a family dinner, it's a gorgeous english spring day, in a beautiful modern suburban home in some part of unfamiliar london. my cousin stephanie has impeccable tastes and her designers eye is impressive. 
it's great to see everyone, a warm friendly vibe over a lovely lunch, kids run around playing soccer aunts laughing, cousins swapping stories about our grandparents. my dad sits quietly in an armchair half present, half asleep, deaf to the world in his last bit of defiance, refusal to wear a hearing aid. (mind you if i was married to my mum i would)

it's sad that this is not my life, the english part i relinquished nearly 40 years ago. but then my son replaced me, and he is very much part of everyone's life here.

i drive them back and as soon as i walk into the apartment i feel sick.

so does my dad.

i sleep for four days and nights, waking for a couple of showers and change of sheets, i sweat heaps and i shiver a bit, but mostly i sleep. one day i spend coughing. on the fourth morning i join mum and dad for breakfast, i'm feeling better but not prefect. my dad on the other hand is having trouble, as months of laying down have atrophied his muscles thus the simplest movements around the apartment require assistance. eventually the inevitable happens and he falls. i have to pull him up onto his bed and assist him move his legs up as he has no strength to do this independently. 

the following morning i am awoken by my mother, she is alerting me the ambulance is on it's way. 

the medics take dad away. about an hour later i discover i have covid. i feel great now, but i got the double lines. so does my mum and in a few hours i hear my dad has it as well. later we discover dad has had it for 10 days.

anyways that's the way it is. my brother in his conditioned conformity and obedience tells me i should stay in my room for 5 days, as that's what he did. i tell him i just did and the rest of the people who live in the house are infected as well but i may as well be talking to a tomato.

the next few hours are tense, the usual shit dynamics, things in the house border on insanity and once again it's all about a total inability to communicate. that's where i come from and what i escaped. a family that cannot communicate. i wonder about it and suddenly feel the perspective i need. i wonder if my son after years of living here in this environment has also damaged his ability to communicate. maybe the whole solution to all global issues is communication. my mind expands outwards, the massive fractures in the world exist because of one side unwilling to communicate to the other. all sides want to do is talk. no one fucking listens.