Corona Diary: No alarms and no surprises

About a heart that's full up like a landfill, a job that slowly kills you and bruises that won't heal sings the great Thom Yorke in the classic Radiohead-tune "No Surprises", he sees people look so tired, unhappy and he choose "a quiet life with no alarms and no surprises" in silence. He should come into this town at this time, a normal city in the middle of Germany. He will find what he is looking for.

After more than a week of lockdown the new emptiness is everywhere. Quiet places and streets without any kind of lifeform. Between one car and another ten minutes ticking down. The heart of the city is a paradise for doves. This rats of air are the new kings in town. Nobody is in reach to disturb them. Because all shops are still closed, the tram comes half often as normal and there is no reason for anyone to walk the streets anymore.

You need a parking lot? You're welcome! You need sunshine? We got it! Or a whole street to drive your scooter in the middle of? Why don't you come and find out what it's like to live in a town with no population?

For almost two weeks now, people here are supposed to stay in their apartments all the time. Empty streets, closed shops and eerie silence: the thousand-year-old city is now only a shadow of itself. If you go out it is a stroll through a city on detention. You don't meet friends, you don't meet enemies, you're only able to meet nobody, the guy who is everywhere in this emptiness.

Back home, back inside. "Such a pretty house / and such a pretty garden", Thom Yorke sings in "No Surprises". This song is 23 years old. And it suddenly sounds as if it had just been written.

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