There is a strange sense of uncertainty hanging in the air.

It’s the tenth hour before lockdown.

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“Madam, madam, do you want to buy some lockdown roses?” – a grinning man holding a large cardboard box of roses catches me outside the shop, shortly after having my hands sprayed.

“I can’t! I have spent all my money on locking down, and I am on a frantic search for tonic water for my 21 day stash of gin,” I reply.

“R30 for two bunches,” he says, temptingly.

I giggle. He has caught me off guard.

I’m still trying to come to grips that there is a solemn looking man wearing a mask sitting at the entrance to the shop armed with a spray bottle.

What has our world come to ?

I still think this a bad dream, and I’ll wake up shortly.

“This is chemical warfare,” I mutter under my breath, more and more convinced.

“I can’t touch anything.”

I’m admittedly also showing signs of paranoia and anxiety – insisting that the masked man at the door also sprays the box containing my takeaway.

I also now talk to myself.

So much has happened in two weeks.

Last Thursday we were having ribs at our special restaurant on the corner which now stands empty, its doors tightly shut.

New words like ‘self-isolation’, ‘social distancing’, ‘lockdown’, ‘personal protective equipment’ and ‘flatting the curve’ have now been added to my vocabulary.

I’ve had that darn song by R.E.M – ‘its the end of the world as we know it’ spinning in my head for days.

The vendor is right, I DO need pretty lock down roses right now!

I scratch around in my purse for the 30 bucks.

Because every girl needs roses, especially when the world as we know it  might be ending.

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