Routines

Breakfast comes with a knock at around seven in the morning. Lunch arrives from twelve-thirty. The dinner knock is around six pm.

When I open the door a tray lies on the carpet. I’m not allowed to take the tray, just the foil food containers. Androgynous people in blue overalls and masks scurry away down the corridor. I call a hello and receive a muffled response.

One container holds a hot meal. Airline style. Edible but not always appetising. The other contains the same items every time: a small block of Gouda cheese, an airline-style packet of crackers, a Bar One or sometimes a granola bar, oversweet drinking yoghurt or, for some reason, a small disposable container of water. There is a set of plastic cutlery and salt and pepper sachets.  In a separate see-through plastic bag there are tea bags, sugar, instant coffee and a couple of mini-cartons of long life milk.

Mealtimes break up the day.

I have a ground coffee supply that I brought with me from the boat and a gadget that immerses in my cup to make it. I have been supplied with two paper cups. I use one cup for my morning coffee, the other for my post-breakfast cup of tea.

I read the news. I check twitter. I read some more news then check Twitter again. I go to my blog to see how many people have clicked on it since the last piece I uploaded. I go back to Twitter.

I lean on the ledge with the sliding window open as wide as it will go. Below is a parking lot for a block of deserted offices. I watch a security guard walk across the lot. He wears a dark suit and his shoes blink in the sunlight. He rounds a corner and taps a sensor on a wall. There’s a chime of acknowledgment. His patrol checkpoint. The guard walks away and disappears from view. He re-appears one level down. He finds another checkpoint which makes a different little sound. He reaches into his pocket then taps another sensor. The barred gate clicks, and then clangs as he opens it. It clangs again and he is gone.

I meditate for a while.

Outside the hotel next door, a man with a broom is fighting a losing battle with autumn. Two other employees have ducked behind a wall for a fag. They think no one can see them.

I sit and write until the lunch-knock interrupts me.

The crew arrange a chat. We sit on chairs just inside our doorways. This we’re allowed to do. It’s a relief to be able to talk for a while. We don’t do this for long. There isn’t much to say. Our predicament hasn’t changed and our news comes from the same TV channels. The morning’s WhatApp jokes get discussed. We speculate about the advance of the disease that’s caused us to be confined.

I’ve started exercising. It helps to clear the grey fug that stuffs my head. I do step-ups onto the chair. I do push-ups, sit-ups and some stretches. Afterwards I feel great.

I watch CNN. I check Twitter and Facebook. I read an article in The Atlantic about the therapeutic value of reading books. Tonight I’ll go back to the book I’m reading on my iPad. It’s the English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. His writing is beautiful and I wish I could write like him.

Back at the window the sun is out. I can see all the way to Constantia Neck again. Cars go by occasionally. I see a nurse with a backpack walking somewhere.

More Twitter.

I wait for the dinner knock. It will come in three hours.