Lockdown in Czechia - Day Fifteen - Monday March 30th 2020

Report by Trentin Quarantino

I wake up hoping that this lockdown shit will finally be over soon. I'm feeling lost and unsure of anything, and I know that it's a combination of the depression that's always lurking, waiting to pounce, at the best of times, and this fucking isolation from the rest of the world.

I cook some meatloaf and eggs for breakfast for Harley and I, then update the blog with yesterday's news, still suffering from a little afterglow from the duck, which is probably the only thing keeping me moving today. I'm in a funk and I have no idea how to get out of it.

So I go and unintentionally irritate the crap out of Harley by suggesting we spend the afternoon 'doing things' together, with no clue or idea of any 'things' we can actually do. I know it pisses her off  when I come to her like a stupid puppy wanting her to find ways to entertain me - it pisses me off too. But the truth is my brain is blank on this kind of thing.

For the first eight years of my life I had the great outdoors as a playground, then my family moved and I was the smallest kid in the area and got the shit kicked out of me any time any other kids spotted me outside. So I became a recluse and spent my formative years self-isolating with books in my bedroom.

And then I discovered alcohol, and discovered that the only time I ever had the confidence to talk to people was when I was drinking. So became a pretty spectacular drunk for a lot of years.

I'm over the 'being a drunk' part of my life, but that doesn't change the fact that I have no clue how to entertain myself when I'm with someone else - sitting and reading isn't really a group activity after all. So I want to do things with my partner, but have no clue what sort of things I want to do, which pisses her off, and this pisses me off because she very correctly points out that this makes me a fucking sad individual, and we have our second great row in three days.

Well, I suppose fighting could be classed as a group activity in some circles.

By the time we calm down and get over the bullshit it's almost time to head to work, so I quickly prepare some stuff to take with me and off I go. I head to a friend's place first to drop off the masks Harley made yesterday, then continue on to (not my) home office and set myself up for a night of work.

Harley and I have a little chat online and she talks about today being a shitty day, so I decide to re-write the song 'Perfect Day' with this new title in between calls at work.

It takes a while for Harley to respond once I send her the re-written version, but she seems to like it. She's worried that her medication is causing her to become this evil, angry, vicious person that she doesn't want to be, and while I see where she's coming from, nothing she said to me today or on Saturday when we had our other fight was out of order.

Sure, things could have been worded differently, and it hurts a little to have my innermost failings exposed too brutally, but the fact is that these are issues I do have, and I need to confront them and deal with them if we're going to be able to have a proper future. So while it hurts to hear some things, I'm happy she's able to say them to me, because I've had these issues my whole life and nobody else ever said anything about them, so they got buried and became bigger and bigger and bigger.

I need to learn to live as part of a couple, instead of just doing my own thing and not worrying about anyone or anything else all the time, which has been my default until I met Harley. And I need to learn to relax and find some 'couple' things we can do together that don't involve going outdoors, at least until we're able to properly go outdoors again anyway.

Other than that I have a boring night at work, just trying to fight the lethargy and depression I'm feeling, which isn't helped when I get an email forwarded to me to say the office is closed indefinitely, and the company will try to keep everyone working from home for as long as possible - considering I can walk to the office in 8 minutes and it takes 45 minutes each way to get to (not my) home office, I'm obviously not keen on this at all, so email my boss to ask him if there is any other potential solution.

I don't expect a response any time soon.

I finish work at 7.30am and pretty much sleepwalk home. Harley cooked some food after I left for work last night and I really want to try it, but by the time I get home I'm so exhausted I just head straight to bed.

Additional reporting by Harley Quarantinova

I woke up at 6.30am to find a message from my friend and decided to call her rather than try going back to my unsettling dreams (today I dreamt about being adopted by a cult - I instinctively felt those people were weird as they were calmly sitting and chatting in a numerous group, their faces uncovered and smiling). It gave me much needed distraction from my own life that I knew was going to include a very unusual medical check up. Only I didn't have any idea how unusual it was going to get.

Trentin accompanied me to the clinic door and went hunting for food. The secret procedure to get seen by the doctor involved calling the nurse to announce myself, which I was instructed to do on Friday when I called the clinic to ask about the most recent rules. And this is a shortened version of what followed:

Call 1 - Me: "Hello, I'm here in front of the door." Nurse: "I will let the doctor know and she'll call you back."

Call 2 - Doctor: "Why the hell did you leave the house?! You are not supposed to leave the house under any circumstances! You're in a vulnerable state and are endangering everybody around! You should stay home!" Me: "I called on Friday and was told to come and bring the note from the psychiatrist... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause trouble, I'm only doing what I was told to do!" Doctor: "Well, I am sorry but that wasn't supposed to happen! The nurse messed up! I will send somebody for the note, stay where you are!"

By that time I was shaking uncontrolably. I got yelled at by a hysterical doctor. I had no idea what to do and felt like a leper, irresponsibly spreading nasty slow death around... That feeling got even stronger 5 minutes later when the clinic door opened the width of the shouty doctor's hand that appeared in it, took the note and closed the door again. A few minutes later the door opened a bit again and the same hand gave me back the paper I brought, holding it in two fingers. Oh, they made a copy for themselves. They are scared to keep something as filthy as my documents... The door got shut and locked very fast. I was confused and anxious so I walked out of the building and tried to become as invisible as possible in the middle of the empty space between the surrounding buildings.

Call 3 - Doctor: "I read the note. Your sick leave is extended till the end of next month for now, check in with us then. But don't come here, understand?! Call us first! And don't leave the house! Covid doesn't care whether you're 5 or 20!"

I wasn't surprised she wanted me to stay at home another month. Her yelling, hysteria and what seemed to me as clear signs of psychosis instantly got me back to the point where I was at the beginning of my sick leave. 

I went into the shopping centre to buy cigarettes and meet with Trentin. The tobacconist salesperson also used two fingers to hand items to customers and got very upset with a man who wanted to pay with cash. I maintained the two-metre distancing rule and almost jumped out of my skin with terror when I got touched from behind. It was Trentin. I got what I wanted, paid with a card and did my best to collect my shopping without touching the counter, and a very similar scene happened in a pet store, with one difference. The animals there looked at me with a bit of curiosity and no fear at all. A little dog came and sniffed my trousers. I almost cried. Living beings outside my flat that are not terrified to see me!

Still shaking and swearing, trying to describe the surreal medical check I just had to Trentin, I headed to find a quiet abandoned place where I could smoke my cigarette and not get fined by police for taking my facemask off. It meant that our walk home just got twice as long as usual but I didn't care.

I spent the rest of the day on phone with my mom and friends, smoking, and once again shouting hurtful nonsense at my partner before he left for work. Too much shouting involved in this day for my liking...

The text I got from work after I announced my sick leave extension wasn't necessarily intimidating but I sensed displeasure from it. I got paranoid once again and spent two hours looking up the laws, rights and responsibilities that apply in my situation. I calmed down a bit. They cannot fire me when I'm on sick leave.

I cooked some food for Trentin to eat when he comes home in the morning. That made me feel a bit better about myself. We chatted online until I fell asleep to dream about sewing facemasks for hundreds of sick people...