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Writer's pictureJen Britton

Groundhog Day

Updated: May 21, 2020

Remember that movie? The one where Bill Murray wakes up every morning and finds himself stuck in a pattern of yesterday on repeat. And then the next day becomes the same yesterday as yesterday’s yesterday. So many yesterdays, and not a tomorrow in sight.


That’s where a lot of us have been lately. Stuck in the Möbius strip of a post-Covid world. Wake up. Feed humans. Feed animals. Try to figure out if it's a school day. Fill the hours. Make this normal. Look for ways to make today different from yesterday. Go to bed. Rinse. Repeat.


There’s a whisper of something coming, though. For the first time in a long time, today didn‘t feel like yesterday. People are cautiously sticking their heads outside. They're looking around, assessing the situation.


Are we safe?


Is it gone?


And the truth, of course, is that the monster hasn’t gone anywhere at all. He’s still here, sitting on your front steps, rolling his dice to decide if he’ll grab you today or not. And if not you, maybe your parents, or the person who delivers your mail.

Maybe the monster will come for my daughter, who is feisty and fierce and who fought off monsters bigger than he when she was only a handful of days old. But bigger monsters are easier to track and slay. This one is quiet and unseen. Until he is.


This monster shifts shapes and turns our everydays into minefields. He locks us up as hostages in our homes, and turns the things we love into weapons. Hugging a friend is unthinkable. Bringing a meal to a parent is an act of defiance. Patting a neighbour's dog on its head is selfish. And then there’s the knowing that some of the people we love don’t believe in monsters at all, which is it’s own kind of horror. Because the monster believes in them.


Still. The sun is shining today, and the air is warm. The world is starting to wake up from its medically induced coma. There is hope here. We’re learning how to tiptoe around the slumbering beast. But please-


Walk carefully.

Move quietly.


This monster is sleeping. He is not slain.



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