The New COVID Normal: A Prison for the Insane
You are beside me. I am beside you. Wait for me. As Nick Cave put it. If all these prophets of the day and of yore were right, now really was the hour. Old Alex was as bewildered by it as those who watched. He could see, like low strung clouds hanging in the valley, as if catching something just out of reach, a river as if of time, a journey beyond; and if the ancients were manipulating this timeline, it was a technology well beyond anything man currently possessed, and if it was just a figurative or imaginative way of expressing something else that was play; well so be it.
The Australian derangement was complete.
The authorities had not just taken the country to the edge of the abyss, but had plunged straight over.
Everything had come unstuck.
The population was curdling in their own dreams, trapped inside their own houses, increasingly frustrated, increasingly desperate. There was no end to it.
In Oak Flats, as humble, as ordinary a place as you were likely to get, Old Alex met no one who was happy, and no one who supported the government's actions; which essentially had been to imprison their own population in an hysteria chamber for the past 18 months.
The shopping mall, a 12 minute drive from his house, was almost entirely deserted, with only a few operations continuing to function.
Masked up, having accepted the mask mandates, the population grew more distant from each other.
The temple dogs who had once barked their warnings now flooded the ether with images of throat slitting in stone temples; all a warning. The other banks of images, be they animal spirits or futuristic machines, remained as they were: clearly they were in the right place at the right time, although how that could be, considering the collapse of the country, he did not know.
Increasingly, that was the talk. That this political class, this political system, had abjectly failed us all, and needed to be swept aside.
We needed to start again.
Forty teenagers a day were now being admitted to hospital each day in NSW alone for self-harm and suicide attempts.
Individuals and nations can yearn for the abyss, but how could it be that despite all the international ridicule, all the suffering, all the over the top authoritarianism and the thousands of personal tragedies now occurring as a direct result of inappropriate government action, that nobody had called a stop to it all.
He didn't know the answer. Increasingly no one knew the answer to a simple question:
How could it be?
How could this have happened.
Dispirited, disempowered; and you watch, violence on the streets.
NEWS
Melbourne CBD to be locked down on Saturday to prevent COVID-19 protest
The Melbourne CBD will be locked down on Saturday and all public transport services diverted away from the city, as police seek to prevent people gathering for a planned protest against the COVID-19 lockdown.
The decision comes after up to 4000 to 5000 people attended an illegal protest in the city on August 21, which police dubbed the city's most violent in 20 years, leading to 21 officers being injured.
Victoria Police will lockdown the CBD between 8am and 2pm on Saturday to stop people convening and creating a COVID-19 "super-spreader event".
READ MORE: Regional Victorian city of Ballarat to enter lockdown, 423 new cases of COVID-19
"We will be doing everything we can to prevent access to the city," Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said.
"This is not a place where anyone should be coming.
"You cannot come in."
All public transport services to the CBD will be suspended between 8am and 2pm.
"Buses will bypass the city, any trams will be stopped before the city... and trains will not come into the city during that period of time," Commissioner Patton said.
Hard barriers will also be set up at key access points.
READ MORE: Melbourne anti-lockdown protest 'most violent' in the city in 20 years: Police Commissioner
The Chief Commissioner said police's efforts to stop the protest would be one of the largest operations they had run in years, using up to 2000 officers.
He said there would be a significant number of officers in the city to deal with people who did manage to make it in and that they would be ready to issue $5450 fines.
The Chief Commissioner acknowledged there would be an inconvenience to some members of the public.
"We didn't take this decision lightly," he said.
He said the move was considered before the last protest, and that this protest risked being attended by similar numbers.
In pictures: Anti-lockdown protests
Commissioner Patton said the risk of transmission at a protest was "exacerbated significantly" due to the Delta strain.
He said police would be prepared to use force, but hoped it wouldn't come to that.
"We are planning for the worst and hoping for the best," Commissioner Patton said.