SA Country Life

Into a Brave New world

There’s a great full moon dangling over our Covid-19 lockdown time here under the skies of our great Southern Land. The world’s pandemic ticking clock, enormous, like a monster, throws a slow-moving shadow over the Earth.

It’s around midnight on 8 April and beneath my feet is sandy soil at global co-ordinates of 33° 59’ 02.16’ ’south and 23° 32’ ’53.62’ ’east, about 21 metres above an Indian Ocean low tide. My sense of insignificance is infinite, as the clock slowly ticks the shadow onward.

To travel and wander the wonders has ceased, everything is on hold. Our roads, our arteries, are filled with the anguish of dread and sadness. I struggle not to feel a bad moon rising. The Coronavirus pandemic has caused most of mankind to ponder on what will become of us humans. The pessimist and the optimist and the realist are locked down in their proverbial tunnel. The one shuffles around in the shadows, the other tries to find the light at the end of it, and the other one, well, I guess he meticulously scans the tunnel for the emergency exit.

I feel the infinite insignificance of self. So all I do is stare at the light of the moon. It hasn’t been this big and close for 69 years. Back then I was a boy, lying on our farm lawn next to my parents, staring up at

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