{"id":396,"date":"2020-04-12T16:57:07","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T16:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=396"},"modified":"2020-04-12T16:57:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T16:57:07","slug":"mind-virus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/mind-virus\/396\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind Virus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It started with a sniffle, and a couple of hours later he noticed he had an earache. By noon his throat was dry; tap-water wouldn\u2019t ease it. The following day all his muscles ached, and he was sure he had a temperature. He went to sleep in the afternoon, feeling like a truck had knocked him down. Next morning, he couldn\u2019t get up. He just lay in bed hot and sticky, feeling like he was buried. The days passed and got worse. He ought to ring 111, but he had no credit on his pay-as-you-go phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            As he lay there, his small, bare flat seemed to be shrinking. He\u2019d lived in it ten years, and hadn\u2019t gone out in over twelve months. He knew his mind was bust, and now his body was too. Nothing to be done, he told himself. You\u2019ve been ignored since you came to this country. Still are, man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

            After a week of fever, coughing, and bad fatigue, he wondered should he stir himself, get off the bed, and try and walk to the hospital. It was a mile away. He had no money for the bus fare, no money for food. He had nothing at all. No, he wouldn\u2019t walk. He was too weak. He thought of all them nurses and doctors working hard, twelve-hour shifts. Plenty of them were from the West Indies like him, or Africa, Asia, or other places abroad. They\u2019re not ignored now, he thought. They count. Funny world, in\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            No, he wouldn\u2019t go. Them medics got their hands full with the sick and dying. He picked up the notepad again. He\u2019d been trying to write the letter for weeks. What he wanted to write was his story \u2013 that he\u2019d come to England as a boy, so why was the Home Office still hassling him to prove he was legal? Why ask could he prove he\u2019d been eleven years in school in Hackney. Don\u2019t that school have no records? He\u2019d paid national insurance for years at work too. You<\/em> guys have the proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019d given up in the end and just locked himself indoors. Then the welfare people had demanded he come in for a fitness for work assessment. Didn\u2019t they understand? He couldn\u2019t go outside. Them mental health people had assessed him as having extreme social anxiety. Twice he\u2019d got to the front door to go for the interview, then the panic attacks came on. Next thing his benefits had stopped. He\u2019d not seen family or friends in months. He couldn\u2019t face the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            He\u2019d put it all down in the letter. Yes, he\u2019d do that\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2026 The bailiffs had to use the pounder to break in. The guy hadn\u2019t been dead long. His body was emaciated, like he\u2019d starved to death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One of them saw by the body a note addressed to \u2018The Welfare\u2019. It just said: \u2018Be fair. Don\u2019t judge me harshly\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018This one won\u2019t be paying his backdated rent,\u2019 he said. \u2018Wasted visit.\u2019  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started with a sniffle, and a couple of hours later he noticed he had an earache. By noon his throat was dry; tap-water wouldn\u2019t ease it. The following day all his muscles ached, and he was sure he had a temperature. He went to sleep in the afternoon, feeling like a truck had knocked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A NEW STORY BY SWANSEA WRITERS: \"Mind Virus\"\n\n#fiction #writers #writingcommunity","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[121,203],"tags":[214,216,215,217,212,218,213],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-121","category-april-2020-crisis","tag-doctors","tag-funny-old-world","tag-nurses","tag-rent","tag-virus","tag-wasted-visit","tag-west-indies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-6o","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions\/398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}