Death becomes her
It got me, the swine! I never thought it would. How arrogant of me. Anyway, as it turns out it’s not that sexy.
My hips ache like they did in pregnancy, my shoulders feel like they belong to an osteoarthritic octogenarian, and I coughed so hard last night I thought I might be sick. Most onerous of all: my chin hairs are out of control. There’s one in particular that I’ve monikered Audrey II - after the plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Every day I pluck her out and the next day she’s miraculously back again, growing like a well-fed beast. I feel the tip with my fingers — just beneath the skin, waiting to burst out, shady as fuck. Maybe it’s all the feverish blood flow to my face.
There’s a Covid stat checker thing that tells you how likely you are to be hospitalised or die. We laugh as my husband puts in the details. Ethnicity: other (not white, importantly); age: 41 (could be better, could be much worse); weight: 20lbs overweight (damn). The scores are in. Absolute risk of dying from Covid: 1 in 75,923. Absolute risk of being hospitalised: 1 in 1040.
Erm.
This was all fun and games a few minutes ago but I have to admit, I was hoping for better numbers. If I’m completely honest, I was hoping for lighting strike levels (which incidentally is 1 in 1.2 million).
“So I have a lot less chance of being struck by lightning?!”
“Why is that what you're comparing it to?”
“I don’t know - that’s just what you compare things to. I’m about 15 times more likely to die from Covid than being struck by lightning!”
I pick up my phone and Google: ‘chances of being murdered UK’.
“I’ve got a one in 100,000 chance of being murdered! So I’m more likely to die of Covid than be murdered!”
“Yes but you’re much more likely to die in a car crash. Hang on…. One in about 110.”
“Let’s just put Succession on. I better not die before the series finishes. And you better not get another wife.”
“I’ve already got another one lined up.”
I’m not really worried about dying of Covid. Like so many things in life, it’s all about the optics, how you present the information. 1 in 75,923 doesn’t sound that reassuring (especially in comparison to good old lightning or murder). But this figure actually equates to a 0.0013% chance of me shuffling off my mortal coil — much more palatable.
The problem is, I’m human. I’m rational — but only to a point.
That bit of me that occasionally buys a lottery ticket and thinks: well, who knows ‘it could be you’ and then mentally plans how I’ll spend my millions, the bit of me that whispers “Please Mr Magpie” when I see one alone, the bit of me that physically recoils at any mention of the death of a loved one (don’t tempt fate) - that bit of me is a very real bit. It may only be about 5% of my brain; a tiny but not so silent minority. I can’t deny its existence. The moment these thoughts enter my head, the logical part of my mind — the 95% — retorts immediately, vigorously, with an abundance of exclamation marks:
You’re not superstitious! Don’t be so ridiculous — there’s no such thing as fate, you know that! Life is chaos! And you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than win the lottery! Get a grip, you hysterical maniac! Always stick with the numbers, with the science, with the facts, with truth!
And I do, I really do. But when my son says “Mummy, could you die of Covid?”, my eyes still well up at the thought. Good old 5% is back with a vivid tableau: my children at my funeral, never seeing their huge eyes again, never again hearing their beautifully insouciant questions; missing every moment of their lives, being nowhere. A sock in the wash. Lost, eternally unfindable. For a moment — a fleeting second — the 1 in 75,923 seems the most likely outcome. I’m going to die.
My daughter answers before I can: “Of course she could. Lots of people die of Covid but they’re usually much older than mummy. Mummy’s not going to die… You’re definitely not, right mummy?” Christ. I check in with 95%: “Of course not. I’m fine. I’ll be better in a couple of days. I promise.” 5% rears its head. “But will you? Is that a promise you can definitely keep? Probably shouldn’t have tempted fate…”
I’m not here to get philosophical. The battle between reason and mystical thinking has long been pontificated by (slightly) greater minds than mine. For some, the end result is the oldest story of all: God. A little further along the spectrum you’ve got the people who read ‘The Secret’; the ones who ask the universe for things, the ones who talk about ‘manifesting abundance’, the ones who look for signs (God, rebranded for the 21st century, basically). Next is where most of us sit, I think. The 95 percenters. We look at the stats, we look for incontrovertible facts, we know that superstition is ludicrous.
But look closer and you might see a peppering of magical thinking, shells in the sand, needles in haystacks. We touch wood, we pick our favourite numbers, we beg bemused magpies for mercy.
And just beyond the 95 percenters, you’ll find the special ones. The few who see the world in permanent logic-vision. Spock-like, reason superseding all else, an ability to see through all the subterfuge. Now that I think about it, I quite fancy Spock. Is there anything sexier than cold, hard, rational thinking? I could never fancy someone who counts magpies. But I digress.
I’m the worst kind, I realise as I cough like a warty crone. I want to be entirely logical. I want to quell that flame in me. The one that says “but what if I’m the 0.0013%?”
From my (death) bed, I watch my husband. He puts his socks in the wash basket and turns off the bathroom light.
“If I die, you better wear black for years and weep every day”, I say to him. “I want you to be like Queen Victoria, mourning for the rest of your life. Functioning but devastated beyond repair.”
“I’m sure you’ll live long and prosper”, he says. Or at least, that’s what I think he says. Hard to tell with a 40 degree fever.
“Whatever”, I mumble through chattering teeth. “You’ll miss me when I’m gone.”
