Page 18 of 56 Days
Some of the things the Taoiseach said she’d heard before, many times, but insci-fivirus thrillers and postapocalyptic zombie movies, not from the mouth of the leader of her country in a press conference so pressing he had to do it in the predawn dark on the other side of an ocean.
And this isreal-world.
Hers.
Her mother once told her that the scariest thing she saw on TV on 9/11 was a live shot of the southern tip of Manhattan when thick, dusty smoke was billowing into the sky from between the injured buildings. It was a familiar shot of a city her mother felt she knew even though she’d never been, because she’d seen it destroyed and invaded and exploded countless times across decades’ worth of TV shows and Hollywood movies. But this scene was rendered utterly alien by the fact that it was happening for real. The mundane and the incomprehensible, smashed violently together—it caused cognitive dissonance, her mother had said. She’d read about it somewhere, probably in one of herself-helpbooks.
What ifshegets this thing?
Ciara can’t deal with that particular worry right now, so she replaces it with another one: Why hasn’t Oliver called her?
They’re supposed to meet again in a few hours, but she hasn’t heard from him since he put her in that cab outside the Westbury three days ago. It’s exhausting to be worriedandactively trying to keep yourself from not being that. The very fact that plans are already in place might well bewhyhe hasn’t called or messaged her. Everything is set except for the exact time and actual location of their meeting, and maybe he’s presuming they’ll meet outside his office after work just like they did last time, because this is the thing they weresupposedto do last time but didn’t, so maybe in his mind this promised text is just a formality, firmly in thejust checking we’re still oncategory of communication, and that’s why he’s leaving it until the last minute.
Or maybe he’s changed his mind.
The radio silence since Monday night can be bent to support both hypotheses, that’s the problem.
And can they even stillgoto the cinema, after Leo’s speech?
Ciara opens up her laptop again and surfs national news sites until she finds a bulleted list of what’s happening, published ten minutes ago and updated in the last two. She scrolls down. Schools, colleges, and childcare facilities will close. Museums, theaters, and other cultural institutions will close, too. No mass gatherings of more than one hundred people indoors or five hundred out, which still sounds like an awful lot to her. Shops, restaurants, and bars to remain open but with the immediate implementation ofsocial-distancingmeasures. Everyone must aim to limit their social interaction.
It sounds straightforward but nothing is, not now. Cinemas aren’t mentioned by name—do they qualify as a cultural institution? Or are they like shops or bars, somewhere that can remain open so long as they limit the number of people allowed inside? Oliver said this one is small, so it may not even have that many seats, and, really, how many people are going to go see a space documentary on a Thursday night? Especially now, afterthat. And what exactly does “limit social interaction” mean? If he is her only interaction, does that qualify as limiting?
What happens if he decidesnotto include her in his?
She closes her eyes and rubs at them in frustration.
Of course this would happen now. Ofcourseit would. After all this time, she’s somehow managed to cultivate a seed...
And here comes a bloodyonce-in-a-lifetime, global pandemic to kill it off.
You couldn’t make it up.
Her phone rings, startling her. It’s wedged down the side of one of the couch cushions; in reaching for it, she accidentally answers the call. There’s no time to prepare for talking to the name she sees as she puts the device to her ear: OLIVER.
“Hello?” She’s immediately convinced that her attempt at sounding casual has failed spectacularly.
“Ciara?”
“Oliver.” She feels the urge to stand up. “How are you?”
“Good—apart from the whole, you know,end-times-plague thing. You?”
“Same.”
“Did you watch Leo’s speech just now?”
“Yeah.”
She starts pacing back and forth in front of the window.
“It’s all a bit surreal, isn’t it?” he says.
“Very.”
“Are you limiting yourself toone-wordresponses on purpose, or...?”
“No.”
