Last One at the Party

by Bethany Clift

This was not the regulated response they had had to Covid-19, this was chaos and madness. By November 14th, America was a wasteland in the making. The few remaining international journalists reported horrific images of cities deserted, whole towns on fire, and mass graves with hundreds of bodies thrown in.

It didn’t just seem like half of London was out to get pissed, shagged, and fucked-up; half of London was out to get pissed, shagged, and fucked-up. There would be no coming out of lockdown this time.

And, in the end, I was with him for ever. It was just his for ever, not mine.

I wept for the internet and my last connection to my past. I wept for hot tea and hot showers and hot food and central heating and cold beer and TV and music and disco lights and hot tubs on the roof and all of the things that I could no longer have.

Once experienced, panic attacks and depression never truly leave you; even if they aren’t physically there, the memory is, like an imprint in concrete.

Maybe I should have said no, should have finally been honest with him and said, ‘I have no idea who I am or what I am doing any more.’ Maybe he would have said he didn’t either. Maybe things would have been different if I had been honest. Maybe not. Instead, I told him I loved him too.

There will be no end to the self-isolation I am in. There will be no vaccine developed. No lifting of quarantine laws, no celebrations at being able to see loved ones again, at being able to embrace freely once more. This will never end.

I said that I don’t have anyone who loves me and makes things better in this new world. But that is a lie. I do have someone. I have Lucky. I love Lucky. Lucky is the thing that has made me happiest and brought me the only real joy I have known in this empty world.

The physical act of swallowing something that will end your life is a tough thing to make yourself do.

If there is one message that I leave then it is this: I survived, but I never had a life. It is time.