“On Reality’s Adaptation of My Short Story”
Submitted by Harris Coverley
My short story “All but Toys” deals with a deadly pandemic. I wrote it sometime in July last year and have been unable to publish it—now it seems publishing it will be nigh on impossible. Within it, I got a number of things wrong: Britain goes into lockdown at a much slower pace than in reality; people are still allowed to go to work, even if they have symptoms of the disease; and people don’t seem to be panicking enough, even though it’s assumed that roughly 1/6th of the human race are likely to die from it. Worst of all, the body collectors don’t even bother to wear their masks!
The disease itself is also very different: rather than a respiratory virus, “the Nap” as it is known is a pathogen which effects neurological activity and subsequently destroys the capability of a human being for sleep. I was inspired by something a neuroscientist once said, which was roughly: we don’t know why humans need to sleep, other than if they don’t, they die.
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Being in an unusual position as someone who has no immediate need for a day job (I’m not rich by any means, but I get by), I have been free to write for a good while now. Lockdown has not so much increased as emphasised this freedom. However, the novel has not yet been started, and I haven’t finished a new short story off for over a week now.
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Living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome doesn’t make things much easier: am I at higher risk or not? I’m not on the UK government’s list of vulnerables, but many have been left off. I also have a history of respiratory problems— two years ago, my right lung collapsed three times, and only a partial pleurectomy (removal of the pleura, the sac of the lung) could stop it deflating a fourth time.
EDS already makes me live on a knife-edge with everything I do—COVID-19 doesn’t make things any easier.
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Technology can only do so much—sure, as I writer I can look things up in order to attain a greater level of accuracy in a piece of fiction, but I can’t go to the library to check out things I need, and I can’t keep ordering things online as it wastes money and takes too long. This goes too for daily-use items like the batteries for my thermometer—I’ve been waiting a week now for them to arrive, and I haven’t taken my temperature in way longer. In addition to that, my smartphone is on its arse and I don’t know how much life it has left in it.
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The government’s currently saying that the primary schools may re-open on 1st June. If they do, the slow wade into a post-lockdown Britain would’ve have finally begun. For now, I’m not so much afraid as frustrated. But one has to tell themselves: we’re talking about survival here. And at least in my own home I have writing and music…for now…
Harris Coverley lives in Manchester, England, where he awaits transcendence (or at least a new job opportunity). He is a short fictionist, former columnist, and Rhysling-nominated poet.