The year is over, almost over and I feel like I ought to say something, for I was audacious enough to crack a joke about an apocalypse in 2020.
Well, well, well, look who is the joke now?
Speaking of apocalypses,
I always wondered what it'd be like to live through one. But of course, when I
imagined apocalypse, it was more adrenaline rush and less of a, well, no rush
whatsoever. Besides, the rotting brains in my scenario were of the zombies, not
myself stuck in quarantine.
Of course, I
am just calling out on quarantine for the sake of it. My whole life has been
more or less the same. Anyway, now that the year is finally on the close, I
have but no words to express what it has been. Gradually getting worse by the
day, what hopes does the new year offer?
After all,
time is but an illusion.
I wish to
crack a joke, I really do. I wish to end this tragedy of a year on a lighter
note, but the truth is, nothing about the year was actually light.
Sure thing, it
started off as a joke. At first, it was just China's problem, you know. Damn
you China and your stupid bats. Who cared? I'll tell you who didn't, I didn't.
And then it
started seeping in. Closer, and closer and closer.
As if death
itself stood outside the door, ready for you to open it.
When it
started inching in towards us, it felt like an alternate reality, sort of a
hazy dream. But it didn't feel like a big deal even then. After all, when the
pandemics hit before, humans were ancient. We are advanced, we have the technology,
and we would magically be able to whip out a vaccine overnight.
So, when I
stood with my friends, outside the cafe, bidding them farewell, because the
institutes might close for 2 weeks and my friends asked jokingly for one last hug, I shrugged them off from a distance. 2 weeks. We've been apart longer
than that.
When the screen started flashing numbers, it started putting a little weight on my
heart. Like a brick, and soon, it was a stone and then a feather, and then
before I knew, every time, the screen flashed a number, my eyes would just go
out of focus.
Then death
started knocking on doors, loud enough for everyone to hear. Families, friends,
neighbors, it was everywhere.
The year is on
the close. The virus has evolved to the worst it has yet been.
So even though
I wish to somehow turn it into something hopeful, what am I ought to say at
this moment?
Life sure is
different now. Be it the pandemic or adulthood, whatever the cause is, the
blissful days of childhood are long over.
Time is an
illusion, and so is life.
I know the
pandemic will settle, sooner or later. Life would be set to a new normal, no
matter what it feels like at the moment.
Man was never
invincible, and he never will be. No matter how much he evolves, no matter how
advanced science may get.
Life will
carry on, for as long as it is meant to go on. But the inevitable truth now
reinforces itself in my mind. The truth that life is going to go ahead,
leaving us behind. One by one.
So, when the
year is on the close today, I stand here, far away from that frozen frame where
we all stand together, one last time.
