Stay Safe
Stay safe. Those words follow me around these days, niggling in my mind. They appeared at the start of the pandemic, when we realised those three weeks of lockdown would last so much longer than we thought. As roads emptied and city centres closed, trapped inside with eyes glued to the screen watching the death toll rise and rise and rise. Stay safe. It's become a mantra, a background thought, a reflex that ends every conversation I have now. Stay safe, I signed off in every email to my lecturers as I floundered and battled to finish my degree last spring. Stay safe, I told my grandma over skype, not knowing five days later she would be dead. Stay safe, I told my best friend, as we lingered over the porch of her student house, on the precipice of being separated for who knew how long. (it's been 8 months now, since I saw her last). Stay safe, I think to the young mother walking with her baby in the park, marveling how she managed to bring something so innocent and bea...