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Forget Me Not Kevin and Steve tumbled into bed after a heavy night drinking. They made a clumsy attempt at sex, but when that failed they rolled together and slept soundly until just after sunrise. Kevin started tossing and turning so much it awoke Steve who looked towards Kevin, listened to his unintelligible mutterings and became concerned by his increasingly frantic movements. “Hey buddy, what’s happening?” Steve asked as he shook Kevin awake. “Mmm...what...oh this is terrible.” “What is?” “This disease that’s spreading around the world, killing millions of people, including my Gran. I miss her so much.” “Sorry about your Gran, but I think you’re just dreaming.” “Dreaming? No, we all have to be careful not to get infected.” “Your dream must have been a rough one with all that thrashing around.” Kevin looked at Steve and asked “Hey, who are you?” “I told you my name last night, I’m Steve.” “Steve...wait...I don’t think you are; at least you’re not my Steve.” “That’s true. I don’t think a one night stand makes me yours, but my Mum calls me Steve, so must be.” “Where am I, whose bed is this?” “My flat and my bed. Don’t you remember last night?” “Last night, what about last night? Hey where’s my phone?” “Probably on the floor somewhere, you were so keen last night you peeled off your clothes as soon as we were through the door.” Kevin crawled around amongst a jumble of discarded jeans, jocks and shirts till he found his phone. With trembling hands he just managed to select phone book then swiped down to G, selected the number and pressed call. “Hello, can I help you?” “Who’s this” he demanded “I want to speak to my Gran.” “Well what a rude young man you seem to be. As you made the call I think it is incumbent upon you to identify yourself first.” “I’m Kevin and I want to speak to Gran.” “You’re Kevin, Daniel’s boy?” “Daniel...oh yes, now why are you answering Gran’s phone what’s happened to her?” “Nothing Kevin, she’s in the bathroom, she shouldn’t be long. In the meantime I think it’s appropriate for me to introduce myself. I’m Candida, your aunt, well a cousin actually.” “Do I know you?” “I’m your grandmother’s niece, cousin of your father so that makes us second cousins.” “I don’t care who you are I just want to talk to Gran.” “Won’t be long, I can hear the bowl flushing now. Wait up sweetie.” After a short delay he heard “It’s for you Beryl, Kevin your grandson, is he always so rude and wound up.” “That’s not like Kevin.” Beryl took the phone and said “Hello Kevin, Gran here, what’s wrong?” “Oh Gran you are alive.” “Yes Kevin, I’m alive, what did you expect? Sorry there won’t be any will reading today.” “What... oh no I didn’t mean that, it’s just that I thought you died from this deadly virus spreading around the world.” “No I didn’t die, I’m safe and sound here and Candida is staying with me for a while. She’s just come back to Australia after twenty years away, I barely recognised.” A confused Kevin said “That’s nice Gran... I’ll go now that I’m assured you’re well. We’ll talk later. Bye Gran.” As he hung up he looked at the stranger he slept with, who said “I couldn’t help overhearing, but that was a strange conversation, from this side anyway.” “Yeah, I don’t know what’s happening. I feel like I’m in the middle of a pandemic thing and I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.” “I did warn you against taking those pills last night. You don’t know what they were.” “I don’t take pills.” “You did last night, just about everyone in your party did. Damn fools playing Russian roulette with unknown substances. You’re all mad. Now while you get your gear on, I’ll make some coffee, unless ya wanna pick up where we left off last night. I don’t think we got very far, you just went all limp, not just your dick.” “Yeah whatever, I think I’ll take the coffee option, thanks all the same.” Kevin dressed, followed the smell of the coffee to the small kitchen and perched on a bar stool. “There you go, get that inta ya, will make you feel more human.” “Thanks, now tell me how did we meet?” “You really did get wiped out, didn’t ya? I was the stripper for your party at the Bottoms Up Bar.” “What party?” “It was a graduation party for your arty farty friends.” “I’ve graduated, I suppose that’s good, but can’t remember it...Stripper?... My brother is supposed to the stripper at that bar.” “Who’s your brother?” “Ah...Jason.” “He’s not a stripper, he’s the bar manager. In fact he owns the bar. Although, now that you mention it, I think he told me he used to strip before he bought the bar.” “He owns the bar?” “I thought you said he was your brother.” “He is, but I don’t remember him buying the bar.” “So tell me more about this dream of yours, sounds scary.” “But it doesn’t seem like a dream to me, it still feels real. There is this virus, came from China and spread around the world to every country. Millions infected and so many people died. They just can’t stop it spreading.” “Sounds like a sci-fi movie plot. So how does it end?” “I don’t know, it’s still going on as far as I know.” “No...you’re awake now, so it’s ended.” “Hey there was one funny thing happened. Donald Trump was the president of the US.” “That rich guy from the apprentice show? What a hoot.” “Yeah so I suppose it must have been a dream.” “That must have been some seriously hallucinatory shit you swallowed last night.” But Kevin wasn’t listening, he was deep in thought. “Wait...did you say what a hoot?” “Yeah, means fun, lots of laughs and such.” “I know what it means. Steve says that.” “Yeah, I’m Steve and I just said it.” “No, the other Steve, I think he’s my boyfriend.” Kevin watched the images in his head for a few moments then picked up his phone, went to S in his phone book, swiped down a bit then asked. “Did you give me your number last night?” “I don’t think so, why, do you want it now.” “No, I’ve already got it, unless....” “Unless what?” “Where’s your phone.” “Here in my pocket.” “Just wait while I call this number...The number’s ringing but your phone’s not ringing.” “Hello my man. I was about to call you again, been leaving messages all day.” “Is this Steve?” “Of course, my voice probably sounds a bit different over the satellite connection.” “Where are you Steve?” “London, I’m on a three day layover, but I told you that.” “Oh...yes...I must have forgotten.” he lied. “Anyway, how are the preparations going?” “Preparations?” “For our big day. Sorry to leave you with all this. I told them I didn’t want any long haul this month, but when Jeremy’s wife went into premature labour he stood down and I was on standby.” “Yes, of course.” he answered, but the image of Steve’s explanation was still not focussed in Kevin’s mind. “London’s just so beautiful this time of year. Wish you were here to see it. The roses are in bloom everywhere, the old buildings are a honey colour in the spring sunshine and even the Thames glistens in the midday sun. I can see the eye from my hotel room; I know you’d just love it. Hey, I know, we’ll come here for our honeymoon. It might be a delayed honeymoon by the time we make arrangements, but we’ll do it, hey!” “Honeymoon?...yes of course.” “Kevin, you sound a bit vague, are to all right?” “Just tired and a bit hung over. Apparently I had a big night last night at our graduation party.” “Apparently?” “I don’t remember much of it.” “Why don’t you take some Panadols and sleep it off.” “Yeah, might do that.” “I have to go now, the shuttle will be here soon and I haven’t even packed. I’ll be home Tuesday morning, Sydney time. Can’t wait to give you a big hug. Love you.” “Yes... love you too... bye.” “So?” asked Steve. “Yes, that was my boyfriend Steve... he’s in London...I think he’s a flight steward...he’ll be home soon...we have a big day coming up... I think I’m getting married.” “You think you’re getting married?” “I’m not sure of anything at present. Just can’t get my head around who I am, where I am. One minute I’m in school, the next I’ve graduated from college. My Gran’s dead and then she’s not. My boyfriend is just doing his HSC and then he’s in London. What’s happening to me?” “I think the first thing you need is to get some food and water into your system and try to neutralise whatever that shit was you took last night. Why don’t you make some eggs and toast for us. Everything you need is in the fridge. While you do that, I’ll call a friend of mine. He’s a nurse at a drug rehab centre and usually knows what’s going around town.” “You think it’s the drugs?” “Unless you have some other condition you’re not telling me about, then that’s my best guess.” Kevin busied himself with preparing the breakfast and had it ready just as Steve returned to the kitchen. “Well, I think we may have the answer to your problem. I just spoke with Will from Odyssey House. He always has his ear to the ground getting all the latest info on the drug scene. It seems there’s a new one circulating in Sydney. It’s a synthetic drug they call, forget me not, on the streets. They don’t know too much about it, but from reports they have it gives you an extreme high and a sense of euphoria while awake. Then when sleeping you have extremely vivid and convincing dreams. When users wake up they are usually convinced that their dream is reality, as you seem to be experiencing. They also suffer from memory loss of recent events, like a temporary amnesia.” “How long does this amnesia last?” “About three days before the memory returns to normal, but comes back in flashes when something familiar triggers a memory.” “Like when you said ‘what a hoot’ it reminded me of my boyfriend.” “Yes, and when I said I was a stripper, it reminded you of your brother. By the way, he’s a great guy. He runs the bar really well, takes no nonsense from drunks or bullies, but if you do your job he’s a top boss.” “Thanks, I’ll tell him that.” “Now the other problem with this substance is they don’t know if there will be any long term effects. Because this drug is so new they haven’t been able to do much research on it. But if what you took is the drug Will is talking about then you should be clear in a few days.” “Thanks for doing that Steve. I would have been more of a mess without your help.” “I’m glad you were here for me to help and to get Will’s expert advice. Speaking of which, do you want me to arrange an appointment for you to speak to a users’ support counsellor?” “Thanks anyway, but I’m not a user and I don’t want this on record... Now that you mentioned counsellor... I’m getting a memory that my father is a counsellor of some sort.” “Well that’s good, will you talk to your father about it?” “Probably not, if I were to seek help it should be from a stranger, but it sounds like I’ll be ok.” “By the way, great scrambled eggs, what’s your secret, they taste much better than mine.” “I don’t know if it’s a secret recipe or wether I just made it up from what was available. For what it’s worth as a recipe, I put in cheese and a little of that prepared mild mustard.” “Ah that’s the taste I couldn’t identify. I’ll remember that tip, cheese and mustard. Now tell me more about your dream.”

Okay, so approximately two and half months ago my part of the world shut down. Public transport became empty, restaurants shut down, doctor offices closed, and life as we knew it came to a standstill. My job also closed but I was lucky, the pay kept rolling in. Then a month and a half in the company furloughed all part-timers and 20% of the full timers. However, once again I was lucky and the pay keeps coming in. They decided last week to reopen. We are paid for 36 hours and any hours we actually work we get an addition $2 an hour for. I am not complaining. After three years of health issues, I have been blessed not to catch this. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean everything has been great. Back in November my dad began to complain about his sense of smell. He was going to see his doctor and a lung specialist. He had been put on a nebulizer and figure that might be the issue. February rolls around and he heads to see the vein doctor and again is having issues and mentions it. The vein doctor suggests dad go see a nose, throat, and ear specialist. Enter Covid 19 and the close down. The second to last week of May, dad wakes me at one am. He is in deep pain, in his eyes. I call his eye doctor, who calls back before two am and has us meet her at her office. She states dad has an infection in his eyes, prescribes meds, is grateful that we listened and didn't take a chance to expose dad to covid by going to the hospital. Woman is a saint of a doctor. We feel things are looking up. The last week of May he finally gets to see the doctor for the nose. He finds my dad's nose has a lot of growths and has basically sealed the left nostril and part of the right. He doesn't do that surgery any more. He sends Dad for tests and an associate who works 30 minutes away, towards the city. The second Doctor sees the growths but also believes he spots a tumor and wants us to see a brain surgeon and go for better testing. The test was last Wednesday. There is a tumor growing behind the nasal passage, warping the bone between the nasal passage and the eye socket. However the brain surgeon is in Great Neck, minutes from NYC and has my dad panicked. He wrote the first doctor back begging him to do the surgery. He stated he doesn't handle that. He agreed to find him another doctor to handle the growths, not the tumor, and he is going to have them removed this Thursday. He wants to cancel the consultation with the brain surgeon on Friday. Meanwhile I am now stressed out, eating things I should not, and trying hard to just keep myself going. I was lucky to have two beautiful people help with a story I'd written for the Anthology but never managed to get fixed in time. I'll get it up when I can. Just didn't want things to crash and burn but they did. Wish me luck. At 81 my Dad is stubborn and a trip into NYC probably isn't going to happen.

Many of us observe the world through a window Nature entertains us with wind, rain and snow Crows dive and swoop over tree tops While squirrels run and gambol with no fear, — wondering where the nuts are. My poetry has been limited lately .. but i haven't lost my sense of humour completely yet. Prose too, is suffering, though in the last few days I've been able to write a bit more on the new story @Wayne Gray and i are writing. Not a lot though, maybe 1,600 words over the past three days. It is hard to concentrate for long periods, at least for me. I read an article by Erica Wensley a writer for the Chronicle Herald. She lives in Halifax and like residents there is coping with COVID-19 and the worst mass shooting in Canadian history. There is a link to the article here. As she says, this is not the time to push ourselves. This is not the time to force creativity or productivity. Do not feel guilty if you order in tonight, or if you just want to watch silly sitcoms or netflix or whatever it is you like to watch. This was an ahha moment for me when i read this: Those who still have jobs are not simply working from home, but, as a viral tweet aptly states, “are at your home during a crisis, trying to work.” This hit me hard ... the truth of it. I don't know how long I'll be home doing my job. Some days it isn't easy at all. Some days it's just fine. There is too much unknown for me and i feel like i'm slowly cracking around the edges. Some days i can cope, others less so. I am overly emotional, often sad, without an obvious reason. Watching six cellists from the TSO (Toronto Symphony Orchestra) play Over the Rainbow together, remotely just made me cry this morning. Watching After Life on Netflix makes me cry but there's reasons for that. I think i need some comedy. If you can write or draw or read ... do it. If you do needlework or other crafts and feel like it ... do it. But do not feel bad on the days you can't or just don't want to. Doing some breathing exercises, like they teach in yoga can help, so can walking and other exercise. Something i've done in the past, with audio aids - hypnosis - can also reduce anxiety. It's a really cool thing actually. We need to practice self-compassion now. I know because i am very hard on myself usually. We need to say to ourselves, it's okay, you're not lazy, you're not pretending. We need to be as kind to ourselves as we are to our friends and loved ones who turn to us for support. You can read more about self-compassion here. When i started to read this ... i wanted to push it away, but allow yourself to read with an open mind. Hopefully, you'll find one or two things which may help during these trying times. Hang in there and be kind to yourself.

Remember when we used to joke about the Corona virus? It's not like we haven't seen new viruses get hyped like SARS and MERS. Someone would leap on a podium, bang a shoe and claim it is the end of the world and, it would fade away. Remember how the politicians didn't even take a break from their regularly scheduled circle jerks? Yeah. That was really stupid. Remember how we made fun of the conspiracy theorists on the internet that said Wuhan was the home of the Peoples Republic Biowarefare Research Establishment. If you looked it up, holy shit, they were right. Remember how some usually stolid and unimpressed epidemiologists practically crapped their pants and had security remove journalists who attempted interviews outside officially sanctioned channels? Yeah, that was a little creepy. Remember how they kept revising the NCov19 R0 (R-nought) number upward? That's kind of important as that's an indicator of how easily this bug gets around. Remember when a paper was published that claimed unnatural patented gene sequences appeared in the RNA of the virus. Then the paper disappeared from the internet and even archive sites? Remember when some scientists were talking about it causing a cytokine storm in some patients- just like the Spanish Influenza of 1919? Coronavirus Cytokine Storm Remember when we found out people who had NCov19 could be infectious and asymptomatic for up to twenty-four days? Yeah, that's when another holy shit went out because anything epidemiologists might do in the way of contact tracing is almost a month behind. Remember when the scientist who discovered the virus died of the virus? The scientist who discovered SARS said: The US military is prepping for the pandemic. US Military Prepping for Coronavirus Pandemic Some sources say FEMA has proposed martial law. Strap it on tight boys and girls. This might turn very, very ugly. Nobody at all should be laughing anymore.