Nicholas Quirke was a little agitated on 13 March 2020. It was the penultimate day of his and Peng’s quarantine and the local world he had been observing from confines of the apartment was, in the bright, fresh sunny day, a hive of activity. The two Daily Tai Chi practitioners were performing their routine as was the solitary walker who, regularly paced and flapped arms around the courtyard like a trapped bird and the mother and son who were frequent visitors practising tennis strokes. Today they were joined by a guy demonstrating his skills with a Diablo, a skipper, and some people just enjoying the temperate day. The wind still had a little bite to it but Spring was definitely making its presence felt in a city thats isolation was now well into its regeneration. Seeing the enjoyment in these pursuits made him crave the open air and the sense of free flowing movement down the streets. He only had to get through two more days and then he would have a city to roam in. Of course, having been in the eye of the storm, he was watching where the wind was now now blowing and he felt a little anxious that while China suffered its closure and isolation whilst the rest of the world looked on, nothing was being done by the governments overseas to prepare for the inevitable tsunami of sickness. He also felt a small degree of agitation about his situation. It was now almost 2 weeks since he had returned back to Beijing and despite the time he had on his hands he still did not have a positive lead on on any job prospects and he really needed to have some income to keep the cogs turning over. It looked unlikely for the time being that he could travel overseas without having to endure Isolation, which meant he had to stay in Beijing for the time being and while he had somewhere to live courtesy of the generosity of Peng, he needed to make sure he was contributing and paying his way. The daily routine continued and he found himself in the kitchen making a lentil soup with tofu for lunch. The next day was White Day, an event enjoyed in Asia as a riposte to Valentines Day and it seemed no different in world of Quarantine when the delivery for the day was a bunch of red roses for his host. He did some reading and had Originally planned to start on what seemed the onerous task of tackling ‘Swanns Way’, but he procrastinated and instead enjoyed the opening pages of another read, but forgotten Simenon novel. Nicholas had enjoyed the Virtual Reality experience and had wanted a moment to return to its intriguing world. This time he engaged in physical combat and firing arms with the intimidating, merciless bots in the ‘Superhot’ game. The success of the previous day’s admin challenges led him to put off dealing with his final issue and instead, made smoothies and took on the challenge of the exercise bike and a 4 mile cycle round Central Park, an experience almost as merciless as the bots he had wrestled with as screen kept instructing him to close the gap with the cyclist ion from or had sped past him. He followed it up with a more leisurely Stroll on the treadmill. Having the time to cook and make food again was really exciting to him and the next mission was to start making nut butters and making sorbets and preparations were made to turn the Pecans which just weren’t being eaten to a more practical use. trying to watch TV or a movie seemed a good idea but tired from the days indoor equivalent of his morning observations left him to sleepy to really engage. It was with these thoughts that he sought oblivion and the final day of house arrest.