Limited Permissions
One day you wake up and the government tells you you’re in Phase Two / your friend reminds you that the demarcation of time is a man-made construct / Google News alerts you to the new rules that have unfolded overnight / Channel News Asia pings you with the latest numbers on cases: community and otherwise / your sister announces that beaches are no longer off-limits / your group chats all resonate with the same knowledge: you can now gather in groups of five / your other sister thanks the Lord for the slow groan of the economy restarting / your parents brace for the second wave / your aunties send you unfounded theories of virus transmission / your doctor friend broadcasts a Facebook plea for all to remain indoors / a hundred brands panic and change their marketing direction / the recently-converted introverts backslide into wider society / the home-based bakers negotiate permissions to deliver / the small business owners race to check if they are green-lit to go / your peers are told to expect to continue working from home till the year’s end / the line between essential and not blurs / your downstairs neighbor rejoices hallelujah / the drilling starts / her home improvement renovations begin / your sleep is shocked into a new schedule / you wake up / you are unhappy / you are ungrateful / you are petty / you are filled with rage / the hammer driving the point home : life is starting up again / life is moving / life is progressing / life is upgrading / life is leaving you behind / so / get / the / fuck / up / already.
It’s about time, anyway.
You have become very rude in the three months of lockdown, but this cannot continue. How have you not prepared for this? Had you thought the lockdown a permanent state? Had you assumed a vacation of the pause? You are not ready to re-adapt, but you must. You want to take stock of all that has changed, but you are afraid. You find the process of becoming unsuspended painful. You cannot possibly be alone in this. You want commiseration, so you open Instagram to the news that three of your friends are back at the gym, four have achieved baking nirvana, one has completed an online language course in Malay and Spanish, and another declares the enforced solitude the best thing to happen to his mental health in the last five years.
Fuck right off, you think.
The singular, most impressive achievement you have attained in lockdown is blunting your keyboard’s tolerance levels with your outbursts so that it now no longer autocorrects ‘fucking’ to ‘ducking’. You have also become carefree with your digestion, passing gas quite happily as you triangulate from room to kitchen to toilet to room. The first time you leave the house, it feels like an audition. You clench your buttocks underneath the floaty fabric of what might as well be a maternity dress, afraid your body will let rip, more afraid that you’ll giggle. You feel loose and wild around people. You want to hug them just to see fear flash across their faces. When someone tells you a joke, you laugh too loud. You find your gaze too abrasive. You snap and apologize and snap again and then cry. You are bewildered by the extents of how your friends are determined to love you despite your bad behavior. You promise to do better.
Still.
The first night you return home, you don’t make it to the bed. You don’t even try. Your sun-drained body liquifies where you lie, thawing on the cool marble floor, as the downstairs neighbor drills five thousand lamps into her ceiling, because she hates you.
