expostulation and reply

Walking towards Dunnes Stores in the town of Naas.

A security woman with blue plastic gloves steps in front of me.

"You're not going to search me for the Corona Virus?" I ask her.

"No, I want to let know that you've got to enter by the door over there," sez she.

At the door over there I find a group of people waiting.

"They're asking us to queue?" I enquire.

"They are," says a congenial lady.

"You probably already got the virus just from talking to me," I enthuse.

On principle I find I cannot queue to enter Dunnes Stores.

So I betake myself to Swanns emporium where they''re letting any virus laden eejit walk in off the streets.

"Have you got hen eggs?" I enquire of a shop assistant.

"We have duck eggs," she says.

"I can't eat those," I tell her. "Hens know what they're doing. But I'm not going to eat something that's been up a duck's arse."

Ah it was hilarious.

Worth dying for.

I return to the Bungaleau de Healy.

It is a lovely warm March day.

Time for a little hedge cutting.

I've been in a five year battle to control a rampant hedge.

The hedge is winning.

As I clip, trim, saw, and top the trees, a student nurse wanders by.

"It's a bit uneven," she comments on my work.

"That's on purpose," I explain.

"You're making it look like that on purpose?" quoth she.

"I'm shaping it," says I.

"It's a really uneven shape," rejoineth she.

"Hedge cutting is an art," I explain. "Like sculpting. You've got to get a feel for it. Be the  hedge. Not everyone can do it."

I  have visions of a scene from Tom Sawyer where I provoke her into cutting the hedge for me by pretending I know what I'm doing and making her jealous of the arcane activity.

She switches the conversation to the Corona Virus.

"I'm home for the duration," quoth she.

"Do you believe it's real?" sez me.

"It's real alright," says she.

"You're a bit gullible," commenteth me.

"People are dying from it," says she.

"A grand total of two deaths in Ireland and both were ancient people on their last legs who already had cancer, rabies, cirrhosis of the liver, and heart conditions," sez I.

"Well my grandad is 91 and I don't want him to die," she proclaims morally.

"I don't want your grandad to die either but I''ve got news for you, he's going to die some day. We all are," I predict brutally.

"Thousands of people are dying in Italy," expostulateth she.

"Ah Italy," sez me, "traditional home of the highest annually inflated virus death tolls every winter with mafia shootings, nursing home deaths, road fatalities and deaths by natural causes all routinely attributed to the flu in the interests of marketing pharmaceutical vaccines. Only this time they're not selling a flu vaccine. This time they're selling the pandemic itself on behalf of their World Health Organisation puppet masters and hilariously they're pretending it's not the flu."

"If you're not taking it seriously," muses she. "Maybe I shouldn't be talking to you. I might get it from you,"

"Maybe I shouldn't be talking to you," I counter, "if you believe it's anything other than a flu virus. I might catch your neurosis and start running around like a headless chicken. Oh the humanity."

She wandered off.

I watched her go.

In the warm hush of early evening amid the promise of burgeoning Spring time, I saw no shadow of another conversation with her ever.