I am developing a callus on my left thumb. Although I’ve been a writer with terrible penmanship, an amateur artist (with terrible penmanship), a string player, an avid baker and an amateur seamstress in my life, I’ve never hardened the skin on my fingers so that the nerves have dulled, the skin has thickened and a callus has formed.

‘Tits. Out. For the boys. Tits out for the boys. Tits. Out. For the boys. Tits out for the boys.’ I started out softly but by the end I am screaming at the top of my lungs because I am 19 and everyone around me is doing the same…

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It’s basically empty!’ Tim says of my spare room. He’s touring the house, although he’s been here many times. We’re both looky-loos. He holds out his arms to assess the size of the space, then turns back to focus on me. ‘You could totally fit a baby in here!’ I mime shooting myself in the head.

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I’m not too concerned at first, not really. I make jokes, like I do in any difficult situation: about how I’m an introvert anyway and can’t think of anything better than staying away from other people, how I’ve more than a decade’s experience in working from home, how this is my time to shine. I roll my eyes when my parents cancel their overseas holiday.

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At first we laughed at ourselves. The way people looked disapprovingly at a bulging shopping bag. The moral agony about whether to take the last tin of kidney beans. The jokes about toilet paper. None of it was real for me until the day the airlines said they were cancelling all international flights.

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May 2020 The email notification startles me. It is from Virgin Airlines. Get ready to fly soon. When I click into the notification, Virgin—an airline that has entered voluntary administration—tells me that my direct flight to Tasmania has been changed to three separate flights spread over eight hours. I will be flying from Brisbane to Sydney, then from Sydney to Melbourne, then, after quite a wait, from Melbourne to Hobart. The problem is I thought I had cancelled the flight. We are still in lockdown. Borders are closed, travel is restricted to within 50 kilometres. After a long and complicated call to […]