It was a warm summer evening in the year 2019, when a stranger clad in a dark deathly suit walked through the streets of China, touching people here and there with his icy fingers. He was not a welcome guest but people were weak against his morbid strength. He walked with slow deliberate steps at first, but after the euphoric taste of human blood on his buds, he began to frequent more places to satiate his infinite hunger. The doctors called him 'Coronavirus'. People who came in contact with the ghastly stranger began to die a mysterious death. As the news of the inscrutable stranger reached the different parts of the world, doctors everywhere were driven into a freaky panicked state to find a cure and save people from turning into cadaverous ghostly beings before succumbing to death. The doctors warned people against Mr. Coronavirus and advised them to stay at their homes to avoid an encounter with the deathly stranger. Mr. Coronavirus had unleashed a great evil in the world that was desperate to devour the earth as a whole and a trail of mayhem followed as the stranger visited places all around the world, unhindered by any force.
Fast forward to 2021, one and a half years later, we're still locked within the confines of our homes, and we're still fighting against the new variants of the feral virus. Time seems to have slowed down. The hourglass seems to have broken since it never really runs out of time. Our lives have become like stagnant water, eerily still and a breeding ground for the virus. The virus turned from a small insignificant bruise to a festering wound in a very short time. I guess that's what happens when you leave a bruise unmonitored and untreated. With approximately 3 million deaths globally, the virus still stays as ravenous as ever with an insatiable appetite.
With the onset of the pandemic, a paradigm shift has been witnessed in the lifestyles of the people. Gone are the days when people went to their offices to work. 'Work from home' is the new normal. With the entire curriculum of schools and universities transitioning into online mode, the face of the education system has changed forever. E-commerce is the new talk of the town and is flourishing enormously. As traditional methods of barter are being defenestrated, people are finally adopting the new technologies orchestrated by the online world. The internet is literally fueling our lives right now. But if one were to look through the curtains and take a peek at the 'behind the scenes', the world will look no less than a war zone.
The apoplectic pandemic has left the world hanging by a thread. We're barely holding on. With the pandemic marauding the world, people have died and disappeared like tears in the rain. As the coronavirus sweeps the nations, infecting and killing anyone that stumbles onto it’s path, the bedside of the dying loved ones has remained abandoned. The virus has devastated otherwise healthy people, forcing families to grapple with difficult end-of-life conversations far sooner than expected, and remotely. The kind of pain and loneliness and regret that a person must suffer before death, the pain of not having your loved ones beside you, holding your hand to say goodbye, must be heart wrenching and incomprehensible.
Mr. Coronavirus seems to be waltzing throughout the world causing global lockdowns in his wake. COVID lockdown, without a doubt, is the world’s biggest psychological experiment. Now, there is literally no escape, no solace to people suffering from anxiety or depression or some other form of mental breakdown. In short, people who are quarantined are very likely to develop a wide range of symptoms of psychological stress and disorder, including low mood, insomnia, stress, anxiety, anger, irritability, emotional exhaustion, depression and post traumatic stress symptoms. All of these terms might not sound very heavy and might not appear as grave as a physical injury but they’re more toxic than any physical injury. If the disease itself couldn't harm the people, the repercussions of the elongated lockdown did the needful. Come to think of it, that was a master stroke by Mr. Coronavirus! Even when things appeared to get better and the shroud seemed to have fully lifted from the face of earth, who knew Mr. Coronavirus was lurking in the shadows waiting to cast his sinister claws towards the world again!
We, as humans, were not meant to be completely isolated. Man is called a social animal for a reason. We are surrounded by a very divergent group of people. And many of us face predicaments to such sudden shifts in lifestyle no matter how anti-social one is. Depression and other mental illnesses love inertia- one negative feeling can be synthesized and it’s force tripled to create a domino effect. It becomes harder to get out of bed, harder to talk to someone as one enters their own safe shell; becomes harder to be yourself. Yes, social distancing is imperative for the general health and safety of others but there is a need to be just be a little kinder than you think you need to be, to yourself and to others.
When I think about it, Mr. Coronavirus is baleful and selfish but he's not biased. He doesn't discriminate. That makes him different from humans. He doesn't care if he touches a rich man or a poor man. He treats the migrant labourers and the rich businessmen in the same way. But after Mr. Coronavirus has infected them, they do not get the same treatment or rather they cannot afford the same treatment. It's essential that we understand and acknowledge our privilege and help ease the load of those who require help. We're witnessing one of the deadliest pandemics in the history of mankind and Mr. Coronavirus will always be remembered as that unwanted guest who lingered in our homes like a parasite lives off our hoard. Even after vaccination drives taking place all around the world, who knows what other machinations he has planned in his diabolical mind?
Dear readers, slip of a wise woman- do not try to be adventurous and enter the unknown territory conquered by 'You-Know-Who'. For our own sake and for the ones that love us, let's take care of our health and focus on spreading happiness for the deluge of sorrow is painful and unending but bit by bit, through love and kindness, we can get out of this labyrinth of pain.
Gauri Shukla
President
Redstockings Literary Society
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