitzgerald quarantined in 1920 in the South of France during the Spanish Influenza outbreak.
Dearest Rosemary,
It was a limpid dreary day, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. I thank you for your letter. Outside, I perceive what may be a collection of fallen leaves tussling against a trash can. It rings like jazz to my ears. The streets are that empty. It seems as though the bulk of the city has retreated to their quarters, rightfully so. At this time it seems very poignant to avoid all public spaces. Even the bars, as I told Hemingway, but to that he punched me in the stomach, to which I asked if he had washed his hands. He hadn’t. He is much the denier, that one. Why, he considers the virus to be just influenza. I’m curious of his sources.
The officials have alerted us to ensure we have a month’s worth of necessities. Zelda and I have stocked up on red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, white wine, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy. Please pray for us. You should see the square, oh, it is terrible. I weep for the damned eventualities this future brings, the long afternoons rolling forward slowly on the ever-slick highball. Z says it’s no excuse to drink, but I just can’t seem to steady my hand. In the distance, from my brooding perch, the shoreline is cloaked in a dull haze where I can discern an unremitting penance that has been heading this way for a long, long while. And yes, amongst the cracked cloud line of an evening’s cast, I focus on a single strain of light, calling me forth to believe in a better morrow.
Faithfully yours, F Scott Fitzgerald”
What an excellent parody, written by Nick Farriella six days ago. Were you fooled?
The full trauma of these strange times are much relieved by your daily Bellow specials. Please continue!
I heartily agree. Let it flow.
Fooled. Me. Yes.