The sports teams fled the sports capital of the world. The cafes closed in the world's coffee mecca. The doors will shut - again - on Lygon Street.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The trains might run on time, for the first time since the last lockdown.
My heart bleeds for Melbourne.
My heart bleeds for the teachers who'll be forced to teach from home again, for the students who have to learn from home again.
My heart bleeds for the children too young to understand, for the parents who have to explain they did nothing wrong and sometimes life just isn't fair. For parents with newborn children, unable to see their parents, their support network.
My heart bleeds for people who live at home on their own, who won't see another person aside from the person on the checkout for the next three weeks. For the people trapped at home with abusive partners, kids with fighting parents.
My heart bleeds for the businesses which will shut. It won't be the big ones run by fat cats - they'll be right, they always are - it'll be the mum and dad businesses, created with blood, sweat and tears, which go under.
My heart bleeds for the friends who lose jobs, careers, degrees, dreams, lives.
Six weeks. Forty-two days. Melbourne has going back into lockdown, just as there was light at the end of the tunnel - we thought you were seeing the end, not an oncoming train.
A lot of Victorians are mad. They wanted someone to blame. Daniel Andrews. Security guards. Families who flaunted restrictions, people who didn't isolate. In a shock twist, Pauline Hanson wanted to blame poor people and immigrants.
Maybe there's no-one to blame. Maybe we can't control absolutely everything - maybe we can't have a vice-like grip on literally every single thing that happens.
Maybe - and bear with me here - human beings are fallible, and when you try and get 25 million of them to stick to one task, one group project, someone will trip up. Someone will fail the test. And there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.
It could have been any of us, in any part of the country - and looking at numbers in NSW over the next few days, there's every chance we could be next.
All we can do is pick up the pieces.
The border is shut, for the first time in 100 years, like this is the demilitarised zone on the 38th parallel, not the brown, tepid, meandering Murray river which splits the land in two.
I can't go home. I know I shouldn't anyway, and it's a pittance of a sacrifice to make compared to the ones Victorians are making, but it still hurts.
Melbourne shuts back down, and my heart bleeds for the city I used to call home.
DO YOU WANT MORE ORANGE NEWS AND SPORT?
- Receive our free newsletters delivered to your inbox, as well as breaking news alerts. Sign up below ...