Hurricane Stacey

So I nipped into Demeter's apartment to drop off her litre of milk, having forgotten that her cleaner would be there.  It's been a while since her last visit - Stacey was prone to not feeling well long before the pandemic reared its ugly head.  Still, she's capable of giving Demeter's place the kind of cleaning that would wipe my elderly mother out, and I prefer not to get in the path of the whirlwind.

Stacey, it seems, has been bored and she tells me that she's been educating herself about China.

"Yay," I say, in a bid to be supportive, although something deep down stirs uneasily.  Stacey is a bit out there -- even by British Columbia standards.

The conclusion Stacey has reached, based on her "research", is that Canada is heading the same way as China.  Communism, she clarifies.  She's searching out protest groups, to join in demonstrations against the measures the government has been implementing.

Demeter, whose hearing hasn't been the best for the past couple of decades, looks blankly at her.

"The Canadian government," Stacey emphasizes, for Demeter's benefit.

She tells us she phoned the Unitarians - our church, as it happens (not hers; she's Church of Truth) - in search of fellow protesters, and was displeased by their response.

"I thought the Unitarians were in favour of human rights," she tells us angrily.

Standing next to Demeter, I can't help myself.

"They are. In the human right to live."

She narrows her eyes.  "Oh. You're on that side."

She continues:  "That big flu epidemic a hundred years ago, we got through that without restrictions."

She's talking to the wrong person.  There certainly were restrictions, but I go for the jugular.

"Millions died, Stacey.  We had family die in the Spanish Flu Epidemic."

"I guess you won't be protesting."

Damn right.

I avoid her for a while, shaken.  I'm not a fan of confrontation.  The next time I see her, we discuss the weather.  We don't discuss hurricanes.

Vancouver - October 2020 - Darryl Dick photo