Covid-19's leg up for Cupid

You are asked what is the good side of Covid-19, as in relate a positive story. Besides the obvious of someone you know being cured, would you have one?

I do. A friend of mine has been troubled the last few months because his son was swimming in rough marital waters. He and his wife were heading straight for a divorce and had even hired a lawyer. Not yet modern enough or liberated enough to take the shards of a broken marriage in their stride, the larger family wallowed in the liquid stigma of the shame. I had comforted him on occasion with trite cliches but they had become threadbare.

The arrival of Covid-19 on the scene and the subsequent lockdown in India prevented the papers from being filed. Thrown together in the same home, neither able to escape the other, they made a pact to see it through with mutual civility. Their word, says my friend. Cold and clinical.

After the first few days of forced camaraderie they became tentative buddies. Talked issues. Became counsellors to their friends and started a small entrepreneurial business in sanitation gift packs or something. By the second month they brought laughter into the mix and discovered that each other weren't so bad after all. As they read of (and viewed) the stress levels globally and the agony that people were suffering their own self-indulgent battles sounded trivial. Almost foolish, and one night they were playing dumb charades on Zoom with friends and they won the match or something, and they decided that for now the lawyers were out of it. Let's stop their retainers.

So, simultaneously, they called up the legal eagles and snipped their wings. One lawyer suggested this was temporary and brought on by the unmatched oddness that is currently marking the world. If you feel like going for it once things are normal, he said, call me but my charges will be higher.

The divorce papers now lie in a box. They haven't torn them but they have locked the box with two locks and each has one key.

Says my friend, it might work, for now the larger family is disappointed the scandal hasn't brewed.they were so looking forward to commiserating.