Keep Your Distance
Meet Gabbie Walker. Gabbie was tired of the new way of life that the entire globe had found itself in
The lack of contact, the worry about her job , seeing nothing but bad news throughout the media.
She was lucky enough to work from home as she was in networking, and from the comfort of her overpriced Leyton apartment in London, she boasted about and showed off on Instagram.
She was a social influencer and blogged about her day, testing products and getting complimentary goods and services for her exposure.
She needed to get out and about, it was a sunny day, and essential exercise needed to be had and a trip to the local supermarket to pick up some cleaning products. The last few days she got out and on the green area near her apartment evading the police patrols to get her filmed walk out.
There wasn’t much else to blog about and her views went down.
She also had created some negative feedback by using a delivery service for her groceries, that was pointed out could have been used by the elderly instead. Still any PR was good PR, and Gabbie was not one to think of other people, in her solitude life of trophy boyfriends, free beauty products and Twitter wars with other “influencers”. All the time perfecting the art of social vanity.
At 28 years of age the tall shapely blonde, was doing well for herself giving up day job working as a barista, and managing to reach a certain status and income that only Internet celebrity Britain would allow a person of such little academia.
She was doing well until, the pandemic, until Covid-19
Graham Carson, was finally able to visit his cousin, Judy who also lived in Leyton. Graham was from Canada, and he has saved a lot of hard earned time off to make the journey. He arrived early on in March 2020, just weeks before the major global lockdown, the world found itself in. Like many, he didn’t think it was going to hit so fast. Graham who in his fifties was in good health, but Judy wasn’t so much and with her only son, who lived up north, and her brother who lived in the USA, now stranded or self isolating. Graham found himself looking after Judy who was 60 years of age and with asthma. She found herself cocooning, and even afraid to take her dog Jake to the park.
After a few weeks of London sightseeing, English pub grub, that he questioned the taste of and his beloved Premier League soccer games, his flight was due to depart to Toronto airport from Heathrow on the 3rd of April. He however like many Canadians and Americans had been urged to return home, while commercial options remained available.
He was about to book a flight home from Heathrow, but seeing Judy, his cousin he had admired so much since childhood, so worried, suffering from lonely cabin fever without him made him make that hard decision to stay. He was in no rush, his partner back at home, understood, and he was liking the British tv, and the surreal tranquility of lockdown in London, where you could walk for a kilometer and not pass a single person on the road, or board a tube train and it being almost empty.
On top of that his workplace was shut down so he had nothing to return to as far as he knew the flight he still had booked was still leaving on the 3rd of April, so he done what he felt was right and ran errands and provided company for Judy.
One errand was the essential journey of the grocery shopping. It was near impossible to get a slot on the delivery times, unless you wanted to wait a week for milk and butter. Graham set off on a cloudy late March day to do just that
Gabbie had just arrived in the local Marks and Spencer supermarket, checking her Fit Bit that tracked her steps, and mused at winning the competition, that she was competing online with the device, called
Quarentine Steps. She had a slight run in with the police on the way who asked her where she was going and what she was doing.
The usual these days. Gabbie told them what they expected to hear but was rather rude to the local constables who looked at her sternly before cycling off to disrupt a gang of youths playing football in the green.
Gabbie wore a light pink, tight fitted yoga pants and sleeveless, white top, under an open pink and white striped hoodie. With her hair in a long ponytail, and her large hooped earrings, she made her face up with silver sparkly eyeshadow. To the shops or for a jog, she needed to look the part.
She arrived at the shop to find a male staff member, monitoring, how many were left into the store. Also next to him was a “sanitizing station” a new sight in this new way of life.
“Just a minute madam” the man said politely. Gabbie folded her arms impatiently.
She looked down at the social distancing markers on the concrete.
She began to take selfies of herself and added what she thought was edgy lines about social distancing. Graham had arrived behind and and took note of the markers to keep the 2m parting between her and him. Judy insisted he brought a face mask with him. He put it on leaving the house, but as soon as has out of sight took it off. It made no difference he thought.
As he stood behind Gabbie, he checked out her behind that was well complimented in the tight pants. He made out she was wearing a thong under it. He then noticed her selfie taking and rolled his eyes at the behavior. “Even in a pandemic, people still using the duck face” he thought. Two shoppers left, and that signaled Gabbie and Graham’s turn to enter the shop.
Gabbie took video after video of her walking about, talking to her “fans”. Musing at the fact, toilet paper was back on the shelves, and the outrageous price of sanitizer. She felt someone behind her and she stopped her video.
“Excuse me, I just want to get passed you please” Graham, said as he made an advance towards the toilet paper that Gabbie was obstructing.
“Hey.......social distancing” she replied, holding her hand out.
“Ok.....but please can I get to the toilet paper, you’re blocking my way” Graham kept his calmness.
“Hey I’m making a video, I’ll get out of the way when I’m done, and you can get your precious loo roll” Gabbie said with a superior smirk.
Graham took a deep breath. He was getting beyond annoyed with the woman, who looked at him as he was dirt.
“I personally don’t give a shit about your video lady , I just want to get what I came here for, now can you please get out of my way, why are you being so awkward?”
Gabbie shook her head at him, got out of the way and then began speaking to the selfie camera.
“Just some awkward old Yank in my way, where was I folks” she carried on.
Graham picked up the toilet roll and put it into the basket he carried. He was beyond annoyed at the woman at that point.
“Excuse me, I’m Canadian, you wouldn’t like it if I called you Welsh” he said behind her indignantly. Gabbie turned and faced him. “I don’t care where you are from, but number one you shouldn’t be here, perhaps time to bugger off home, and number two I thought over 70s should be cocooning” she giggled at the last part to the annoyed Graham.
“Why are you such a bitch?” He asked. A store assistant walked over.
“What’s the problem?” He asked as he saw the confrontation.
“This “woman” if you call her that, is obstructing me and being generally pig ignorant” Graham said firmly.
“This old man is harassing me” Gabbie sneered.
The man turned to Graham. “Sir can you please move along and stop harassing this lady” he took her side straight away as she folded her arms victoriously.
Graham dropped his basket the contents rolling around the floor. “You’d take her side of course, trying your best to get into her knickers no doubt” the exasperated Graham sounded.
“Sir please leave, we can call the police, if you want” the man said as he stared angrily at the shopping on the floor.
“Oh yes we can call the police” Gabbie said as she smirked at Graham’s embarrassment. He stormed off in disgust. Gabbie thanked “Denis” the shop assistant and went to the checkout.
