Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

Once upon a time, we were all bidden to believe that we should aspire to become millionaires. Thenceforward we would all live happily ever after, isolated from our ugly sisters in a palace with high walls, private healthcare, private education and a private jet.

Then, flesh-eating monsters and a terrible plague ravaged the land. The world turned upside down.

The rulers stage-managed the crisis. They turned it into an unavoidable tragedy and filled our screens with heart-warming tales of heroism. Theirs was, in fact, a story about an unfathomably greedy system overseen by cowardly, criminally negligent leadership that placed the economy before lives.

Hands clapped extravagantly while simultaneously failing dismally to provide their ‘heroes’ with masks and capes. Casino capitalism took precedence while tens of thousands fell.

But then the people came to understand that horror films and fairy tales weren’t real life.

They began to realise that community and state were intertwined.

Instead of turning them into predatory zombies or hedonistic princesses, the pandemic turned millions of people into good neighbours.

Something – the unexpectedly thrilling and transformative force of mutual aid – took root.

Some of the people rallied. They began to tell an alternative story – one of hope and love.

Could there be a happy – or at least a radically different – ending to the story? Could the world become a better place?

The people came to believe it might be possible.

They weren’t so foolish as to imagine that they could magically make all things well. Their restless discomfort about easy answers and half-truths made them angry: angry at injustice, oppression and exploitation. At times, this made some of them despair. At times, some of them shed tears for those who suffered and (with shame) tears for themselves, even those who were comfortably cocooned.

And then it came: that dull morning when they woke and found that they had had enough.

I will give up, they told themselves, retreat to the hills, the coast, to Netflix; some place out on the edge of it all. Anywhere but here. Anything but this. Let the rich have the world for themselves; leave the less fortunate to their own devices. Much good may it do them.

At these times, others reached out their arms to comfort them and transformed their anguish into a renewed desire to seek justice, freedom and peace. Boldly.

And then, one day, it came. That morning which had always been written into their bones; that morning when they woke and found that they had had Enough! Basta!

And they rolled up their sleeves and set to once more.

They remembered that in the dark times there was also singing. They recalled that evil only prevails when it is mistaken for the norm. They reminded each other of all the good in the world.

They celebrated this. They refused to give in.

They welcomed the prospect of envisaging the world anew.

They could have succumbed – in their mostly comfortable lives – to acceptance of the grotesquely magnified gulf between rich and poor. They could have ignored the great swathes being cut through human rights; ignored the outlook of a global workforce entering unregulated, low-paid labour with prospects of reward only for a tiny minority. They could have comforted themselves that at least their own children and grandchildren would probably be okay. After all, they had property to leave to them, and social and educational capital. Their families were unlikely to be under-employed or under-pensioned. They could afford to eat decent food and avoid much of the effects of a depleted health service. And as for climate change: well, nothing they could do about that. After all, they recycled.

They could have chosen to ignore the opportunity presented by the pandemic; accepting the ‘norm’ of poverty and plenty, of dead rivers and melting glaciers. Or they could embrace the enforced pause to take stock of the priorities they wanted to carry forward.

Together they determined to continue striving for a better future.

They didn’t know precisely what was happening as the monsters, both human and pestilential, devastated the land; or where and when it would end. But they – together – recognised the possibilities offered by that astonishing time. Together those ordinary folk greeted those possibilities (not forgetting the challenges, for they were sensible people) with critical thinking, courage and hope.

They noticed that an epic conceptual awakening was happening. The homeless were under hotel roofs. Children were learning in their own way at their own speed without the threat of tests. Many had a guaranteed income. Private hospitals were being, in effect, nationalised and new ones were being constructed in weeks. People were questioning whether they really needed all that accumulated stuff.

Wildlife returned with innocence and ebullience. The air was perfumed by spring.

Many people were becoming more serious about the truth. Accurate scientific, economic, political and social information was suddenly valued. It was a matter of life and death.

They recognised that well-being wasn’t individual but social: that they could make each other sick and they could try to make each other well.

They refused to lose heart. They knew that they could not fix the entire world all at once, but that they could stretch out to affect the part of the world that was within their reach. They recognised that any small, calm thing that one person could do to help another would help. They never knew which acts might tip the critical mass to cause an enduring good. Still they persisted.

This was the time for them to light candles.