The impending second lockdown has sent me off to my favourite cafe in Cambridge for some soon-to-be-prohibited indoor coffee drinking. As I’m doing work, I overhear two sixth formers revising for the English Literature A-Level. The topic of analysis is Romeo and Juliet, and the two have found a way of testing each other on the play’s narrative by beginning each sentence they say with “Romeo is” or “Romeo says”. I’m quietly surprised at how one of literature’s most supposedly intricate literary texts can be so easily condensed by two seventeen-year-olds.

“Okay,” one of them says, “so, Act 2 Scene 5, Romeo says he doesn’t care what happens to him because he’s so joyous.”

The other continues, “Romeo is advised by Friar Lawrence to love less intensely and he tells him … “these violent delights have violent ends”. Juliet enters.”

“Romeo says that Juliet should express herself poetically.”

“Fuck sake, Romeo, we get it, you’re in love.”

“Romeo says that Juliet should express herself poetically.”

Their conversation goes on and a few minutes later they’ve found themselves at Act 5 Scene 3. “Juliet is found dead,” one of them says, and there’s a brief silence as the two mourn the loss of one of fiction’s greatest female characters.

“Dumb bitch,” the other says.

2020 Halloween turns out to be less spooky than sobering. The live BBC coverage of the Downing Street press briefing manages to prophesy effectively every detail of the second lockdown, rendering the briefing itself entirely redundant.

My friend Facetimes me. “Is he on yet?” he asks.

“Not yet,” I say. “Do you think it still makes sense to go out for dinner immediately after the announcement of a lockdown?”

“There’s like a 72-hour buffer on these things, don’t worry,” my friend says. “It’s why they start the lockdowns a few days after, you know. To give people time to go out for dinner.”

“Do you think it still makes sense to go out for dinner immediately after the announcement of a lockdown?”

Bored of watching intelligent analysts pick apart what is an objectively poor political move, the BBC repeatedly cuts between a live feed of the darkened door of Number 10 and Reeta Chakrabarti in the studio, sighing inwardly. The press briefing rolls on around three hours late, Laura Kuennsberg and others pose questions to the PM that go unanswered, and my friend and I go out for dinner. The mood on the streets is defiant and weary. On my way home, a witch on a broomstick gets into an Uber.

A few nights later it’s the live coverage of the US election, and the BBC seems to be having more fun tonight than they did with the Covid briefing; the vibe appears to be apocalyptic reality TV. Andrew Neil glares down the camera, and Reeta Chakrabarti is also back, looking rested and energised, as she ferociously clicks away on an interactive map of the US. She takes us through several potential electoral outcomes before reminding us that votes probably won’t be released until we’ve all gone to bed. Owing to the excruciating drip-feed of information, the event itself turns out to be fairly anticlimactic; in the morning, things don’t appear to be much different.

My friend from Queens’ has just been released from a two-week quarantine, and we meet up in the twilight of England’s second day of lockdown. We each make propositions of a few places to go before realising that they’ve all been shut down. We wander down a deserted King’s Parade, and then down Trinity Street, where we pass Michaelhouse Cafe.

“Have you ever been in?” I ask her, gesturing towards the cafe.

“No,” she says, “is it nice?”

“It’s lovely, yeah.”

“Perfect. I’ll go tomorrow and do work.”

“I don’t think you can now.”

“Why? Oh. Oh yeah.”

We head past Tit Hall and towards the river; for some unspecified reason, the bridge is closed off. Defeated, we head back towards King’s Parade, the feeling of imprisonment now inescapable.

“It’s only been a week since Ariana’s Positions was released,” she says.

I try to wrap my head around how all of these things happened in one week. “Weird,” I say.

Later, on the internet, people talk excitedly about a Biden presidency, broken democracies, and the new season of The Crown. In the middle of it there’s a clip from the music video of ‘Positions’, in which Grande assumes control of the White House and walks her dogs in the snow. It’s the most normal thing I’ve seen all week.