Farewells in these times, much like everything else, are rather strange. They have been reduced to thin, insubstantial things, transmitted through a screen and the reedy sound of small speakers. Confined to the square of dim light in front of me, work colleagues are just small squares arranged neatly like a panel game, their faces distorted by the angle of their cameras. This one here has her camera to one side so all I can see is her pale cheek and the tip of her ear poking through the loop of her hair. This one down here in the bottom left corner, he has extremely large headphones that fill the screen and seem to squeeze his head down into a permanent frown of concentration.

It is odd and uncomfortable and awkward and, so, in its own way, it is just as farewells should be. The person who is leaving, she is sitting rather still, her eyes fixed on some unseen point just below us and for a moment I wonder if her camera has frozen, or her internet has been whipped away, but then I notice the slight movement of her thumb, it is lightly stroking her cheek, where her hand is cupping her chin. Someone else is speaking, saying words of thanks and farewell. It is perhaps unfortunate, or perhaps its just a consequence of these online meetings, but they seem to speak in an even, disinterested way and their eyes are not looking at the camera but seem to be reading from something to the left of their screen. It makes it no different to all the previous agenda items, just another bit of business, though done at the closing of the meeting like the piece of lightness added to the end of the news when the newsreader switches on her smile and says ‘and finally …’.

The speech is over and the person who is leaving says something but her sound is muted and she is looking away from her camera, off into the room and by the time she sees the chat messages and hears people tell her she’s on mute, she has said whatever she wanted to say and all we get is the repeat, summarised into a general thank you and best wishes. The meeting comes to an end seconds later, people waving blurring, large hands at their cameras and the screens blink out one by one. I switch off my camera and the room I’m in is quiet, still here as it has been for the many days of this past year of pandemic.

With a slight twinge of selfish guilt, I wonder about my own leaving, due in a few months time. It would be easy to be tempted into self pity, to start to think about the years and years of work that may get marked by a few minutes of thanks on a stuttering video call (and not even a pocket watch). But I don’t fall into that trap because I don’t feel it that way. And anyway, I was paid for those years of work. Any sadness I feel is not self pity – it is the sadness of leaving people. I have called them colleagues, though – and I wouldn’t admit this to many – some have probably been more as friends.