Politicians insist that lockdown under coronavirus is like the experience of wartime. It’s not – except in one way, which I’ll come to. It’s so quiet, for one thing. War is noisy. Sirens, soldiers tramping past singing, Luftwaffe engines in the night sky.

What he liked, his mother absolutely wouldn't like, and since it had been his bright idea for Conchita to come over so that she might finally meet his mother, an idea that, as soon as it was broached, developed an alarming weight of regret, regret so heavy he found himself unable to put the phone back in the cradle and instead dropped it on the floor, where it twirled and twirled on its coily black cord, and now that she was standing in his mother's kitchen looking not at all like a ten-dollar hooker but more like a two-dollar one, Sonny felt gut-shot, or maybe run over by a bus.

The third Day in the Morning, the Wind having abated over Night, the Sea was calm, and I ventur'd; but I am a warning Piece again to all raſh and ignorant Pilots; for no ſooner was I come to the Point, when even I was not my Boat's Length from the Shore, but I found my ſelf in a great Depth of Water, and a Current like the Sluice of a Mill: […]

Gray wolves, red foxes, raccoon dogs, lynx and boars all reside in the exclusion zone, as do endangered Przewalski’s horses, which were introduced to the area about two decades ago.