There is an episode of the Twilight Zone, made in 1960, which is called Time Enough At Last.
It’s possibly the best-known episode of that wonderful TV show, but let’s start with a synopsis, so everyone’s on the same page.
Bespectacled bank teller Henry Bemis, played by the splendid Burgess Meredith, loves to read but is denied the opportunity. Everyone around him, including his wife and his boss, interrupts and ridicules him, and all he wants is to be left alone with his books.
One day, while Henry is hiding in the bank’s vault with a book, a nuclear attack wipes out civilization, leaving him alone with tons of reading material and… time enough at last. And let’s stop there, short of the ironic ending, just in case someone wants to avoid spoilers for a 60-year-old TV show.
That final twist aside, I’ve always envied Henry Bemis. As a misanthropic introvert with a weird hang-up about personal space and a large collection of comics and other books, I’ve fantasised about a minor illness or injury that would keep me at home long enough to read everything at least once. Now, with the arrival of COVID-19, many of us are going to understand isolation for the first time.
Let’s be clear: I’m not suggesting this virus, which is killing thousands and contributing to global economic chaos, is anything other than awful. But its effect on our society is profound, acute and unignorable. Suddenly, the introverts are the ones with the survival skills. The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Quarantined or not, we’re going to have time to kill, amid cancellations of everything from music festivals to sporting events. Yes, Netflix will be red-hot, but many of us will go straight to our bookshelves, and I invite you to join us.
One theme of that Twilight Zone episode is the danger of anti-intellectualism, as Henry is derided for reading too much. In the age of the moronic President Trump – who announced unprecedented measures to control COVID-19’s spread just two days after declaring it a “hoax” – it’s a theme that still rings true.
We’ve never had a better time to pick up a book. Time enough at last.
