HATS - a rant for these times.

I could rant about many things at the moment, including the overuse of words such as 'unprecedented', 'challenging' and 'iconic', but enough people are doing that already, and I don't like talking politics online.
Jan Wayned Fields' photo which Rochelle posted on her blog  https://rochellewisoff.com/2020/05/13/15-may-2020/hats/  for Friday Fictioneers this week didn't excite my fiction-writing head at all, possibly because it's already full of the book I am in the throes of editing.
So instead you've got this rant, which I know resonates with many of my friends in a similar situation. If you're young and free, enjoy it!  .............................................................

HATS

I have worn many different hats in my lifetime.

Daughter, then student, followed by years as a bank clerk, in the days when we counted banknotes by hand, computers filled a room, and deposit ledgers weighed a ton.

Happily I donned the various hats of a mother – cook, chauffeuse, nurse, gardener, teacher, decorator and seamstress until, eventually, I was a grandmother and retired.

But now they want to force me into another hat, with the words writ large – ELDERLY, VULNERABLE, PRISONER.

That hat won’t fit.

PIGEONS - a little hundred word story for Lockdown!.

PIGEONS

I bought this apartment for the view, which now is all I have – I watch neighbours I have never met, enjoying the illusion of company and talking to pigeons.

Overweight Guy is bronzed and fit after weeks of exercise.

I heard Barbecue Couple’s champagne cork pop and raised my own glass to them.

Last week food deliveries stopped. I ventured out briefly and scuttled home, but I brought back more than food. Even in this unpolluted air I cannot catch my breath.

I wonder if there will be any flesh left when they find me – pigeons will eat anything.

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I met a neighbour today who was feeling so depressed about his isolation that I had to write this story - sorry if it's not the cheery story you were anticipating. :)  I hope you are all survivng the pandemic as well as you can, and making the most of your enforced imprisonment to finish that novel?

In truth this image reminds me of the view from a friend's apartment in Tenerife, where the rooftop terraces were used for lines of washing, barbecues and even chicken coops.

Thanks to Rochelle for hostingFriday Fictioneers on her blog   https://rochellewisoff.com/  and to Roger Bultot for the photograph.

PS - Only a day since the prompt yet already I am WAY down the link page - no wonder I only get a few comments!