Out of Bounds

When I emerge from the cafe holding two coffee cups, I discover my husband Andy standing on his regulation isolation spot, chatting to a socially distant mother and her three young children. Words and laughter are flying between them.

The happy sounds seem strange. Out of place. Not quite right. No one laughs at the shopping centre any more. We hurry. We avoid. We don’t stop and talk.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

Andy takes his coffee from my hand and then points to the social distancing marker under our feet. He says, “I was talking about the game we invented.”

”The one where we jump from spot to spot through the shopping centre without touching the floor in between?”

”Yes.”

We thought up that game the other day while we were waiting for our coffee…

After Andy and I had placed our orders, we retreated from the cafe counter, and I said, “Which circle do you want to stand on?” I pointed across the room. “Shall we have those two? Or shall we share a spot?”

“Let’s be daring,” said Andy.

So we chose a single spot and stood close together on it.

I sighed, “Isn’t this romantic?”

And Andy replied, “Oh yes, we’re having a coffee date on a social distancing marker in the cafe!” And then he added, “Do you want a kiss?”

My love and I, we grinned.

No one else was out on a romantic date. The other cafe customers weren’t smiling. They were isolated in their individual places with a sea of floor between them.

I thought: safe spots and unsafe spaces. My imagination suddenly went wild.

“What if the area between the spots is out of bounds?” I said. “What if we can only move through the shopping centre by jumping from spot to spot?”

Andy’s eyes lit up. “Oh yes! Can you imagine everyone’s faces if we did that? But would the security guard appear? Would we get into trouble?”

“Why should we? We’ve been told to stand on the spots. But no one has specified how we’re to get from one to the other. It’s assumed we’ll walk. But we could jump.”

We imagined flying through the shopping centre: leap, leap, leap. Laughter rose up from deep within us and rolled out. Everyone in the cafe turned their heads. What was that unaccustomed sound?

“Two lattes: one regular, one soy!” Our coffee was ready.

We took our cups.

“Have a good day!”

“You too!” we replied.

A good day? Oh yes! For the first time in a long time, we left the shopping centre with happy faces.

Isolation spots aren’t so bad. Those circles on the ground, where we’re supposed to stand, keep us safe.

“What will happen if we leap but miss the spots?” I ask. “What danger is lurking in the murky out of bounds?”

Our imaginations go wild.

Photo by Adrianna Van Groningen on Unsplash