When does simulation become the real thing?

“For the last three months he hasn’t been to the shops, to the pub, to a café or a restaurant, hasn’t been on a bus or a train, hasn’t hugged his children – hasn’t even been in the same room as them – has spent a lot of time online, has had little direct contact with his friends, has watched lots of television programmes in which death, disease and incompetence have featured heavily, has been observed walking round and round his garden (like a teddy bear, though not with one, not yet anyway), hasn’t been anywhere, hasn’t taken a holiday, hasn’t seen the sea, still has no plans for going on holiday, hasn’t even been into town, avoids people, hasn’t been to an art gallery or a museum, washes his hands excessively, has hardly spoken to anyone, has developed a strange ritual of parking newly arrived mail on a chair for three days, has put on weight, sleeps badly at night although often sleeps during the day, is very distrustful of officialdom, appears reluctant to leave the house … “

Is this a case report of clinical depression with  additional touches of phobia, paranoia and OCD? Could be. Actually, it’s a description of the last three months or so … for millions. Whatever it is, it can’t be healthy. 

The fear of the end of lockdown intensifies, along with the fear that the new-normal world will be exactly the same as the old-normal world, except worse, and that an unexpected golden opportunity to try and put the world to rights will be missed by craven wet-nellied politicians and oven-ready-grandma retailing cretins. At this precise moment a mental health diagnosis that differentiates between what has been enforced and what has become learned behaviour becomes ever harder and ever more meaningless.

OK, so that’s for the millions. So what have I been doing? Well, I’ve spent a lot of time looking out of the back window.

Because of the fence it’s always hard to see anything very much, but following the recent windy weather one of the panels has become slightly dislodged, and over the last few days I’ve been able to look through a small gap. Finally I know precisely what the family across the back are up to. I’ve had my suspicions for a long while.

This family are the Plonkers. He’s a builder. Plonker Senior, that is. A builder, right? Need I say more? We all know what builders get up to, don’t we. Yep, they build things. Know what I mean? You need to distinguish builders from building workers. Building workers are artistes who specialise in bravado scaffolding, virtuoso wolf-whistling, and vaunting their debatable crack-allure. Builders are more serious, for  they are visionaries. They are more political than architectural, more psychopathic than expert in materials science. Plonker is a builder, and we’ve been aware for some time of extensive activity in his back garden. Now I’ve seen with my own eyes.

Plonker has a vehicle that looks like an elongated metallic rhinoceros with hyperflexible joints. Ugly looking brute. He also has a van that says “A Plonker -  Builder” on it. Plus a phone number, but I’m not telling you what it is because I don’t want you ringing him up and offering him money. There’s also a Mrs. Plonker who doesn’t come out much, except to exercise.

They have two children, one male, one female, both of whom plonk extensively and yo-yo off a length of wire attached to a tree branch. They do a lot of bouncing. A suspicious amount. They bounce even more than they plonk. I suspect a trampoline. They are extremely healthy and well-exercised, and all their activities are minutely timetabled. It’s pretty obvious that they’re training for something really big. 12 minutes of plonking; 53 minutes of bouncing, 90 seconds of hair combing, another 7 minutes of high speed plonking. They have sharply combed blond hair and wear terrifyingly neat uniforms, which they claim are for school. Heard that one before, haven’t we. They also have suspicious pets including a dog which is growing at an alarming rate, and which also bounces a lot in a lollopy kind of way. The so-called rabbit, don’t make me laugh, the so-called pet rabbit in its so-called hutch, is also extraordinarily healthy and bounces to an extraordinary degree.

In an evening you can see into their dining room. There’s something pinned up on the wall. I think it’s a map of Europe, but I’m not absolutely sure. Either that or an Olde Mappe of Nuneaton with strange colour coding.

They’ve also been building.

I know you think I’m making all this up, and that it’s all in my head. Yeah? Go on, admit it. Well then, get this. This morning, I stuck my camera through the gap in the fence and snapped the evidence.  Go on, look. The camera doesn’t lie, does it. See? See?

Told you. I’m not making it up. What you’re looking at is situated between their kitchen window and the so-called rabbit hutch. In the distance is a lamp post on the main road. You can almost see one corner of their green wheelie bin; it’s just off the picture. It’s bin day tomorrow, which proves it. So this is what Plonker Senior, with his constructional skills, is building. “No job too big, no job too small”, as it says on the side of his van (the one that isn’t the  rhinomobile). Well, you can’t accuse him of dishonest sloganising.

As I’m sure you recognised, what they’ve constructed in their back garden is a lifesize rebuild of the Berlin 1936 Olympic Stadium. Looks to me like it’s very nearly finished.  It all fits, doesn’t it, the exercise, the training routines. Just to the left of the wheelie bin, the one that’s just off the picture, is where You Know Who would have stood, back in the day. I expect Plonker Senior will hog the same spot. Must say I’m impressed. A nice finish. Quality materials. 

But enough of my parochial little local outlook on the world. We need to consider a bigger picture than the one from my back window.

To summarise, we as a nation do need to examine the wider effects of the pandemic on mental health. It occurs to me, and it may have occurred to you, that if the lockdown were to continue much longer, people might start going a bit peculiar and doing strange things. Even imagining things that simply aren’t true. With any luck, life will soon be back to normal. Hope so. 

Now then, where are the binoculars?