Crop Circles in Bray
I took the kids to Bray today - at least a small part of the reason being so I could see the famous crop circles.
I had wondered if it was actually real or a social media invention designed to draw outrage from sceptics like myself but no, there they were - these utterly impotent white circles potmarking the neat green in front of the sea as if, ironically, it was suffering from some kind of plague. Thankfully, the pointless little pods were deserted - visitors and locals giving them the kind of wide berth you’d afford a chalk outline at a murder scene. My kids briefly bucked the trend and used them as running circles, chasing each other around the diameter until someone got caught but we moved on quickly. It just didn’t feel like a place in which to have fun - like playing tag in a cemetery.
We got pancakes in a sea-front shop. I like these places because the staff are generally young and/or foreign and extremely unlikely to comment on my lack of a mask. As I went to leave, a man (a very tall man - that surely doesn’t matter but it felt like it did at the time) went to enter the shop but stopped suddenly at the entrance as if he had run into an invisible force-field. His nervous face scanned the premises before asking,
“Do I have to wear a mask?”
“Yes,” was the predictable reply from the pancake-maker.
[It should be noted that if you ever have to ask whether or not you need to wear a mask in any given situation, the answer inevitably will be “Yes!” What kind of reckless lunatic is ever going to answer that question with a “no”. (Note: Whoever, he or she is, I want to meet them.)]
But why did he ask? I was the only other customer in the shop and I obviously wasn’t wearing one. Clearly, you didn’t have to wear a mask in any kind of practical sense. And why did he look so afraid? Whatever the answer to these questions, he slunk away quickly - either to go hungry or to find something with which to cover his face.
I think it was the instinctual, automatic response he displayed that got to me. When he tried to enter the shop he really did hit a force-field, not an imaginary one but a real one formed from a year of fear and conditioning. I don’t know how long it will take to shake this off or if it will happen at all. For now, anyway, this is what it has reduced us to - nervous, scared, compliant beings, no more than reminiscent of real people.
After eating the pancakes we went down to the water. The wind was swirling and waves crashed into an outcrop of rocks and sprayed us with water. It was really pleasant.