Cloud Thought 21~ Imagine A World...Part 1

Imagine A World…Part 1

This is my diary. It is my record of what is happening. I can’t keep track of days, so the entries will simply be numbered Entry 1, Entry 2 etc.

Entry 1:

Imagine a world where almost everyone you know are no longer here. Imagine everything you know has been turned upside down, imagine how terrified you would feel!

If you can truly imagine all of that, you can probably understand how I am feeling right now because I don’t have to imagine all those things. They have become my reality.

They are happening to me right now.

My English teacher told me years ago that I was a good writer and she advised me to write down all my idea and thoughts in a diary.

I didn’t take any notice at the time, but I have decided to try it now.

I don’t know if anyone will ever read this but if I don’t get some of these thoughts out of my head and onto paper, I think I will go mad! This is my first entry.

Entry 2:

There is no easy way to tell you what has been happening, but to sum it all up in a few words: It has been hell.

I don’t even know how long this has been going on. I am starting to lose all track of time.

It was a good few weeks ago when people started to get ill.

Mum was the first person in my family to come down with the flu symptoms. She started off with a headache and within hours she was throwing up and then she got so weak.

Dad was worried about her and Dad really isn’t the worrying kind.

He tried phoning the doctor’s surgery to get her an appointment, but he couldn’t get through.

My sister Lynn was watching The News. It said that there was a Mega-Bug sweeping the country and that doctors were swamped with calls. That explained Dad’s difficulty getting through to the G.P.s.

Health officials were advising people to stay away from The Doctor’s as the virus was not responding to antibiotics.

I told Dad what Lynn had heard but he was worried about Mum, he took her to the hospital anyway.

Lynn and I stayed at home. We were both sat there, worried about Mum.

Dad ‘phoned us after a couple of hours. He told us that the local hospital was full of sick people with no more room, so he had decided to drive her to the next hospital.

Things got horrible after that.

Dad came back. He had Mum in the car. She was so tired, and she couldn’t stop shivering. Dad practically had to carry her to bed.

Lynn was glued to The News. It was reporting what we knew ourselves. The hospitals were filled with patients with this awful bug and that they were turning people away.

Health Officials were asking people to stay at home if they were ill to help reduce the risk of infecting other people.

Dad drove to the 24 Hour Supermarket and came back with bottles of Asprin, mineral water and fruit. He bought whatever he could find that might help Mum to feel better.

Dad looked grim when he got back. Even though it was 2am Lynn and I were still up. We couldn’t sleep. We were too concerned about Mum. We kept looking in on her to see if she was OK.

Dad phoned Uncle Mike. I could hear him telling Uncle Mike how worried he was about Mum. He told him about the overflowing hospitals and he let Mike know how terrified he was that something awful was going to happen to Mum. Dad also started sneezing. I didn’t take too much notice of that at the time but looking back, the sneezing was a clue to what was going to happen next.

Entry 3:

The next morning was one of the worst moments of my life. I woke up and discovered Mum had died in the night. Dad was in a real state. I had never heard him cry before.

I can’t bring myself to write down all the grizzly details. I am not quite ready for that yet. I will record the bare facts.

Mum died. Dad got ill. Lynn got ill and about 2 weeks later, both of them were dead.

At the same time The News was filled with horror stories of whole families being wiped out by the Killer-Virus. It felt like a nightmare, but this was real.

My neighbours moved out of the area. They drove off to the countryside in a bid to escape the bug. I don’t know what happened to them after that.

Many people became ill and many died.

Teams of people in white overalls came to collect the dead. They took Mum first. Dad dealt with them then. When Dad and Lynn died, it was left to me.

They broadcast emergency numbers on TV letting us know who to contact for help. The TV schedule changed. Apart from The News there were a long string of repeats. They showed comedies and nature programmes, mainly. I think people needed something to cheer them up.

Entry 4:

Schools closed. Lots of tills were closed at the Supermarket. They had to call in the army to help the police.

There was awful sickness. After Dad and Lynn died I was so upset and scared that I didn’t know what to do.

At the time, some of my friends communicated with me through Facebook. I tried phoning Uncle Mike for help when Dad died. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I got through to Mike but he was sneezing when he answered, and I could tell that things were bad for him too. He told me Aunty Chris died along with my cousin Sarah.

I realised that there was nothing Mike could do to help me. That was when I decided to phone the helpline. The helpline was created to let people know what to do. They were there to help and I realised I definitely needed help.

The woman I spoke to asked me how old I was. I told her that I am 17. She told me that I was better off staying at home if I didn’t have friends or family to stay with. She said that she could arrange for younger children to stay with foster parents, but they were struggling to find places.

Entry 5:

All together around 70% of the population of UK were wiped out by the virus. I felt alone but at least I was alive.

Reading this back makes it all seem to matter of fact. It sounds cold and as if I don’t care. This couldn’t be further from the truth but sometimes when terrible things happen it is almost too painful to think about never mind write about. I feel the need to record all this and so if my words seem clumsy or too abrupt, I apologise.

I spoke to some of my friends on Messenger. They reported equally awful experiences. Some of them stopped communicating with me. I can only assume that they died too.

My dog Sally kept me going. I needed to hold it together and find food for her and for me.

A truck drove past the house every few days and dropped off basic rations. I was so relived the first time that truck came past. I imagine the council must have arranged it, but I wasn’t sure.

I guess this was all part of an emerging plan. The TV adverts started to tell us to stay indoors as much as possible and to stay away from other people if they were ill.

In the end my friend Tina contacted me. She asked if she could come and stay with me as her parents had died too.

I was relieved to have another human to talk to and Sally was delighted to have extra company.

Entry 6:

Reading this all back now makes it look like I coped well with everything. That wasn’t true. I was a wobbly mess, but I was trying my best.

I was all over the place. I cried. I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do.

My survival instinct kicked in somehow though.

I kept the house as clean as I could. I took Sally out for walks.

When Tina moved in I spent hours talking things over with her.

It took ages for it all to sink in. The reality of what was happening was almost too much to cope with.

The News kept us updated with what was going on. The army called in reserves as a lot of soldiers had been wiped out by the virus too.

TV consisted of information in the form of short adverts, The News and repeats.

Entry 7:

We didn’t get to hear too many details about what was going on in government. We did get updates when MP’s became ill and died.  There were appeals put out to ask people to come in and help distribute food in the shops.

It was a scary time but after a while, the number of people dying from the virus started to fall.

It was hard to accept, most of the population or the world had been wiped out. We received updates about what was happening in other countries and it seemed that every country was affected by the virus in much the same way.

Everything had changed.

The people running the country stopped arguing. They had to. They started to work together to make important decisions to help our country to keep running. World leaders stopped arguing with one another. They met to see how they could help each other out.

Entry 8:

It is a pity it took a disaster like this to see everyone put their differences to one side and to start working side by side.

Once the police and the army were satisfied that the streets were safe, local leaders in the community started to work out ways we could get together and talk.

We survivors needed to work out what to do next. We needed to make sure there were enough doctors, nurses and vets to keep us safe and well.

There were announcements on TV and a Survival Facebook page was created. There was also a Survivors Twitter account, so we could all communicate.

I was so relieved that I had Sally and Tina. They were my family now.

I have always loved animals. Animals had become more important to us than ever. Luckily the virus didn’t seem to have affected non-humans.

We ran out of money ages ago. Weirdly before this virus money was one of the most important things. Now it means nothing. It was completely useless.

Now that it was safe to come out we were able to walk down to the local Supermarket to get supplies. They let us keep a shopping trolley. We walked down to the shop with it, filled up on supplies that they gave us then wheeled it back. No money changed hands because like I said, money was useless.

Ordinary people no longer used cars. We had to save fuel for emergency and government vehicles.

The supplies were pretty basic, but they always made sure we had enough tins of food for Sally. They needed to make sure that they shared things fairly.

Homeless people were invited in off the streets. We never heard about people fighting each other in gangs and as far as I know there were no terrorist attacks. Nobody spoke badly about minority groups or anyone that appeared different to them.

How did we manage to solve these problems? Put simply we had more serious stuff to worry about than pointing the finger at groups of people simply because they didn’t look, or act like us. We all had to pull together to survive and so we started to see what we had in common rather than how we differed.

Entry 9:

Once Tina and I realised that we were probably going to survive, that was when our sadness really kicked in. We missed our families so much.

Sally tried to cheer us up as we cried and cried. She licked our faces and kept wagging her tail.

We survived as best we could and started to look forward to attending a meeting that had been arranged in our area. Meetings had been arranged everywhere so that we could discuss what was happening and work together to find solutions.

We didn’t know what the first meeting was going to be like.

We were asked to go to the school down the road. It wasn’t a school any more but there was plenty of room and it had chairs and tables.

Apparently, each area had a different place to meet. They were usually church buildings, a community centre or a school.

The government worked out that if we got together in groups we could talk about the things we needed locally and pass on our wishes and needs to them so that they had an accurate picture of what was needed and could plan for our future.

Entry 10:

At that first meeting a government worker was there to welcome us all and he explained that we would be given the chance to ask questions.

At that first meeting we started to work out what jobs needed doing. Rubbish needed collecting. Some people needed more help getting their supplies. Someone suggested that it would be good for the young children to get together to play. They needed something to cheer them up after all that they had been though. It was felt that some kind of counselling should be made available for anyone who felt they needed it.

Someone suggested that we needed to try and re-open schools and the hospital needed volunteers to help keep it up and running.

Entry 11:

I found the meetings interesting. I am glad I had Tina to go with. Everyone was friendly at the meetings though. I think we were all relieved that we had other people to talk to who knew what it felt like to have lived through a disaster like this.

I didn’t know what to do about the way I felt though.

I knew that Tina and everyone else had been through a lot just like me. They seemed to be coping a lot better than me.

I kept waking up at night feeling this awful dread. I got this knot in my stomach. I started to feel sick and when I tried to stand up I started to feel giddy and weird. I had to hang onto something or I thought I would fall down.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I hoped I hadn’t caught a new strain of the bug. I didn’t know what to do.

Entry 12:

I felt worse. I was walking with Tina to the Supermarket to pick up our supplies.  I experienced this awful creeping sensation. My fingers felt numb and I found it hard to breathe. I had to hang onto a lamppost to steady myself. Tina talked to me. She asked me if I was OK. I told her that I was feeling a bit giddy. As I stood holding onto the lamppost I felt pins and needles around my face and in my fingers. I was so scared. I thought I might be having a heart attack. I didn’t know what to do.

Entry 13:

That horrible creeping sensation kept coming back. I felt bad while I was watching TV. I was short of breath and I could feel my heart racing. I tried not to think what might be wrong with me.

I knew that Tina and Sally were worried about me. Tina kept saying ‘Are you OK?’

Sally kept following me around and licking me. I knew Tina was finding things hard. I heard her crying during the night but during the day she seemed to be doing better than me. I felt ill. I was pretty sure I had the bug. That scared me silly. I didn’t want to die.

Entry 14:

We went to another meeting. I was sitting next to Tina, trying to listen to what was being discussed. I started gasping for breath. I tried to get up, but I felt giddy and I fell onto the floor.

A woman called Sue jumped up and came running over to me. It turned out that Sue is a nurse.

She took my pulse as I lay gasping on the floor. I could hear her talking calmly to me while keeping other people out of the way.

Once I felt a bit less giddy, I sat up. Sue kept talking to me. She told me that everything was going to be OK.

I started to cry at that. How could everything be OK If I had the awful bug?

I told Sue about my symptoms. Part of me was scared to do this as I didn’t know what people would do if they find out I have the bug as I was bound to be infectious.

I was sobbing and sobbing as I told Sue how I felt.

Sue helped me to get up from the floor. She told me that she was going to help me get home and that she was going to help me. Tina and Sue walked me home and I got into bed. I had Sally curled up on the bed beside me and I started to feel better.

Entry 15:

Sue came to visit me. It was early in the morning. She asked me lots of questions about my symptoms and then she told me not to worry. She said that I did need to see a doctor, but she was 99% sure that what I was suffering from was Panic Attacks.

Apparently, a lot of people had started having them following the awful experience of losing their loved ones.

Sue told me that Panic Attacks aren’t life-threatening, I was so relieved.  I have been through too much pain and sorrow to die now.

I agreed to see the doctor and Sue said that she would make me an appointment.

Entry 16:

The doctor was able to squeeze me in for an appointment. He looked tired, but he did his best. He listened carefully when I explained my symptoms. He listened to my heart and took my blood pressure.

He agreed with Sue. He said that he thought I was having Panic Attacks.

I asked him what I could do about them. He explained that so many people were suffering from them that he was arranging to train volunteers to run sessions to support people. He said that the basic training would be complete in a few days and then a volunteer would be in touch to start working with me.

In the meantime, he did offer some anxiety medication, but I said I would try to cope without it.

Entry 17:

Tina was so relieved to hear that I was OK. I could see it on her face.

Just talking to Sue had started to set my mind at ease and the visit to the doctor had eased my concerns even more. I looked forward to getting more help with my Panic Attacks.

Entry 18:

I had a volunteer come out and visit me. Her name was Molly. She explained to me what Panic Attacks are and why people have them.

She explained the symptoms and I told her which ones affected me. She taught me some techniques and she said that keeping a diary can help. I agreed with her. I am finding writing down my experiences in here is really helping to hold me together.

Entry 19:

Just knowing what is wrong with me is helping.  I have been reading about Panic Attacks and ways of coping with them. I discovered that I hyperventilate when I feel tense. That means that I over-breathe. I breathe in more than I breathe out.

I have been reading about the benefits of relaxation and have tried a few yoga stretches to help me relax. I hope it helps me.

Entry 20:

I think stretching does help me. I have also been reading about Mindfulness.

Being Mindful is when we allow ourselves to fully take in our surroundings and concentrate on what we are doing now instead of worrying about the future or feeling bad about the past. This idea really makes sense to me.

I have started to make time to just sit and take in my surroundings. When I do this, my thoughts seem to stop racing and I start to feel calmer.

Entry 21:

I am not going to lie and say that doing a bit of Mindfulness and a few yoga stretches have made my Panic Attacks completely vanish, but I am feeling a lot better.

Now, when I start to feel symptoms, I tell myself calmly, ’It’s OK, I’m just having a Panic Attack and it will soon pass.’

This really does seem to help.

Entry 22:

Molly called round and asked me how I am feeling. I told her that I am feeling quite a lot better. She invited me to a yoga class that is taking place at the community centre. I told her that I would love to come. We spoke about her role. She told me that she really enjoyed doing it. I told her that in a few weeks if I continue to feel better I would love to get involved with helping other people too.

Molly was pleased. She explained that helping others helped her feel better about her own problems and she believed that helping others would help me too.

Entry 23:

Tina has started volunteering at the community centre. She is helping to run a playgroup for the local children.

Things are slowly starting to change. Our community meetings highlight the needs of our community and as a team we work together to sort our problems out.

Entry 24:

The UK government has changed. The parties are working together for the common good, putting aside their differences. Local councils are working closely with the rest of us to ensure schools and hospitals are up and running as soon as possible.

The councils have started to listen to representatives from the local meetings and then they feed-back key themes to Central Government.

It was funny how things worked out. To start with when things were really bad, and everyone was in shock at all our losses we all pulled together. We started to listen to one another properly and people freely shared their talents and skills and they were appreciated for it.  We had a good few months of people sharing resources and working together.

We decided that we wanted to find a way to honour all our dead. We started creating community gardens. We worked together to plant fruit trees in parks as a way to remember the people we had lost. I met some good friends while creating the gardens. We were able to talk about the people who had passed away and explain how much we missed them. We thought they would be proud of the way we were coping if they could see us now.

Entry 25:

We continued with our meetings. As a result of some meetings it was decided to reintroduce money. People started going back to something that started to feel more like before.

The government started to go back to having separate parties and they started to argue in much the way they used to. This seemed like a step back for me as I thought our new system was really effective. Local people had their voices heard at a local level and their concerns were passed directly to councils who passed on the key concerns to central government. It didn’t stop there. The government communicated with other countries and we all shared resources and worked together.

Gradually this stopped happening. The News started to broadcast more negativity. Countries started arguing amongst themselves and the political parties in our country started squabbling as they did before.

It wasn’t long before some people started to take over meetings. They spoke boldly, and people listened to them. We didn’t notice at first, but these people were less good at listening. They started to divide and rule.

People started noticing difference again and we divided into ‘us and them.’

Entry 26:

I started to feel uneasy. We had been through so much. We had come so far. Despite the heartbreak of losing our loved ones, we had started to rebuild our society in a new and positive way. Now we were in danger of reverting to what we had before.

I didn’t want that to happen. I talked to Tina about the way I was feeling. She had noticed homeless people back on the street again. How did that happen? How had we managed to accommodate them one minute and leave them to fend for themselves the next?

I decided that this wasn’t good enough and when I saw a poster displayed in the community hall I realised that I wasn’t the only person who was unhappy with the way things were going.

The poster was advertising a meeting for people to attend who were worried about returning to the old ways. It asked, ‘Is money really needed? Do we have to have rich and poor? Is there a better way? It was taking place at a village hall a short distance away from where I lived.

These were the exact questions I was asking myself and so I decided to go along to the meeting. Tina was unable to attend as she was volunteering at our community centre that evening, but she asked me to tell her what she missed.

Entry 27:

That first meeting turned out to be a turning point for me. Twelve people attended the meeting in total. We had all decided to come because we had each been impressed by the way everyone had pulled together after that awful illness and I think we had all started to notice that some people were trying to return things to as close to the way they were before as possible. I guess the people that gained the most out of what had gone before have a vested interest in keeping things the way they were, but I have come to believe that it was possible for everyone to have what they need with no homelessness and no rich-poor divide.

From that first meeting I realised that I was not alone in this belief.

A man called Tim welcomed us to the meeting. He was friendly and patient. He showed himself to be a good listener and he was also a confident speaker.

Once we had all arrived and taken our seats he started the meeting by asking us all why we had come. That question started things off nicely. Many of us were nervous at first but Tim was encouraging and gave each of us the time we needed to build up our confidence and speak.

It was wonderful hearing each person saying that they felt like me. They felt worried that some people seemed in a hurry to put things back to how they had been and that this was undoing some of the positive steps we had made since the illness wiped so many of us out.

Tim listened carefully to each and every one of us and after we had all finished speaking he thanked us for coming to the meeting and asked us if we would like to join him in campaigning and working towards a more equal future for everyone.

By the end of the meeting I knew that I wanted to get involved and work towards building on the progress we had made.  Everyone who attended that first meeting came away feeling optimistic. A date was set for a further meeting and we were told we were welcome to bring our friends along to the next meeting if we thought that they would benefit from attending.

Entry 28

Tina did come along with me to the next meeting. She enjoyed it too. This time we started to work out what actions were going to take as part of our campaign for equality. 20 people were attending this meeting and around half were from my local area so attended the same community meetings as me. The rest were local to the village hall that the meeting was held in. It was decided that 10 of us would go along to my local community meeting and the rest would attend the other meeting. That way we could spread our message across a bigger area.

We decided to apply to the meetings for the chance to raise some questions. We wanted to ask if other people were concerned that some people were starting to put profit before people and to ask if money was really needed any more.

The meetings were taking place at the same time, so we couldn’t all attend both meetings.

It was agreed that Tim would lead the discussion at the village hall, but someone needed to volunteer to lead the discussion at the community centre.

I was surprised when the meeting agreed that I should do the talking. I was told that I spoke clearly and with conviction and that was what was needed.

I felt embarrassed but flattered that the group had so much faith in me.

Tina told me how proud she was of me when we walked back to the house following that meeting. She said that I had come such a long way over the last few weeks.

Entry 29

I felt nervous on the day of the meeting. Tina and I went along and listened carefully to the other items. When it was my turn to speak, my mouth went dry and my voice came out all croaky at first. Luckily, I summoned up my confidence and was able to get through my notes and let people know my concerns.

I was delighted when other people supported what I was saying. They agreed that we seemed to be rushing back to ‘the old ways’ without stopping to consider the long-term effects.

At the end of the meeting it was agreed that these concerns would be passed on to the council.

Entry 30

A couple of weeks later we heard that other meetings had raised the same concerns. The council agreed to pass on these concerns to Central Government and the matter was debated at that level.

Some of the debate was televised and I was pleased to see that a lot of politicians shared my concerns. I had been concerned that a few powerful and influential people with a vested interest in returning to how things were may have been able to get their own way but to my delight this did not happen.

The majority of people had realised that the old ways were not necessarily the best ways. They were open to considering new approaches and they were eager to have their voices heard.

Entry 31

I was very relieved that other people felt like me. We were determined to make sure the meetings continued, and our decisions were passed onto Government so that they were well informed and better able to truly represent our wishes.

Most of us did not believe that anyone should be homeless. We wanted to try and understand the needs and wishes of others.

If anything good came from the great losses we all suffered, it was the belief of many that we are all equal and we can work together to create a better world for us all.

I wish I could say that we all lived happily ever after but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

While a lot of us wanted things to become fairer, a powerful group seemed determined to put things back to the way they had been as soon as possible. They wanted to put profit before people. They weren’t about to give up without a struggle. There was an enormous and painful struggle but that as they say is another story…