The forbidden has bowled me over

I was never a big fan of malls to start with. They are full of the worst kind of people. Greedy, covetous proles with ungraceful bodies and desolate faces. I have a pathologically low tolerance for standing in queues or being jostled. If it weren’t for a mortal fear of having my bottom interfered with in a maximum security shower block, there’d be a trail of corpses in my wake every time I went shopping.

It’s different now. Everything is. Now I look forward to trips to the mall. Not only because they provide a temporary respite from my grim suburban penitentiary, but also because I know there is a chance I could expire before my frozen prawns do. It’s as close to the thrill of gambling as I can afford to get. Russian roulette in the fresh produce section. Doesn’t get wilder than that.

On the weekend, while foraging for my pathetic assortment of essentials – spreading them around in the trolley so it didn’t look quite so obvious that nobody wants to live with me – I checked that I wasn’t being followed, then quickly headed for the forbidden place. Past the dismembered animals, past the dairy fridges and suddenly there I was, deep in Non-Essential territory.

Looking at them trapped behind bars, I had never wanted non-essentials more than I had right then. I felt like an animal rights activist sneaking into a facility that tests cosmetics on rabbits. I wanted to free them from their cruel incarceration. The non-essentials, not the rabbits. What the hell would I do with rabbits? I can barely look after myself.

A lot of it was cordoned off with what looked like crime scene tape. As if the shoes had committed a terrible atrocity against the stationery and forensics were on their way over. CSI: Checkers.

Shelf after shelf screamed silently, “Free us! We can be useful! Take us with you!” Tears welled up in my eyes. I desperately wanted to reassure all of them that, to many of us, they were just as good as the Essentials. That they were loved and wanted.

Bowls in a range of exciting colours and sizes caught my eye. Untouchables, every one of them. I could do with bowls. If there weren’t a pandemic sweeping the planet, four of them would have come home with me. Having until fairly recently owned a dishwasher and wife as back-up, I am unaccustomed to hunkering over a sink and the attrition rate is spectacular.

It’s not just bowls that suffer, but plates too. Dinner plates, side plates, it doesn’t matter. If it can be chipped or smashed, I’m your man. Bring me your crockery and I will make short shrift of it. Yes, I know real men shouldn’t need bowls. But we are coming into soup season and I can’t be drinking it straight from the tin. I might live alone but I’m not a complete animal, you know.

The government has left me with little alternative. I am going to have to craft a new set of bowls using raw materials and brute cunning. Tortoises and monkey skulls come to mind. I am leaning more towards tortoises since they are easier to apprehend and the shells would be a decent size for breakfast cereal as well as soup. Monkey skulls, on the other hand, are easier to stack and would do well as receptacles for soy sauce and other exotic condiments. They are, however, almost impossible to catch. Also, there are no monkeys where I live. I would have to drive to the Eastern Cape, risking arrest and possible death at the hands of the Pandemic Paramilitaries. Seems a bit risky just for bowls.

I also broke a window the other day and things with wings are getting in. I can’t be having that. Crawling beasts are fine. I can escort them out. But when they come at my face at high speeds with clear malicious intent, I want no part of it.

Pre-apocalypse, I could go to the hardware, pick up a pane of glass and superglue it into the frame. Glass is, however, considered a non-essential. It seems strange the government hasn’t noticed that it’s quite important to have. No matter. I shall make my own. If the Mesopotamians could do it five thousand years ago, there’s no reason I can’t. I’m already halfway there since I live on a sand dune. Glass is made from sand. It’s the only thing I remember from school. I recall that it needs to be subjected to high temperatures. I shall throw three cupfuls into a pot, put it on the stove tonight and by tomorrow I will have a new window.

Batteries are also considered non-essentials. Fair enough. Now that Eskom has miraculously solved the electricity shortage, nobody really needs batteries. Apart from women with vibrators, I suppose. They should find out what the Mesopotamians did.

Speaking of which, not all of us are fortunate enough to be living with someone who is not opposed to the occasional ravaging, which, as of Tuesday, was still allowed. My question to the government is this. What about those who have friends with benefits who live, say, four streets away and whose mating cries can be heard every evening around 8pm? Shouldn’t they be permitted to obey their natural instincts? Apparently not. There is no mention of Conjugal Visits in the State of Disaster Rules. Besides, the neighbours are primed to report any nocturnal peregrinations. By their priapisms shall ye know them (Cele 7:16).

What it means, then, is that the government does not consider sex essential. This doesn’t seem right. I suppose some of you are happily bumping uglies with your lockdown partner seventeen times a day. Just spare a thought for those of us who, once lockdown is lifted, will emerge blinking into the sunlight with right arms the size of a fiddler crab’s claw.

Since I am surviving relatively well on my own, it occurs to me that spouses and children aren’t all that essential either. Any day now, specialised squads will be parachuted into the suburbs to round up the non-essential people. One occupant per dwelling, they will bark, dragging your loved ones away to be distributed among the needy.

Children’s toys are also on the banned list. And rightly so. Now, more than ever, children need to punish their parents for bringing them into such a terrible world. Kids are by nature inventive and they don’t need my help on how best to accomplish this.

I was relieved to see that steel shutters remain down on libraries and bookshops around the country. Books are way more dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes and I’m surprised the government allows them at all. If people don’t have television sets or interesting drugs, it’s their own damn fault. They can spend their lockdown staring at the wall.

Meanwhile, the herd is getting restless and something’s got to give. The French aristocracy was toppled by the sans-cullotes. We have millions of people who are sans everything. It’s perhaps understandable why the government included hardware stores in the shutdown. They knew we’d all be making portable guillotines in our back yards by now.

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