Reasons to What Happened

THE Pandemic

March 2020

Freddie was standing silently at a grocery store in London. He was standing there looking at the woman he seemed to recognized. He was thinking too. He moved his mask. There was a virus hit almost half of the countries in the world that was why he wore it. He also fixed his eyeglasses. He started wearing it a month ago.

He walked closer to make sure on who he was staring at. It was right. She was the woman he met at the rooftop at one of his friends' house, George.

"Lily?" He called. He was still standing there. He could see that the woman turn around and looked at him closely. She narrowed her eyes and tried to make sure who called her name.

"Lily, right? It is me, Freddie. You remember? George house, rooftop?"

Lily still narrowed her eyes. Eyes widened and surprised came on to Lily's face and it made Freddie calmed himself down. He knew Lily started to remember.

"Yes, Freddie. Wow. I never thought I could meet you here."

"Me, too. How are you? What are you doing? Groceries shopping before lock down?"

"Yeah. It seemed to be. How about you?"

"Pretty much the same thing. I ran out some stuff and food." There was a long pause between them.

"Shall we go stroll around?" Freddie offered and Lily nodded. They both walked along and they sometimes stopped at some sections. 

"It will be a difficult time for us." Freddie started the conversation and Lily smiled while she was picking up some apples.

"Indeed. My office has told me to stay and work from home."

"Really?" Freddie stopped by at the frozen chips section.

"Yeah. I have no idea what it feels like. You know, you will have lack of time talking with your colleague and you will be..."

"Yeah I know." Freddie smiled a bit. Lily stopped her step and looked around. The Tesco Express seemed to be quite crowded. Some people had worn the mask, some hadn't.

They both stayed silent. 

"Are you gonna make fish and chips?"

Freddie smiled and gave the bag of chips to be weight. Lily waited him. "I just love the chips. They are a good escape food." 

Lily smiled and was stared by Freddie.

"Freddie..." Lily called.

"Call me Fred." Fred replied and Lily nodded.

"I have to go. It's nice to meet you."

Fred smiled, "hey wait!" Freddie called Lily when she had walked quite far from him.

"May I have your number?" 

Lily stopped her step and narrowed her forehead. "Well..." Lily mumbled but Freddie could not see her mouth as she covered it with mask.

"Sure..." Long pause came and Lily walked over Freddie. Freddie typed Lily's number as she mentioned them. Freddie smiled a bit though Lily could not see. 

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome." Lily then permitted herself to go to the cashier as Freddie told her that he wanted to get some more stuff.

**

There was a news about virus that Lily did not understand and assumed that it was such a conspiracy. The virus named Corona Virus or some people called it as Covid-19. The news were all over the world. It came from a place named Wuhan, in China. 

Lily did not really give any attention on what happened. In the place where she lived, the people were panicked, some were not. Lily just got back from the Tesco Express to buy some food. The government warned and informed the citizen to stay home meant that they had to prepare more food. They were told not to go around, even for only buy some stuff. 

She met Freddie, the one whom she met at Victoria's party. They exchanged numbers though Lily gave the number, she did not feel that they really exchanged the numbers.

"Hi, are you home?"

"Hi, I am." Lily replied quickly. She just got changed. She sat down to enjoy the afternoon with a cup of tea. She planned to cook Pasta with Pesto sauce for dinner but she felt that she did not want to start now after she went home from shopping.

"Great! I have just got home, too. A lot of people are talking about the virus." Freddie replied, and it entered Lily's notification. Lily did not immediately read the chat as she was focused on all articles about the virus and the government regulations. There'll be lock down soon and it affected the way she worked. 

"Got no idea what was happening." Lily replied, with a sad and confused emoji.

"Neither did I. Hope everything goes well." Lily pulled a slight smile. She was pessimistic. The more she read the news, the more pessimist she was. She thought and compared the pandemic which ever happened long time ago with what was happening nowadays. 

Lily did not reply with a good message and left her phone on the table. She moved to her kitchen and she thought that cooking might be a good way to distract her fear and worry about the virus. She started to pull out some ingredients like basil, celantro, cashew nut, and garlic. She started to blend the pesto ingredients and she decided to use penne as the pasta. She cooked them in silence and she remembered that she still had her tea.

"Ahh..." The warm tea helped to calm her down for a while.

**

Fred was walking back and fourth. He was holding his phone. His hand were sweating. It had been two weeks since the last time he called and received a message from Lily. She lost contact with him. He tried to send some messages but he has got no response.

At work, he could not lose his mind from the thought of what happened with Lily. He had to work one day in a week while the pandemic was still around. 

"Hey, what's up, mate?" Fred's friends, Jack, asked him because of his pale face.

"Nothing."

"U sure?" Jack's replied and stopped by Fred's desk.

Fred just nodded.

"Say something, if you're not okay please. We want to keep everyone safe. You know, we had got three people who have been hospitalized because of the Covid-19." Jack told Fred when he had sat on his desk. Jack was focused on his computer when Fred got the idea of what happened with Lily.

"Oh, My God!" Fred shouted and he made everyone looked at him though there were lack of people inside the room, "sorry." Fred offended. 

"Fred, what's up?"

"I just remembered something." Jack shrugged and Fred got back to his work.

When Fred had arrived home after his day for working from office done, he walked to the bathroom and took shower. He washed his clothes immediately and made a cup of tea. He promised to write a letter and food to Lily's address. He remembered a bit about where she lived because the very first time he met Lily, she told him about her address.

Fred had feeling that Lily might get Covid-19. The victims were rising as he read on The Guardian online newspaper that morning. London anticipated with Lockdown but it didn't work very well because of some regulations which didn't support the citizens. 

"Visiting her is probably a good idea." Fred mumbled. He looked out to the window. It was a quite town. He could hear lack of transportation passing by and some voices were from police and ambulance siren. He looked up his phone again and stared at the message box between Lily and him. He took a deep breath.