Swimming in Dystopia Pt.4
December 1st, 2021
My wife throws her phone in my lap as she turns the corner onto the main road. She doesn’t let me drive in the mornings. She says my driving gives her anxiety. However, the speed at which she turns corners could startle a fighter pilot. We’re late, as usual. Every morning is relaxed and routine until the final ten minutes before she has to leave for work. Then we’re whipped into a panic when she realizes she’s out of time and is still in a towel searching for a suitable outfit to wear.
“Just read it to me” she demands while racing through traffic.
I look down at the screen and begin reading aloud the email that was sent to all employees of the preschool where she educates the next generation of great minds. As of this morning all faculty members must disclose their Covid vaccination status. The thin, bony fingers of human resources are once again reaching across the boundaries of acceptable behavior and encroaching on the private lives of their teachers. A form of unwanted molestation we’ve been conditioned to tolerate in recent months.
“Can they even do that?” she asks with a hint of angst in her voice.
“They can’t, but they are” I answer.
I don’t know what else to say. So many ethical codes have been broken by both business and government since this all began we’d have to go back well over a year to begin undoing it all. We’re too far down this foxhole to start questioning legalities now. We’re at least ten degrees south of what would have been considered the moral threshold prior to the pandemic.
The car comes to a stop in the parking lot and my wife leaps out of the driver’s seat. I step out and round the car to take the wheel. We meet at the rear passenger door where my daughter watches us through the window. My wife has sixty seconds to spare before she’s officially on the clock.
“Just tell them the truth” I advise her confidently.
We exchange a quick kiss. She looks back at me with concern in her eyes.
“Yeah. Ok.”
She opens the door and kisses my daughter before jogging toward the brick building. The reality is there’s a province-wide shortage of preschool teachers and she has them by the balls. Even though she’s unvaccinated they’d be far worse off without her than by letting her continue on in her role- despite being a wretched white supremacist misogynist as described by our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.
She also happens to be a proud Filipina woman. But the rules of white supremacy and misogyny have changed apparently.
An hour later I’m walking along the local dike with my four year old daughter. To our right a vast stretch of tall grass that rolls on for roughly half a mile before reaching the ocean shore. A low fog hangs over us. This dike surrounds the entire island community we live within at the southernmost tip of Vancouver, BC. Without it this place would be buried under thousands of gallons of saltwater.
The precursor to a less than impressive 21st century Atlantis.
Usually my daughter would be at the same preschool where my wife teaches, but a child recently tested positive for Covid-19 and the faculty have been called in to assist with janitorial duties. Everything must be clean. Everything must be sterilized and virus-proofed.
Even the teachers- whether they like it or not.
So here we are. Me and my baby girl, walking along a muddy trail on what she refers to as a “bear hunt.” She leads the charge with a thin branch that has fallen from a withering tree. I’ve been tasked with keeping an eye out for bears and diligent note taking- as per her request.
“We saw our reflection in a puddle.”
“We looked at the ocean.”
That’s the extent of the notes so far. Her attention has shifted from documenting our experience to once again living in the moment. She calls back to me and asks if I’ve seen any bears. Nothing yet. I’ve spotted some ducks and some old tires, but all the bears seem to have abandoned this barren wasteland.
My size ten boots step into her miniature footprints, erasing them from existence as we walk. It occurs to me that this is the reverse of the natural order; her footprints will eventually replace mine, and she will continue on as I fade into distant memory.
I let go of that thought as soon as it materializes. I don’t like it. Although I know someday she’ll have to go on living without me, the possibility of not being present for even a second of her life is unbearable. She often tells me she wants to go to the moon. I always reply by telling her she better have a seat for me on that rocket ship.
We stop short of the two kilometer mark and she turns to me.
“I’m hungry, daddy” she says in her softest most angelic tone. She knows exactly how to speak to me when she wants something, and as predicted, I always acquiesce.
We hop up a short hill to the gravel path above. Time to head home and make some lunch. I’d love to take her on a daddy/daughter date at a restaurant, but due to the vaccine passports and our status as unvaccinated second class citizens we’ve been relegated to eating takeout or fast food only.
“Let them eat cake” declared the provincial health authority.
A woman walking a golden retriever passes us as we make our way back. A blue surgical mask covers half her face and her eyes move to the tiny leader of this failed bear hunt. She greets my daughter with the usual adoration most people express when they encounter a cute little girl. My daughter looks up at her apprehensively. It occurs to me that these will be her earliest memories; blank faces and ghostly eyes staring down at her constantly. The world must seem like such a strange and frightening place.
She speeds up and walks ahead of me. Then she stops and turns her gaze to a ditch on the other side of us; a wide body of dirty water where I told her alligators live. She knows it’s a tall tale, but it’s fun to pretend. A few ducks float by while she peers into the water- as if she might just find an alligator if she looks hard enough.
I stop and observe her. For months it’s felt as if we’ve been left behind by a captive society, desperate to comply with their tormentors in order to maintain whatever semblance of normalcy they could hold on to. We found ourselves on the side of the rebels; the Indians on the outskirts of a rapidly expanding colonial settlement, pushed further into obscurity as the years pass, clinging to a traditional way of life that has become outdated by modern standards. We stand on guard, waiting for that settlement to overlap with our territory, then when forced to the outermost limits we will collide with our foreign invaders.
We want peace, but it seems war is inevitable.
I watch my daughter stare into the water, waiting to catch a glimpse of an ancient reptile that isn’t there. Then it strikes me- she hasn’t been left behind at all. In fact, it’s her who is leaving all of us behind with our politics and fear and public health measures so absurd they’d be hilarious if written into the pages of a dark comedy. She will come of age and remember this time. She and others like her will fix it. They’ll ensure nothing like this ever happens again. They’ll right our wrongs and build a world more fair and just than any of us could have ever imagined. They will fill this empty void we’ve created with hope and love and happiness, and the recollection of our lost generation will evaporate along with this dystopian society we so selfishly and so despairingly constructed.
But then again, I wonder if our parents thought the same about us.