By 5am, as I boarded the ferry, the radio bulletins seemed apocalyptic. On board, passengers sat separately, in their own private islands of paranoia. I wore a mask over my nose and mouth, and cleaned my armrests with a baby wipe soaked in Dettol. In the toilets, the ship pitching beneath my feet, I scrubbed my hands for 60 seconds and examined my own reflection. Grey, I thought. Anxious.
Four hours later, I stopped in at my parents’ place near Inverness, where I checked emails on my phone. I had a lot of them. “Don’t come,” one of my German contacts said, simply. Another had cancelled our meeting due to childcare problems; all schools had suddenly closed. A hotel regretfully informed me that it would not be able to honour my booking. My flight, however, was still scheduled to depart on time.
Far above, thousands of planes were still pin balling around Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas. They crowded the airspace over London and Amsterdam and Paris, converging from all directions. They were launching over oceans with a cannonball momentum; weaving cleanly between each other in a mannered, balletic dance.
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