The year of Change. Creative non fiction by Robert H.Fell

“Lockdown and isolation,” that’s not new for me. I have been on my own for eight years since my wife died. The house and large garden in France where I live, is much to big for just me and my five cats, but at least I have freedom of movement. But this meant that nobody can call and I can only go to the village shop for supplies, with my little piece of paper from the government allowing me to do so. But looking at it from another side. I have a telephone, and a computer so I have a link throughout the world, but perhaps more importantly I am not lonely as I have music all day and everyday from Classic F.M. beamed over the satellite to me into my TV. Without that, I feel that things may have been different.
As the weeks passed I began to realise how lucky I was with the space around me. I was not confined to a single room, with other members of a family. I did not have to stare longingly out of a window in some upper floor of an apartment block, life for me was almost normal with the exception of physical contact. I still made full use of the present day communications and was indeed very grateful for the calls that I received to check to see, if I, a widowed man in my eighties was alright. Yes I have a lot to be grateful for. I have always been very conscious of my good fortune but can certainly feel for others not in such a position as myself. This dreadful worldwide pandemic will take a long time to clear, not just a few days or weeks.
But I ask myself, Is this a warning from above? Though not really a religious person though I had good parental Christian training and attended church on a regular basis. I do believe and wonder whether it’s nature’s way of saying, enough is enough. People of Mother Earth. Get your act together. Stop working against nature and one another. Stop, this racial conflict, blaming everybody else but our selves. If we do not, then there will be no survivors and man will cease to exist.
I am in the autumn of my life and have lived through some turbulent times. Have travelled widely and have witnessed many things that should not be witnessed, but I still firmly believe that we can survive, but only through love, not hate and self-glorification.
Come on people of this world, when the time comes, get together again, forgive, but perhaps not forget. Life will, in time return to some form of normality but the reminder is always there.
It can happen again.