Pandemic

The pandemic came like a horror. It made soul frozen. Shyama had enough and that was the time she decided she would leave foreign land and come back to her mother land. Her piece of land to stand on and her piece of little sky over her. But like a truth pandemic cut those thoughts out and airports were closed up. No travel was possible.

Her life became hell on earth, when one of those evenings her husband returned from job from the elderly care setting. She kept everything ready for him to hand wash and bath and she saw her daughter prepare the turmeric water with all known herbs the child understood.

Shyama could not hold her tears when her husband told, the manager has assigned him alone in the Covid isolation unit and the rest had made themselves comfortable,  her husband was not an easy guy. He is a hard worker, he had very sharp knowledge but he never tried to please the then manager so she was happy when she told him. Hey I have thrown you to vultures, now see you keep that ego still.

Shyama thought it was not Amy vultures, they were elderly people who once were productive to society and now are helpless in the assisted facility. But she could not hide her fear If Covid strikes what would happen, she saw her husband take his moustache to befit the mask and now the family thrived under the canopy of fear.

Her working hours went from 8 to 16 and 20, she did not know another way, the bills has to be paid, the rent, the water, the electricity and internet and funny insurance. ..

Fear was not limited to one end, here he and his life was under the company of death and her daughter who shadowed a doctor in the dream of becoming a doctor was not out of threat of pandemic and Shyama herself was.

Her husband would say, today we lost him, referring to some patient he knew from the time he started working there. Tomorrow he would say another number. The virus acted like annihilation point and people died not even letting space to the funeral homes to function.

Cladded in safety barriers life became so different for all healthh workers and the pain infiltrated soul when, those health workers were affected, many front line leaders giving way to covid.

There was no medicine, no vaccine no enough mask or barrier clothing not even gloves were sufficient. No one knew how to stop the virus.

An year went on so, before the vaccine, she was affected, she struggled to breathe, Her body suffered immense pain. All she did was isolate herself, praying her kid and husband would be safe.

When fever spiked Shyama would think of husband struggling in the real covid unit and she would pray let him have the longevity that is written in my name.

The manager of that setting kept him work there for an year and more.This is a foreign land, there is no freedom of speech or even thought here, all he could do was keep himself safe.

The three of them contributed their life and soul for better cause and her husband and daughter were affected after the vaccine came out. ..while shyama had gone through the second wave, affecting her again.

Covid was a realization, a scenario where people showed their real faces and hidden nature's in the face of death...there was no friends, no great relationships all were under the seige of fear. People walked with masked faces, never letting any one come closer. Quarantine made trauma look grey and black. Death roamed around roads. But as a family Shyama stood it and she adored her husband who was just brave and profoundly kind to his patients and work.

Covid pandemic. ..made world a better or bad place, she could not yet comprehend