Monica West

After we are together
I can still smell you for a while
My soul floats like a feather

As miles grow between us again
I usually get a little blue
And once again the daydreams begin

Your smell, your taste, your face
I want to remember everything
Looking at my body covered in your trace

Until we get back to each other
I want you to know how much I think of you
My dear, sweet, tender lover

Leaving the straight surety of roads, they took to the path between the trees and wound their way deep into the heart of the forest. An uncountable number of greens created a canopy above them. They found their nesting spot right on the edge of the lake. The bank was thick with moss and the water reflected its deep green in the final hours of light.

They set up camp, moving around each other with perfect synchronicity, moving like birds entwined in a lover’s dance. The spot was void of others and full of stillness, something they appreciated. They lit the fire and whilst the embers burned white hot and the sparks danced around like firefly’s they lay down together and anticipated the stars.

When the sky was finally inky black they left their clothes and slid into the cool water. Their bare skin came up with goosebumps. The stars were determined and lit their upturned faces and in their light they swam to the very centre of the lake. They floated for some time, hands entwined, looking up and feeling lost together.

He pulled her over to him when he couldn’t wait any longer and held her naked body pressed to his, heat building between them. Her lips were cold but he soon warmed them and with each moment their kissing deepened. She felt him harden against her stomach and this made her melt into him even more. Soon she couldn’t distinguish her own limbs for his and their bodies from the water. They melted and flowed, ebbed into each other.

He carried her back to the bank and laid her within the soft moss. He moved his lips down every inch of her, pausing, teasing, licking until her breathing left him unable to wait any longer and he tasted her. She moaned and felt as if she fell deeper into the moss as he brought her to ecstasy. After she came she turned and he entered her from behind, taking her hands in his and pushing them both deeper into the mossy bank, as one.

The stars glistened in her hair and he wrapped his arms all the way around her, holding her closer than ever. Before the end came she turn to kiss him again and he came hard inside her. Their eyes met and it felt as if the whole world was just them right there. They lay panting together, hearts beating in perfect rhythm, taking up space in the others chest.

Soon they return to the blanket and warmed themselves by the fire. He held her and kissed her deeply, always wanting more. In the morning, limbs tangled and the stars in bed, a misty pink fog parted to unveil a wide antlered deer. They watched him sniff the air before his slow walk disappeared him back into the forest.

When all is still and quiet, when hearts beat as one and breathing falls in time, when sense of self is lost and there is only us, it is everything.

I can't stand your eyes
They used to be my home
A place I'd look for reassurance
Now we stand together alone

But when you look at me
I see I broke your heart
And your eyes are no longer home
They represent something that fell apart

It's hard to know that all the hurt is because of me
I broke my own heart too
Sadness I have caused with no capacity to fix
As one we are now two

I feel like I've betrayed you, and me, and us and it
All I have left to say is I'm sorry
Even if it's right, it doesn't make it easy
All these emotions that I must bury

I'm not sure what my eyes give away
I try to keep my gaze low
Wondering, what are they saying to you?
An answer I no longer have the right to know
 

The salty sea air clung to her body as she stepped barefoot through the grass. He was already waiting for her, there on the edge of the water. He didn’t see her approach but didn’t jump when he felt her lips press against his shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and they returned to a single entity once again.

He turned and the moon was reflecting in her eyes, so clearly, as if it was buried deep within her and not millions of miles away. She smiled and fireworks danced between their warm bellies. It had only been a few hours since they had last been together but even a moment away would build up a yearning, for her lips to be returned to his.

He laid her down on the sand and she glowed in the soft blue night. He began touching her everywhere, lightly at first, not wanting to miss an inch of her skin. He took her face in his hands and their kissing deepened, his hand trailed down her stomach and between her legs. His mouth soon followed, and he finally tasted her again. And again. Her eyes rolled back, and he continued seeking her out until the tide came in.

They laughed at the interruption and before they knew it, found themselves holding hands and running out into the sea. Their clothes left behind. He picked her up, taking her breasts in his mouth and slid inside her. He was so firm that she growled and clung to him harder, pushing him deeper inside. He felt her become wetter and together they moved as one. They continued to grind on each other until they came together. Two souls alone in the middle of the night sea.

They slept under a lonely palm with sand in their eyes until the morning broke open like a golden yolk spilling across the horizon.

What have we for tea?

Girl dinner, crate of stella

Let's us dance all night

I could tell she was drunk as soon as she came in. She wasn’t a sloppy drunk by any means, just a really mean one. Meaner than usual. I expected her to go in for the state of the flat, which was pristine might I add, finding some invisible spec of dirt and looking me up and down as she made a big show of washing her hands.

She steamrolled through the place, opening every door with a bang and surveying, but she didn’t really say anything. Somewhat unnerving.

I went into the kitchen to make us both a drink, Frank Ocean was playing but it would take more than that to soothe me.

Ice, vodka, tonic, lemon. For her.

Beer can, no glass. For me.

We settled down with the others and the conversation spread between the group like a drop of ink in water. Talking, pleasantly enough. Until it wasn’t.

“Good god, what is THAT!” She exclaimed. I jumped, thinking a spider the size of a cat must have run across the sofa cushion.

“No, no that there”, she was pointing at me. Was this thing on me?

“No your arm pits, what the hell looks like you’re hiding a gerbil under there. What’s that about?”

Ah.

Shouldn’t have worn the tank top.

Having been so comfortable, content and accepted in my home for so long I completely forgot her aversion for body hair. This was a big mistake.

“I just don’t get why you don’t look after yourself better, you must stink. What must people think when they see you in the gym? Do you not feel dirty? I would, but then again, I got all that lasered off years ago so I don’t worry anymore.”

“But YOU. What person is every going to marry you with THAT.”

They all looked so awkward. Clearly some had noticed already but hadn’t or didn’t want to mention it. I’m sure they would have a good laugh later.

Just breathe. Just think 1, 2, 3, 4 tell me that you love me more.

“Well,” I said.

I don’t find the hair offensive and in fact none of my partners have either. No it doesn’t smell, because funnily enough I wear deodorant, that still works, even though there is hair. I don’t feel dirty because I shower every day, even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t smell that bad, nothing beyond not having hair. It doesn’t bother me, I don’t even think about it. It saves me time in the shower and I haven’t had sore armpits or eczema there since I started. I’m at peace with my body and I feel comfortable with myself and in my own skin.

I think people just really aren’t used to seeing women’s armpits with hair. I get it might come as a shock. I’m not trying to prove a point or be this big ‘man hating feminist’. I am just content with me and myself, and this is part of that.

I shouldn’t have to explain aspects of my body to you. I shouldn’t have to walk you through my selfcare and grooming. It’s personal and if it offends you, then you’re the one that needs to look in the mirror, more than I do.

Finally, I’m not doing it to be attractive or provide a point as I mentioned, I’m just content with myself as I am.

And it’s not that I don’t get it, I remember being younger and hearing that ‘French women’, were ‘hairy’ and even from that young I was immediately influenced. When I hit puberty and a whisper of hair appeared I took a razor to my tiny young self and removed all traces. Do you not think that’s weird? I mean I could get into a whole infantilising women debate… later.

But of course, I didn’t say any of that, I just shrugged and put a sweater on. I’m not ready for this battle today.

Your fear, not of war, corruption and disaster, is but of my body, my choice, my armpits, it all comes down to this.

My razor is as blunt as your stunt to embarrass me.

“They should take their antipsychotics and walk!”

There is something so beautiful about walking through the streets of London and overhearing people’s conversations. Small snippets, excerpts, tales, lies and windows into the soul. How much can you understand about a person based on one small phrase you overhear? Very little really.

Imagine this gentleman, aged 60, white, well-dressed. A ‘city boy’. “They should take their antipsychotics and walk!” Now to what could he be referring to?

Perhaps he does work in The City – yes that’s it, a wanker banker – and after a hard and long day doing soulless work he decided to unwind with some colleagues and head out to a bar. Five gin and tonics and a bump of coke (just the one it’s Wednesday) later and he has to head home to “catch the last train or the wife will kill me”. He stops off for a greasy burger that he will punish himself in the gym for the next morning. Just makes the train, jumping between the doors right as the whistle blew. Phew.

The train is packed, taking the scours leaving London late back to the outskirts where they had migrated to as they’d grown older and decided to settle down. He eats the burger too quickly, burps and turns to his phone. With that comes some huffing and puffing and a giant man collapses down next to, and on top of, him.

Excuse me mate he says, but no, this guy isn’t just drunk and leaning a little too far over the seat. He’s huge! Bloody whale! His sides spilling over, crushing the man against the side of the train, his angry face inches from the window. Dark and rainy London glares back.

"How could anyone let themselves get that fat!" He exclaimed as he regaled the tale to the well suited and booted team that were on their way to lunch the next day.

“Well” piped up one of those rotating interns, Fred or Will or Jamie. “Many people say really fat people have mental health disorders.”

Scoffs the group.

“Well… They should take their antipsychotics and walk!”

He brushes shoulders with a young woman, her presence doesn’t register with him at all.

But his does with her, his sentence. It sent her mind wandering.

I was walking down the snicket in the rain. I was hungover and I didn’t have an umbrella, or even a jacket. It was one of those unprecedented summer showers that pass quickly, like dairy does through me. I just had a rucksack of crumpled clothes from a weekend of partying with friends and strangers. I was 17 and I was glorious.

Walking in the rain with my arms out, getting completely and utterly soaked right through to my knickers, my bones and my soul.

I felt so elated, so free in that moment, more than I ever have or probably ever will again.

What was rare, and so beautiful to me now, was that usually in such moments of being young like this you don’t realise how special they are until much later. But right there and then in that moment I really knew.

Sometimes I wish I could encapsulate moments like this in a bauble or a snow globe, so I could shake it and see it and feel it again. It would be much better than relying on the inconsistencies of memory.

When something has made me feel small I unearth this memory. I felt so big, bigger and brighter than the sun. It somehow always remains a source of energy for me. A never ending battery to which, as hard as I try to drain, never fails to provide me with hope.

I remember people driving past me, their concerned faces staring out. In that 10-minute walk from the train to my house, I was glorious.

Fiction is rooted in truth you know.

I fucking know that, don’t you think I fucking know that.

Well why do you think she wrote it then? Is it about you?

I don’t know, but it’s suspiciously close.

Did you read the end?

Yes.

Well?

What?

What did you think of the end?! Where the ‘character’ (YOU) is... you know! Are you going to speak to her about it?

No.

Why not, you could sue?

I don’t care, it’s not true and no one will connect it to me.

I don’t know… it’s pretty obvious to me, your names even start with the same letter.

Oh shut the fuck up do you think I give an actually fuck about it? About her pathetic little stories? Do you think I even think about her on a day-to-day? That anything I consume makes me think of her? I haven’t thought about her stupid name, face, body in 10 years. I couldn’t give less of a shit about it.

Sounds like you do a little bit.

Why bring this up after all this time, that’s what I don’t understand. I thought it was all dead in the water?

I don’t know, maybe she just needed to get it off her chest to feel better.

Isn’t it amazing how one day someone could encapsulate your whole world, block out the sun, and the next you can hardly envision the sound they make when they cum?

Life is long I guess.

Yeah.

You going to read it?

…probably.

Me too. Will let you know what I think.

Likewise. I don’t care though.

Sure.

I don’t!

The Earth revolves and she returns on the horizon, in a blaze of glory! Ready to fuck up your life once again.

But this time I know what I’m in for.

No one can prepare you for the way people hold your heart without your consent.

There was only one way to get rid of the body. File it. File it all down until it was a big pile of dust. 

She took the metal file to his teeth, as she thought it was a good starting point. Still, they took much longer than she thought and the noise was terrible. Once the teeth were dust she was tired and felt quite sick. She didn’t think she could face anymore. Or face his filed face. She stood up and brushed herself down, pocketed the file and decided to close up shop for the night, she could leave him here in the middle of the floor, no one would find him, the cleaner wouldn’t be back until Monday morning, so she had the whole weekend to finish the work.

"Now you’re not going to get in anyone’s way here now are you." He didn’t reply, but I’m sure if he could have it would have sounded rather strange coming from his toothless, dust filled mouth.

Pulling on her coat and grabbing her rucksack she flipped the lights off, locking the door behind her without looking back. Two slices of toast with peanut butter later and she finally looked at her phone. No new messages remarkable enough to mentioned so she flicked to the news. He was still the number one story, she flicked through to see if they had provided any updates. They didn’t seem to know shit, but they wouldn’t probably make the public aware of any decent intel. She’d have to lay low for a while. That was fine she always was more of a night owl.

What was the point of all this just to file him away? It was the principle really, she was sick, sick, sick of seeing his smug face. Every day the first face she saw in the morning and the last one she’d she at the end of the day. He made her feel judged, like she didn’t belong until finally she snapped and she decided to literally wipe that smile off his face for the last time. Literally.

The next evening, she headed back to the studio and continued her work. This time she went for a limb. The arm took hours and weirdly the fingers really made her cringe. Especially the thumb, it was thick. After that she decided she was done for the day.

By the end of it, it took her three weeks to turn him from man to dust. His torso was so thick to work through. Filing away his penis didn’t give her quick the gratification she had hoped for either. Once all she was left with was dust, she tried a few different techniques to remove it and spread it across the city. She tried the old shake it out your trouser leg technique from the Great Escape, but that was somewhat of a disaster. The dust stuck to her sweaty legs and she had to go home and shower him off of her, as she had mentally many times before.

He was still fairly prominent in the news, the rumour mill was running. There were stories he’d been seen in Italy, on the train to France, tucked under a bridge in Amsterdam. The uni of course too was full of gossip and people lay flowers on his spot. Pathetic. She stayed out of the chatter and got back to her work.

But what to do with the rest of him. She had been contemplating using different mediums for her work. Hiding him in plain sight. Would that be too crazy. As if filing him down to dust wasn’t enough already. Ah fuck it why not. Using a glue foundation, she added crumbs of him until it became a thick paste, that she coloured with pinks and reds and started smearing it onto a canvas. Now this was satisfying, much more satisfying that filing him down. Now he was the work that he mocked, that he looked down upon. He was inadequate.

When she took the finished piece in for assessment, she was surprised by how it was received. Her professor loved it so much he said he wanted to include it in the end of year art exposition. He gave her a piece of card and told her to write down its name, her name and what it was made of. Now how on the nose could she be here… Name: From dust to dust Materials: glue, paint, chalk(?) innocent enough.

The art show was in his name, of course, so it seemed right he was centre of it all. She smiled to herself, her little secret. He was a guest at his own funeral.

She was exhausted when she got home, after a day of smiling and shaking hands and congratulations. In front of the TV, she was keen for a bit of self-care. Rustling around in her bag she eventually found the file and started shaping her nails into little angry points, before painting them red. But the file was big and metal. Quite frankly it was blunted by her previous weeks work. 

Her nails snapped. She sighed and went to bed.

The devil was after me.

As a climbed the concrete steps I didn’t realise this would be last breath of fresh air, moment on the outside, with the hum of the city warming my bones. I didn’t pause to appreciate it, as you don’t when you don’t realise it’s the last time.

Well no, you’re right, I’m clearly not dead, but I haven’t been able to leave since. Oh please don’t go yet friend, I do hope I haven’t offended you. Please, let me share this story with you, maybe you will be able to pass it on to the authorities and help me get out. Alas I doubt anyone would be able to find this specific gallery, it travels, searching for its visitors, rather than the other way around. It’s flyers falling into the letterboxes of those it calls to.

The party I entered with was large, there were 12 of us. Now I’m the only one left. Well, that’s not technically true. I’m the only one left with my own mind. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

When we entered the gallery, on masse, we were greeted by a creature more fingernails than woman. Long and green she pressed the admission tickets into our hands and her nails snaked up and round the corner, pointing us towards room one.

How I wish I knew then friend, that room one is now the place I mostly reside. It’s the furthest away from...

It contains three paintings and one sculpture of a slinky dog, rather impressive, the detail of each coil in clay. I’ve named it Ricky.

There are six rooms in total, room three is where it all went wrong.

The group began to split up from the off, as people do when they explore art. Some standing the read the little captions and some stepping back to appreciate something. I love how to people can notice such different things about a painting. How for one it can touch a soul and for another merely receive a passing glance of unimportance. Without registration or remembrance intended.

Room three was significantly colder than room two. It’s only painting at the far end, with a hemp curtain hanging before it with a split down the middle. You had to part the curtain to truly see the paining itself. I was ever wandering too slowly, caught up in the naked depiction of a woman as if in the shower, but behind the setting of an office building. Everyone in the window of the opposite office was gawking at her, whilst she remained to apparently not to notice them.

After contemplating the prospect of showering naked before strangers for quite a few moments I blinked and broke the spell and moved on.

Enter room three, goosebumps, nipples harden.

I remained behind the curtain, but I could see each other my friends standing all together in a line, totally captured by it.

I shrugged. I’ll come back when there were fewer people around. I snaked through rooms four, five and six before popping back out… into room one. I must have missed the exit somewhere.

With that a terrible hand wove its way around the corner of the door to room three. My name was called, as if from far away. Calling me over to come and view the painting behind the curtain. The figures of my friends through the hemp mesh had morphed into fat slimy small little gooey lumps, welded to the spot. They all were twisting with the eyes blazing at me, willing me to join them.

The gooey oompa loompas. They squeeze themselves through the curtain, pressing themselves like jelly through a sieve. Calling to me, telling me to come and see the painting.

“Fuck that”

I run, I run, looping through the rooms again and again. Dodging the glops. I can’t find a door, can’t even find something to hide behind. Can’t find the fingernails. It’s just me, a group of sparse paintings and a vortex to what I know now to be hell itself.

Now I spend my time avoiding room three at all costs. I just wander. The room is stuck, never refilling with new victims. This group hasn’t been completed, there remains one unindoctrinated outlier. The room has trapped itself, failing to trap me. Now we stand still together. I guess I’ll just wait it out. Exploring the paintings and sculptures in each room. Until they are burnt into my retinas.

I guess when I’ve had enough, I’ll go see what horrors lie behind the curtain. Until then, I’m just waiting here. So please friend, do let me know if you manage to get me some help in any way. The globs are terribly short of conversation and there’s only so much arguing with myself I can stand.

Do let me know, won’t you.

They arrived at the festival early, few twenty something years old rise before 8am if necessary. They’d made the effort. Been caught out with queues and sunstroke before. Something great about getting older, hindsight... well some of the time. They’d got packing down to a fine art, everything they needed down to the last biscuit, pair of socks and bag of ket. Because they were early they found an ideal spot to set up. Their trusty two man pop up was up in seconds and they both cheers’d with a semi warm can, not before both slurping up some water. Hydration was key. 

Although the live music acts didn’t start until the next day, they heard there might be some form of entertainment on this evening and they were keen to get involved. Around 4pm they wandered into the main arena and found themselves, and the other early birds, gathering inside a small tent. They went in and sat down on the floor. Someone had put down wooden flooring so it made them forget for a second that they were inside a tent and not a house. It was bohemian, to say the least, that pop up festival vibe with vines and coloured clothes and the odd wooden floor. At the front stood a woman in a colourful dress. At first it appeared to have a psychedelic design on the stomach before they realised the dress was actually cut out and protruding from the woman’s stomach was a small green pumpkin. 

The atmosphere was buzzing with the excitement of a hundred people ready to let their inhibitions and jaws swing wide this weekend. All eyes on the pumpkin. The woman began speaking with a bell like voice, expressing her journey of pregnancy and into motherhood. As she spoke, and as they went on her journey with her, she swapped out pumpkins for larger and larger ones until she held a pumpkin double the size of a football inside her smock. As she got to the end of her tale, she drew back a curtain and revealed the largest pumpkin they’d ever seen. The pumpkin itself resembled a wide and wet vagina. The woman then proceeded to push both herself and her own pumpkin stomach through the larger pumpkin. She was reborn. 

And they laughed about it all weekend, and every Halloween to come.

He’d said 30 minutes 30 minutes ago. Sometimes he was on time but usually she ended up sitting up for hours, waiting. It’s not like she could do anything about it though, not as if it was a regular service with online reviews and stars for him to care about. The power was in his hands really, so she waited.

The night was restless, an ambulance went roaring past and the pub garden at the end of the road thrummed exceptionally loud for a Wednesday night. The flat was quiet, with the rolling sound of the washing machine carrying away the sick stains of the day.

Back to the time thing though, time was of the essence. The longer time went on the sicker he got, again. The pain crept back over him and the sickness returned. She pulled her hangnail down too far as she fell trapped into this thought cycle once again. The pain snapped her out of it, that’d be sore for a while.

He’d be quiet, hopefully it'd continue. If he could sleep through, then the morning would be tough but the stuff was usually good and it would kick in again pretty quickly. A fleeting window of sickness and a little bit of pain. A lot.

Where is he. Another 15 minutes.

She got up and padded around the living room, starting a hangnail on the next finger along. She’d have no fingers left at this rate. She was sat with all the lights off, unsure why really, not as if the neighbours could know what she was up to just because she had the lamp on, but it made her feel better. The nights in London didn’t tend to be that dark anyway. She wondered when the next time she saw stars again would be, real ones, and not just the ones that appeared in her vision at the end of the working day when she was starving again. But getting by on the one meal meant she could get him off being sick for a while longer without putting them both in jeopardy with their money situation. With the ‘cost of living crisis’ and her salary not taking into account his sickness.

She opened her book before realising the light pollution probably wasn’t quite enough to be able to read without the lights on, so she shut it again. She wasn’t enjoying it much anyway, another book club one. She liked the club just not the book - at least this month.

A car pulled down the street, this could be it. She twitched the curtains like some nosey neighbour. The headlights went by. He wasn’t here yet. Another 15 minutes.

It was the guilt. The moment his eyes started to glaze, she could tell the pain was talking to him louder than she ever could. That’s when the next wave of guilt would land on her, as if she was a disappointment of a shore. But nothing else worked as well as this, and it was fine when she had a couple of stocks of it, but she couldn’t always be this organised. So sometimes she had to wait. Another 10 minutes.

It's not as if she could just rock up in any pharmacy or doctor’s office and pick it off the shelf.

Does the logic of criminality apply to situations in which someone is so sick? If they can't make it through without something the law says they shouldn't be able to obtain? Especially when it's addictive. 

I can't find the humanity in leaving them only to death or incarceration.

What is a recommendation?

The start of something. A call from one soul to another. A sense of connection. A knowing. An understanding. Conveying a meaning hoping to be reciprocated. Showing off your taste. Showing a love for their taste. Showing off that you know their taste. Knowing them. Knowing you. New relations. Old friends.

Or just a simple suggestion without any depth or meaning beyond all this.

Have you been the fool, to put yourself so wholly into finding meaning behind it, when it goes no deeper than a passing thought.

As I sat down to make my first call, I felt like I was about to be some kind of cupid but instead of delivering love notes I was delivering praise and thanks to and from colleagues in community pharmacy.

The year has been hard, for us all, but there’s a certain group of people that has faced these ‘unprecedented times’ on the front line and without much national recognition or thanks.

The reason why I was calling them was to provide just this. When people think of a pharmacy, they may see the bright shiny pharmacist at the forefront but fail to see the many people propping them up and who without the pharmacy would be unable to run.

Until two years ago I had not considered the role of pharmacy staff and I think that now my eyes have been open to them, there is a significant lack of representation and respectability for them.

Between January and June 2021, I called over 100 individuals and team representatives to talk about the hard work they have done in the past year. In the years previously I have heard incredible stories, but this year was of course different.

To begin with, the sense of humbleness that usually led to a lack of wanting to share about their hard work because it was ‘just their job’ was instead replaced by a sense of pride. We have done this. We have stayed open. We have taken on more. We worked longer hours. We came together – because we had to.

Still when asked, each person found the question why do you think you should win an award a difficult one. They struggled to disassociate themselves as individuals because they work so closely as a team. The resounding message was, I have worked hard this year, but so has everyone in pharmacy and I don’t know what more I have done than anyone else. I personally don’t know much about the communication between pharmacies, but they certainly had a lot to say about their UK-wide colleagues and strangers.

As many have told me, GP surgeries around them closed their doors, almost tripling in some cases the number of items being requested from pharmacies and more importantly leaving pharmacies to answer a mounting number of anxieties and concerns about patients' medicines that they had never even met before.

The sound of a ringing telephone really sets the scene and I think provides a cold and unnerving backdrop to most pharmacies in the UK still even now. I myself have often struggled to get through on the pharmacy line, with many providing me with their mobile numbers to free up the line as quickly as possible.

I think what has struck me the most is that pharmacy teams are still battling and only when I, a complete stranger on the other end of the phone, has stopped to say tell me about it have they given themselves a chance to think. This has led to a lot of emotions, exacerbations and tears and these people look back on what they had to do and are still doing. And whether this was to protect their own wellbeing and perhaps I unleashed something I shouldn’t have, I do hope that rather than a Pandora’s box situation I provided a momentary release, listening ear and comfort to someone who has been through it.

What makes me personally feel the most emotional, is the continued sense of positivity in each story. Of course, there were people who had more negative attitudes and just about every single person told me it had been hard, difficult, exhausting, relentless. But. They told me that they had done it and are still doing it. They have continued to fight and as always in pharmacy, as a team and not as individuals.

And as I felt like I have conducted my own unintentional oral history of life in pharmacy on the frontline throughout the pandemic it has made me very humbled too. It has truly been a privilege to speak to every single one of these people, from delivery drivers to accuracy checking technicians, dispensing assistants, health champions, non-pharmacist managers and counter assistants. Countlessly their day-to-day and care for the people in their communities has impressed me. So I want to say thank you, I see you, I appreciate you.

And now I ask you all really, to think a little extra about the people behind the counter, in the back and doing the deliveries. Before you get mad at the system, see the individual before you. Humanise your vision.