“Valentine's Day in times of the pandemic with relaxed measures”, part 9 of the series "After The Pandemic. A Fictional Story" by Karin Sawetz
“Do you have a Valentine's Day story for us, grandma?' Sarah decorates the flowers on the large table made of raw wood with some artful inlaid work which is showing objects and landscapes. A table without technology is a rare object in grandmother Naomi's home. It’s the 14th February 2079.
The tableware, fine porcelain with spring-flower decoration, is already placed for the family dinner. "Valentine's day had changed in the beginning of the pandemic such as many other traditions like dancing through the night in elegant ballrooms that weren’t practiced due to new behavior schemes caused by necessary distance rules or mask regulations. It wasn't the same like before 2020. Valentine's Day was associated rather with romantic situations like those of two people who meet for fine dining in the hope to start a new relationship than with tokens of love between married couples. But Grandfather started the 14th February deflorestation of my garden already before the pandemic.” Naomi laughs about the wordplay. The elderly woman brings another vase with flowers to the table; she looks at it with admiration in her eyes: "The flowers are well selected. They don’t appear kitschy like the average bunch of flowers decorated with a red heart which carries love letters in gold or outfitted with an unnecessary bow from the ordinary florist. Grandfather’s bouquets are partly made of waste from the glasshouse. Some of the plants in the vases are wild flowers and weed growing in the wrong places. The flower garden looks thanks to Valentine's Day being cleaned up."
"Looks like good old love," Sarah says smiling. She brings the serviettes. She doesn’t roll or fold the napkins. She stages the textiles, which are embroidered with delicate lace that are matching the pattern of the porcelain, by building cones and placing them on the plates like on thrones. “You said it changed in the beginning. When did it become again the typical Valentine's Day people knew before the virus began to spread all over the world?” Naomi watches her granddaughter’s sleight of hand, how she takes care of the interplay of the textile design with the tableware and the sitting positions of the guests. The table becomes under her granddaughter’s direction a lively scenery. “In the second year after the first cases were registered, the rate of vaccinated people was high enough to return to ‘normal’ life again.”2022 was long before Sarah was born. Her parents met decade’s after the pandemic. For her, it was not comprehensible that people didn’t protect themselves from a disease. “What happened to the unvaccinated?” Naomi stands up and removes a withered leaf. “Many of them became severely ill; some died.” “But didn't the communities help them?” “The ones with severe courses of illness got hospitalized. People have the right to decide freely about their life. And thanks to the high vaccination rate the health system wasn’t burdened. The intensive care rates for the unvaccinated were manageable.”
Naomi’s digital assistant Germo announces with the programmed German accent voice of Sarah’s former German teacher the arrival of the grandson and son. “The shuttle from the Neowise space station will land in the garden in 30 minutes.”
