Covid And The Crisis Of Existence

How long have I been shut up within the four walls of my house, making friends with lizards? I’m beginning to lose count. Giving them names - Liz Hurley and Liz Taylor – kept me amused for a while, until I found the two entwined in lusty embrace on the dusty floor.

- Palash Krishna Mehrotra

Confined and confused

Even though the government has eased the lockdown, I can’t step out and socialise. I live with three high-risk individuals – family members over seventy – and I cannot take a chance. For how long? Perhaps forever. It’s not an easy thought to digest. In the meanwhile, one reads about other animals cocking a snook at humans: a family of otters in Singapore, that travelled across the city-state eating up yummy ornamental fish in the ponds of luxury homes owned by pop stars. And there were the Humboldt Penguins who took a stroll through a museum in Kansas City and expressed marked appreciation for the Caravaggios on display. Monet was given short shrift.

Songs of the apocalypse are back in fashion, as the claustrophobia of closed spaces gives birth to demons that nibble and gnaw away at our insides. R.E.M.’s It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), originally released in 1987, saw an uptick of 48 per cent in online streams in the U.S. According to Nielson Music/MRC data, the total streams of the single stand at 746,000 in the post-Covid era.