Oranges Aren’t Normal

A little speculative fiction… I hope.

The last time I had an orange, I didn’t know it would be the LAST time. I remember that it was a good one, bursting with flavour and juice, ripened to its peak and eaten at the perfect time. It had been the last one in my crisper drawer, and the next time I ventured out to Costco, they were out. I didn’t really think about it until the bananas stopped coming – the pineapple ran out long before that, and the limes. Oranges were part of the letting go of ‘normal’ process; collateral damage for Canadians, what with our climate, and needing to prioritize food supply growing over luxury items.

It’s almost time for Christmas. I applied early for my travel pass to see my out-of-province family, and I’ve worked from home for the last two weeks to avoid catching anything. I scan my temperature from the app on my phone, and take calming deep breaths while I wait for the report in my email with the seal of medical approval I need to leave town.

37.5C, perfect. Just as it has been every day for the last two weeks, lucky for me. My new car can just about drive itself. Cars got so cheap this year; mechanics shut down their work crews to meet gathering requirements, and were needed for more vital services than auto repairs. Companies axed those workloads, so the sellers stepped in with slashed prices to make ends meet. It’s been like that with a lot of things, I guess. We were pretty lucky: our governments, banks, and companies just paused. People who were needed at work, healthcare, grocers, RCMP went, and everyone who could work from home did. Eventually farms and greenhouses and ranches started running that way, too, as they became essential services. But most of us – we paused. It had to be that way – the riots in a few countries were awful, almost worse than the virus itself. A few burned themselves down, first with disease and then with fire to manage the bodies.

It was like that lots of places, but not here. We had supplies, and we became our own suppliers again. We stayed at home, and eventually introduced this careful process for in-country travel. We’re finding medicinal supports from indigenous Canadian plants, we’ve upped our exports, mainly with cottage industry goods, and we’ve implemented basic income supports. We built a floor for people, and it helped – our tech sector and recycling and manufacturing industries have exploded. We’ve reduced the need for so much as we learned what was really vital and important. We stay home, but we stay home with art and literature and music. We stay home together.

And now we can travel again, within Canada, with permission, applications and testing precautions in place. You can’t leave the country, wouldn’t want to, even now. We still all do as much as we can from home; it’s still the best way to take care of people. The vaccines are in testing, we wait to see about their magic and their side effects. But with all that in place, I’m about to get on the highway for twelve hours and go see the sweetest three-year-old nephew you can imagine. This world is all he’s known – talking to his tiny Auntie in the box, showing me his first steps and words via Facetime, smiling his toothy grin for pictures Mom and Dad could send me.

I can’t wait to see him, to squeeze his chubby, wriggly body in a huge hug and smell his hair. No matter how amazing this 5G is, or how clear and sharp the screens have gotten, some things just don’t translate. I haven’t held him for too many months, since he was tiny and not even walking yet. I can’t wait.

I’m bringing him a jar of marmalade.