A new version of life

Since the pandemic struck, life was now a series of circles. These circles were a mandatory and enforceable part of everyday life, and seemed to represent the circles of life itself, of life, and death. To some, it was like Dante’s nine circles of Hell. They were in purgatory.

People wore their face masks and stood within their allotted circles on the train, in the supermarket queue, inside their houses. Nobody was allowed to come near anybody else; not since the third wave of the virus had hit, wiping out 75 percent of the world's population, and there were simply not enough people alive to help those who got sick.

So now was the time for damage limitation. The vaccine hadn't been able to stretch nearly far enough, and the hospitals were mostly closed, except on a very limited basis. A militant government-run police force monitored our every move, eliminating all threats of danger.

Everyone was standing, on trains, on buses, in cafes; outdoor seats were deemed too unhygienic because of hands resting on arm-rests. Life was now one long production line of constantly moving people. Everything was disposable. Everybody had to wear gloves, as well as masks, which was now the law worldwide. People caught without masks and gloves were shot on sight and their bodies incinerated. Actually, the threat of execution followed by incineration, was mostly a very publicised government threat, designed to make people tow the line. The bodies weren’t in fact incinerated; what was done to them was too grim not to be kept secret. But that's for another story...

A new technology made the gloves and masks self-cleaning every six minutes, and although we never really understood why it was six minutes, many had found ways to make this work. For example, most basic tasks could be completed within six minutes. A trip to the toilet could take place. A disposable cup of coffee could be drunk, with a sealed croissant on the side. No more babies, no more sex.

In an alleyway leading away from the town centre, a man requests a hand-job from a beautiful street worker, the excitement of the six-minute deadline adding to the illicit thrill. His name is Andrew, and he is a perfectly normal man. He would never have done this before the pandemic. He loves his wife, is attracted to her. He tells the street-worker, "I can pay for six minutes." She replies with, "Honey, I'm on a tight deadline. I can get you done in five."

Street-worker Stevie is true to her word, looking into his eyes and smiling, as she grasps his excitement tightly with one hand, and unbuttons the top of her red blouse with the other, allowing a highly illicit peek of bare breast, forbidden in these strange times. It has the desired effect, as he gasps and spills his load into the cup he is holding, ready to be sealed and disposed of, under the country’s ‘no littering’ and ‘no bodily fluids’ policies. If they were seen, they would both be shot on sight.

She pockets her fee and smiles, as he cleans himself up with the wipes that she offers him and gets himself sorted. He thanks her for her time, as she watches the tell-tale shimmery green glow of her gloves, indicating that self-cleaning is now in progress.

Andrew scurries back to his house, the home he shares with his loving, dutiful wife. Of course, she would be dutiful if sex wasn’t now illegal; it was classed as unhygienic and highly dangerous by the powers that be. A highly effective way of swapping bodily fluids and therefore passing on or contracting the deadly virus that has already wiped out so many. Whilst it shamed him to commit the act he had just committed in that alleyway, he has his needs, and he can no longer ignore them. After all, he reasons to himself – life is too short, people were dying or disappearing every day, and there was now little fun to be had except for that which was illicit.

His home is cool and sterile, like him. He enjoys his daily two hours of freedom without gloves and mask, knowing from the blinking red light of the cameras overseeing every inch of the house, that he is being watched, as always, as is everybody else. He sits on the edge of the bed, feeling the warmth of his wife’s sleeping body next to him. He rests a hand gently on her, and he weeps.

*

Later, as the dawn rays strike and cast strips of light onto the bed, she awakens, feeling her husband asleep next to her, snoring gently. She turns to look at his peaceful, crumpled face, and she feels desolate with guilt. Last week, in frustration, she had paid an illegal street-worker to sexually pleasure her with her gloved hand. Short and sterile though the encounter was, it was a desperate grab for sexual tension and connection. A connection she was not allowed to have with her husband. She wondered how he would feel and how he would react if he knew.

She wondered how many other couples were going through the same dilemma in this strange, sterile new world.