The Not So Nice Side of the Pandemic

Around five and a half months ago, a microscopic organism took a life, and with it took our freedom, privileges and forced us into a life of house arrest, better known as quarantine.

This virus, now known as COVID-19 or the coronavirus, has managed to cause a pandemic in a short period of time, confining us to our homes, giving us the family time we lacked. Along with the myths surrounding this mutation of the virus, the internet is filled with hilarious memes and people from all directions telling us to make the best of this golden opportunity and be productive.

But some of the things that have happened in this lockdown period have been unreal and plain disgusting. Something unreal would be online classes in a hope to continue our education, which has become the sole alternative, something I highly commend my teachers for. Something plain disgusting would be the extended family zoom call my family had to attend recently. Let me tell you why I think it was disgusting.

These supposed family members do not maintain contact. At all. Some of them I haven’t even met. Yet, this quarantine has turned into an excuse for them to get back into contact, pretending like they would have called us anyways.

And the racism in the world right now chills me to the core. The atrocities that are being committed need to stop. Real change needs to happen.

The first few weeks of quarantine, I was okay. I thought that it would pass. Now I’m not so sure. The world seems to be going back to normal now. It’s always nice to pretend for a while. But the truth is that things are far from normal.

I try to remain positive. I remain in contact with my closest friends. I laugh and joke with my family. But it’s not easy to maintain my facade for too long. Soon enough, I find my mind going to that dark place, the basement that has remained unexplored for the entirety of my life.

This is our lesson. A few people have destroyed our Earth, and now she is taking revenge. And we shall suffer the consequences for the crimes that we have not committed. But that is just how it is.

I hope that things get better. I really do. If you’re in this dark place like me, you’re not alone. Write your feelings down somewhere, and rip the paper afterwards. It helps.

Maybe it’s our fault. Maybe it isn’t. But we can’t do anything now other than wash our hands and pray. Pray that we wake up from this nightmare before it consumes us. Pray that things go back to normal before this becomes the new definition of normal.