a different kind of mask

A slow morning forming through the last dregs of sleep clinging to my eyes. A sense of change, a hot shower disgorging me into colder air, the opposite of the last weeks where cold showers brought a sense of temporary relief from the heat. The sound of neverending construction from outside, the sounds of a battlefield, the stutter of howitzers. Coffee.


In the street, other than the construction workers digging up the road again, it's quiet. Just after midday, the MRT almost vacant still, the seven eleven the same. As I head towards a buffet place a couple of stations down the line, preferring to walk, to stretch my legs after a day of being seated upon the various stages of the last journey. A little along the way I notice a queue upon the other side of the road, wonder what it's for, out of synch with my surroundings I pause, follow it until I find the head and then look up. “Pharmacy” the sign says, cogs move. Masks, I think to myself. There's been a shortage, panic buying, the government have stepped in. now you can only buy masks if you have a health card and a maximum of three per week, but there's still a shortage and so, I suspect, that when an assignment arrives at a pharmacy soon a crowd will follow. I look across again, the queue runs from the doorway to the junction and then doubles back upon itself, it must be about 70m long and, as I watch, more people appear, extending it further.


Continuing towards lunch I'm taken by how quiet it seems to be here, even the Burger King upon my route which is always busy and, at this time of day, packed, only contains a couple of people, sitting distance from eachother, an Edward Hopper painting. The buffet place is the same, only three or four people, huge amounts of food that will remain uneaten or kept in hope that, later, more customers will arrive. I wonder if it's the same across the city, part of me thinking that it could be a day for a walk, but reluctant, content to have a day of rest, to see what tomorrow offers up: the immediate apathy of the familiar dropping its cloak upon me.