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Tilly and the Virus

Dawn Brunelle

    Twinkling stars that dotted the inky sky and the almost full moon illuminated much more than Tilly O’Malley would have liked. What had to be done tonight would best be done under cover of complete darkness. Opportunity might not present itself again for......well, this might be the last knock on that door. These were crazy times.
    She closed the living room drapes and turned on a table lamp. She preferred its gentle glow to the starkness of the cold moon. The moon that threatened to expose her dark side. She still had an hour before it all came down. “All Came Down”. Never in a million years had she ever thought that she would be involved in something where that phrase would be used. But then, no one had seen this coming. Maybe Nostradamus, but no one that Tilly knew personally. Tilly was what is euphemistically called “a woman of a certain age.” How she loved that phrase! She sank into the soft cushions of the tan coloured, fabric sofa and stretched her long legs onto the pine coffee table. She pulled the dark hair that hung halfway down her back into an elastic, took a deep breath and soaked in the earth tones that surrounded her. This was her favourite room. The whole house was hers, but this space felt like her. A print of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” provided an explosion of colour amid the muted hues. The artist had painted the original while he was in an asylum. Tilly thought that perhaps he had known something the rest of the world didn’t. She leaned back and closed her eyes, thinking about how all this had started, wondering what she could have done differently.
    It had begun on the back pages of most newspapers, or at the bottom of the on-line World News, if you prefer scrolling to flipping. They were the reports that most people never get to. And even if they did, it was all happening on the other side of the world. We’re fond of saying that the world is now a global village, but we had no idea what that meant. Now we do. Someone coughed in China, and someone here grabbed a tissue. Then more of us coughed. First the very old and very young. Then all of us. The smell of fear lingered in her nostrils. Communal angst had become terror and then metamorphosed into panic. Thinking of it made Tilly shiver and she pulled her black cardigan closer around her. People had rioted in supermarkets, fighting over carrots and broccoli. Seniors had been trampled as they grasped desperately at Depends. Jars of baby food lay shattered in the aisles as three and four sets of hands grappled over strained peas. Tilly was afraid, but not of coughing. Still, she had held her head high and bought just what she needed. Maybe an extra couple of KDs, but nothing crazy.
    Time passed—not that much actually—and armed guards were stationed at all grocery and big box stores that carried absolutely anything that we might need in the Apocalypse. Batteries were rationed along with hamburger. It wasn’t our finest hour. Although, there were exceptions. Tilly herself had stopped and helped an elderly woman who had been knocked down while carrying a small bag of groceries back to her car. Tilly had also saved the groceries. There were stories that others were also doing good things and that these were being played forward. It gave Tilly hope and she carried on buying only what she needed. And maybe a couple of extra KDs.
    It had taken only a few weeks to get to where she was now. About to become a criminal, breaking curfew and dealing in the black market. She fleetingly wondered if the latter made her a profiteer. But she soon shook that feeling off; the world had evolved into a barter system. She wasn’t really making a profit. She was just getting what she needed.
    Tilly glanced at her watch. Ten o’clock. It was almost time. She turned off the lamp and peeked through the drapes. She didn’t want to be seen by her neighbours. And everyone spent so much time inside now that there was always someone at a window. Everyone had already seen everything there was to see inside. She pressed the illumination button on her watch and sighed. Time to go. Tilly was never going to get through this without a trip to the washroom, so she went and then washed her hands for the seventeenth time that day. She donned a black jacket over her sweater, piled her ponytail under a black toque, and pulled on black gloves. She took two reusable Dollarama bags and filled them from her kitchen. Then this woman “of a certain age” took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and went out the back door. She let her eyes adjust, checked the yard for prowlers and collaborators, then tiptoed to the gate. Tilly checked left and right for other scofflaws, and when she was as sure as she could be that she owned the street, she opened the gate and began her journey. Tilly hoped like hell that she wasn’t being set up. This contact was a friend of a friend of a friend. But who really knew who their friends were in times like this? She walked as softly as possible and kept checking behind her to make sure she was still alone. The park loomed in front of her. Not too surprising, as it was only two blocks from her house. With a last glance around, she stepped onto the grass and made her way to the merry-go-round. It was slow going as she didn’t dare use a flashlight. She breathed deeply to control her nerves, positive that she could be heard all the way home. Tree roots threatened to grab at her feet and send her flying. She found the circular ride when it hit her in the shins. A shadow stepped away from a giant maple. The dark form was also carrying two reusable bags. Like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Tilly and the shadow faced each other. Two sets of knees knocked, and two sets of teeth chattered. Tilly made the first move. She leaned forward and gently laid her bags in front of the shadow. This was the moment of truth. This unknown person could be a cop or a thief. She could be arrested, or left empty handed or even worse. But the shadow mirrored her actions, dropping his/her two bags in front of Tilly. The standoff ended when each one picked up their goods, backed away from each other and escaped the park.
    Tilly’s legs stretched out in what she hoped was a silent run. Her fingers fumbled at the gate and she was certain that she had awakened the whole neighbourhood. She finally mastered the bar lock, locked it again behind her and ran to the back door. She fought the same battle with this door, albeit with a key. Successful at last, shaking legs carried her into the kitchen and led her to a chair. Tilly leaned over and put her head between her knees, trembling and trying to remember how to breathe normally. She really wasn’t cut out for this. She turned on the stove light, put the water on to boil, then thought better of it. Tilly unplugged the kettle and pulled a bottle of wine out of the cupboard. After a tumbler of Chianti, her nerves were a little better. She poured another glass, and went into the living room, making sure the drapes were drawn tight. Then she dared turn on the lamp and check the goods in the bags. They had cost her quite a bit. A dozen boxes of KD. It had really cut into her supply, but one look told her it had all been worth it. Pristine, snow-white, virginal toilet paper. White Gold. She brushed her fingers across the delicate fabric, caressed the contours, rubbed it across her face. Squeezed it, commercials be damned. Tilly had heard that in Québec, you could get away with saying “Bonjour-Hi” if you had toilet paper for sale. In Alberta, people were siphoning gas from their SUVs and selling it for toilet paper. In Ontario, there was a new stock exchange The TTPE – Toronto Toilet Paper Exchange. It was a mad, mad, mad world.
    Tilly hid fifteen rolls in different places around her house and took one roll of the precious commodity into the bathroom. She sat down and counted out four sheets (from then on, she would use only three, but tonight was special). When she was finished, Tilly hid the remainder of the roll at the back of the storage cabinet under the sink, thinking that we definitely live in strange times.

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