You're Strong Enough

You’re Strong Enough

Charlotte was given the calf, all wobbly. Her task was to get it to nurse from the mother as quickly as possible. Not easy but it was vital that the calf drink from the mother within the hour, its chances of survival  otherwise,  would be  poor.

Two weeks ago, Charlotte had been on the farm near Mossel Bay. It was calving season and she was part of the calving management team.

“Come quickly now!”

Campbell her father had called her at 4am on Thursday morning.  The cold air of the early morning bit her cheeks as she pulled on her hoodie. The sheds were bustling.

“Pull now Campbell, she is straining, pull now.”

There were heavy grunts and groans from the cow. Timing was everything.

“Rest a bit now, wait for the next one.”

And she, Charlotte,  was  part of it all.

“My girl,” Campbell  had said, “you do realize you’ll be on your own in Cape Town. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Dad, if doing a BSC at UCT gets me in at Onderstepoort   it’s worth it! I want to be a vet.”

They hadn’t realized then, the pandemic and the lockdown would come and sweep everything away, cutting Charlotte off, from friends and family.

Looking around, it wasn’t too bad.  Ten square metres and the ceiling was high. She wouldn’t feel too oppressed by it.  Lockdown  had started  yesterday, she would be here for the duration, without any social contact. The floor was a wooden floor, plain wood, easy to clean.  It was a good buy, a studio flat in the heart of Rondebosch. Her furniture would arrive any minute in the removal van, in fact here it was. Her bed came in first, a wooden bed, easy to sweep under, not like the base and mattress kind. The kitchen was small, a mere alcove opening out from the one room but there were plenty of cupboards and she had a kitchen island that would store vegetables and spices and provide a working top. Self sufficient,  that was something she had learned. Living on a farm, you had to be. There were no garbage collectors, no milk deliveries, no shopping malls, no postman. The thing she would miss most, was the family and the neighbours from the next farms, who were always popping in unannounced.

She dialled her sister’s number.

“Hello Amy, I am moving in. The furniture has come.”

“ Send  a photo when it’s in and keep in touch. Glad we are on ‘whatsapp’ and can use our phones.”

The first week was busy, she hardly noticed being alone. Then the boredom set in. Every morning was the same. Waking up, getting dressed, making  breakfast, eating breakfast, cleaning the room.   A special treat was, going to the shops to buy food for the next breakfast, the next  meal . You were allowed to shop for essentials, like food.  The clothing shops were closed. If food was not thought to be an essential, God knows what would become of the population.

She could try eating breakfast standing up or sitting down, for some  extra excitement. She could even try doing yoga exercises and eating breakfast standing on her head. No, she would be defeated by gravity.

She could try different ways of brushing her teeth,  to add more interest to the day. For instance, she could try brushing vigorously or with gentle languid strokes.

Charlotte, in her one room,  bowed her head. She could still imagine hearing the sounds of the animals and men, her father and his helpers sweating, swearing and slipping in the wet earth. She missed the smell of grass and the honeysuckle hedges.

Here she was, enclosed by four walls in the middle of the calving season. In her mind, she was on the farm but in fact she was writing everything  down for Reedsy. Thank God for Reedsy! She had registered with Reedsy,  before the pandemic hit the world.

The Reedsy weekly writing contests forced her to make up a schedule and stick to it. Reedsy  helped her have a goal. It kept her on track. It fed into her imagination with writing prompts. Without it, she would be seriously mentally impoverished. She would be suffering from anxiety and depression.

If it weren’t for Reedsy she would be insane by now.  The characters in her stories had involved her in bootlegging.  Well In fact, she had in truth, dabbled in this occupation briefly, during the country’s alcohol ban.

 The characters in the stories she had written for the Reedsy weekly contests, had transported her to mini goat farms, to construction sites, to Paris and to the South Pole.  The characters in her stories seemed to take on a life of their own, making strange twists and turns pushing her in different directions, dealing with outlandish challenges, such as bed bugs in a hotel room,  helping  to birth calves, turning into a witch. Writing was like weaving a magic web of colours, the colours of a rainbow , seen through a glass darkly.

The day stretched before her, bleak. Come on, get up.  Make  coffee, put some music on, use the JBL to magnify sound.  Write, write and write!

Now I will go to the shops.  Putting on a mask, Charlotte walked down the road and over the bridge to the supermarket. The centre had been renovated during lockdown and was now dimly dark. She walked past the food counter with juicy tempting pieces of belly pork. She was not that hungry, even though small windmills were rotating slowly to keep the flies away.

She would get some bread, milk and vegetables, maybe a portion of mince. Cooking for one!

After three months, Amy called to suggest coming home.

“We miss you Charlotte and Dad needs the help.”

“Charlotte can’t you sell the flat and come home?”

“No Amy I’m going to stick it out, I will do lectures on line and whenever we have the chance, I will go to campus for meetings and lectures.”

In spite of her outward show of courage, the solitude was getting to her.

She found herself staring at objects in the flat. She imagined the desk  lamp talking to her.

“ How you doing Charlotte? Need some light? Need some illumination on your blank page?  ‘O reason not the need.’”

“Do you need ‘five and twenty, ten or five, to follow..?’

“I need some people around me!”

“What, need one?”

She was going back to school days, learning words from her Shakespeare set books.

Days went into weeks, weeks, into  months.  Some days in the late afternoons, Charlotte felt the solitude, as if it was tangible, a solid presence to which she could not relate.

She craved for human society like a starving person craved for food. To feel  a human touch, a whisper of concern from someone,  for her well being. There was no way to meet other students   and  make friends. In the afternoons, it seemed, at the end of the day, there was nothing, only the emptiness of approaching night and a repetition tomorrow, of the day’s activities. This was the worst time of the day.

The remains of the day. That is the worst time because there are no remains.

This is day 280 . Charlotte thought that she was fortunate to be able to go out to the shops, she went out and saw shop assistants but the verbal interaction was always the same.

“Enjoy your day further,” the till person would say, as she bundled her groceries into a bag.

“Have a nice day,” another would say

“Do you need a bag?”

“Are you paying cash?”

It was never anything remarkable. It gave her no mental stimulation. It did nothing to affirm her existence.

It was all monotony.  Nothing  happening  day after day, after long day.

And yet she was not badly off, she had her computer and cell phone. She had seen on the news  stories  about old people. An interview with an elderly resident in a retirement village,  revealed  the extent of lockdown blues.

“I have not been out of my room for nine months.  I am too old to learn new tricks, such as working with a cell phone or a computer.  I watch  television  and do the crossword. Every day is the same. I feel hopeless and helpless. I see on TV that old people are kept safe in their homes. I would rather have some visitors than be safe.”

Charlotte felt the same. She had a computer yes, she could find information yes, she could attend virtual  lectures yes but the computer could not talk to her in a human voice, it could not smile or wink at her.

How could she ever meet a life partner in this world of isolation? How could people meet each  other?  fall in love? Get married?  Onderstepoort might never happen.

Day 365 coming up now.

The Hell with everything!  She wanted love. She wanted romance. She wanted someone, sometime, to say to her,  ‘Lady you were wonderful tonight.’

 She would give ‘dating online’ a try. Way to go!

Logging in, she gave her profile photo with some details,  the  next  day  she  saw  an answering  profile .

The young man looked kind. He was on Linkedin and FB, so it must a genuine photo. So far so good!

She left her page,

 She left the  plot,

 She didn’t really care a jot,

Her name? Indeed it was Charlotte.