And so, Covexit has arrived with Brexit and the pandemic is retreating with a final throaty roar. Boris would have loved to signal its defeat with flag-flying triumphalism and men marching in bearskin hats, but at least he had the pro-Brexit consolation of starting vaccinations earlier than the EU. I’m waiting for my vaccine in lowly tier nine but a golden opportunity arrived in November when the Belfast Trust phoned me about the Moderna vaccine trial. It was all going swimmingly until I was asked about neurological conditions and revealed I sometimes had pins and needles. Cue being dumped out of the trial and I was furious with myself - it’s like I have permanent sodium pentothal in my veins, my honesty is a medical condition in itself. Still, for one brief moment it felt like I had Willy Wonka’s golden ticket in my hands until it blew away, or at least I blew it.

     Our high levels of Covid in Northern Ireland aren’t surprising, considering our natural rebelliousness and the fact we used to kill each other. Throw in the dissenting tradition and no wonder we have so many Covid-deniers and anti-lockdowners. Personally, I love anti-vaxxers. I want everyone to be an anti-vaxxer so I can get my vaccine quicker, just like straight men sometimes say, ‘I want all other men to be gay so I can have sex with more women.’ I’d even ban Twitter from banning anti-vaccine pronouncements.

     In this mad world, care workers have transformed into Harold Shipman overnight. An acquaintance of mine continued working in a care home after an inconclusive Covid test, spreading it among some elderly residents who subsequently died. Isn’t that almost as bad as planting a bomb? If that isn’t murder, what is? But it’s all too easy to do; I foolishly licked the envelopes of the Christmas cards I gave to my ageing neighbours. I could just see the headline afterwards – ‘Murdered by Christmas Card’!

     There weren’t many positives of lockdown but at least we were spared people posting their restaurant meals on Facebook. It’s been a great year for the lazy. They’ve been able to dodge work by pretending to self-isolate - duvet days have become a duvet fortnight! On the plus side, people have improved their hygiene levels – for instance, I went to a party where people sniffed cocaine from their own straw. The only problem is I’m now so paranoid about germs I’ve turned into Howard Hughes. Thankfully, it’s only compulsive hand-washing and I’m not quite at the stage of wearing tissue-boxes on my feet or burning my clothes.

     I’ve spent this year trapped in virtual rooms as well as real rooms, struggling with the Zoom boom. Digital technology just doesn’t like me; it can sense the creativity in my fingertips and would happily eliminate me like a blade-runner taking out a replicant. I recently ran a playwriting course and was in a Zoom room on my when one of my students arrived to tell me I was in the previous week’s room. How in fucking hell did I manage to time travel? Oh, for a door handle to open into a real room.

     The French writer, Michel Houellebecq, warned last year that self-distancing and home-working would accelerate the technological push to isolate people. He talked of the increasing ‘obsolescence of human relationships’. Margaret Atwood said that the first lockdown was ‘not deliberate totalitarianism’ from the government but a reaction to an ‘emergency crisis’. However, I do see a dystopian insidiousness in the new laws and there’s no doubt it’s forced us into yet more dehumanization and desocialisation. Since Covid, nobody seems to meet up outside dating apps, but I can’t bear apps as there is always some creepy perve who writes dirty, just to test or shock you. I don’t want to know people’s pervy predilections or their banalities; I either want to know their brilliances or for them to remain a mystery. It’s bad enough having stalkers on the street, let alone cyber-stalkers on the screen.

     It has been a year of sexual frustration. As someone said to me recently, ‘We’re all that desperate, we’d jump on our granny’s granda! Social distancing? Sure there’s plenty of space between the bed and the ceiling!’ At least we can laugh and even see the benefits. My friend who had Covid joked how happy she was to lose weight. Some have actively enjoyed lockdown. My bus-driver friend loves cruising his hood freely without having to pull in at every stop for all the old people. I’ve hardly been on a bus myself and the only plane I’ve been on is a spiritual one, but I have set a new world record in walking and compiled my own ambulatory lockdown playlist that I sing to myself (or hum as it spreads less droplets): Don’t Stand So Close To Me by The Police, Please Release Me, Let Me Go by Engelbert Humperdinck, Every Day Is Like Sunday by Morrissey, End Of The World As We Know It by R.E.M., and Avicii’s So Wake Me Up When It’s All Over.

     Covid has led to the inexorable rise of the globalized supermarket and it was ridiculous how in this technological year computer repairs shops were deemed non-essential. Another total irony was that bus numbers could not exceed thirty-eight, yet packed school buses flew up and down our roads. Yet another irony was people being guilt-tripped for flying abroad, when it was the government who kept the airports open.

     Covid has also brought out kindness in urban communities like the offer of shopping from Kirsty at No. 3, popped through my letterbox. In May I was standing at a bridge, staring down into the Loop River, when a passerby stopped and asked me if I was okay. I must have looked on the verge of suicide, though, considering the water was only eight inches deep, I’d have had my work cut out. However, I really appreciated her care. Every week, I pass a poster in a house window that says, ‘Under each other’s shelter, we can survive together’.

      Of course, there has been some faux-kindness to watch out for. Opportunists have made millions like YouTube workout guru, Joe Wicks, who burst into tears on Instagram live thinking of ‘all the children in the UK and all around the world that are at home in tiny little flats.’ He must have been crying all the way to his offshore bank. I launched a book of short stories in March 2020 - it didn’t make millions, but it definitely sold better on the lead up to Christmas than mistletoe. And then, just before Christmas, came news of a mutant virus that spread more easily than margarine. The disaster movie of a year took on another plot twist as we were plunged into curfew on Boxing Day, which duly kept us boxed in.

      So far, 2021 is another year of amnesia. I constantly ask myself if the days are going fast or slow as they drag yet speed at the same time. Now I understand how the old mistakenly believe events occurred more recently than they did. When nothing happens in your life, time contracts. For me, it’s like moving to another country with different rules, sights and sounds. Even from two metres away I get a strong whiff of people’s perfumes and aftershaves, applied liberally in lieu of deodorant. Funnily enough, eau de cologne was originally produced as protection against the bubonic plague, since it warded off fleas.

     As a writer, I can appreciate this era of new words like covidiot and maskhole, so I’ve invented my own - a coronitwit, coronumpty or coronob. That should cover it. To be honest though, I’m so fed-up with Covid, I don’t ever want to hear of waves and spikes again.

      One good thing about social distancing is that this is probably the first year in my life I haven’t caught a cold. Another positive is that I’ve read more than usual and one of the things I’ve learnt is that I aspire to the goal of Ancient Greek philosophers which was ataxia – freedom from distress and worry. Consequently, I no longer watch the news and the one programme I’m interested in is a vaccination programme. I wish Stormont would speed it up but the only jabs they’re good at administering are sectarian.

      I’ll keep waiting and, as soon as I get my first shot in the arm, I’ll kick the tissue-boxes off my feet and leap out into the world and the only wave I’ll see is on the Lagan and the only spike will be on St Anne’s Cathedral. It will be a shock to the system to dust down the ironing board and go back to the conventions of personal presentation. On Zoom, I’ve only had to groom myself from the shoulders up!

     As we say our long goodbye to the pandemic, part of me wonders if there will be yet another twist. There are over 5000 coronaviruses in bats, so you never know when another will be winging its way. With luck, this worry is just a hangover from a very strange year. From now on, I’ll keep breathing deep and keep aiming for ataxia.