I remember listening to a documentary about the Israel-Palestine conflict. They were interviewing some Israelis who were living comfortably in their gated communities somewhere in an occupied territory surrounded by olive groves and cypress trees. They described how they had put up with all sorts of shelling and bombs and gunfire. They could deal with that, they said, because they just scurry into their bunkers till it stopped. The shells almost always missed and there was a great big concrete wall to protect them. And an army.
What scared the shit out of them was something else. One lady recounted that the scariest thing was when the militia had successfully dug a tunnel into their area. They had also came out of the tunnel last night. They were here.
In the same way, I’ve watched with some aghast the horrors of the current pandemic. But then I’d switch the news off and get on with life. It wasn’t really real. I could forget about it.
But now suddenly … it’s here. We’re no longer in a comfy safe part of the world. The virus has entered suddenly and quietly. It’s here.