COVID 19 Short Story

She was staring right ahead of her. The evening wind softly blew away the loose strands of hair from her oval-shaped face. It was close to dusk and the sun began to set. A flock of birds were flying across the sky which already started to turn blue as the time passes. She did not even blink for a good one minute. Maybe she was in awe with beautiful creations before her eyes. But her mom, whom she called as “Mama”, knew that there was something bothering her. Her daughter was lost in the train of thoughts. She knew that when her daughter stares at something, eyes focused but her mind elsewhere, she was deep in her own ‘sea’.

“Mind if I sit here?” She tapped her daughter on her shoulder, as light as a feather. Her daughter was startled, but she welcomed her Mama, nonetheless. After all, it’s kind of great to have a company to sit with as the night crept in.

“What were you thinking? Let me guess, boyfriend?” Mama asked.

She shook her head; eyes were pinned on the orange line on the horizon. “No…why would I?”

Mama chuckled. “I’m just kidding. So, is there something that bothers you, Sera? You can count on me.”

Sera turned to look at her Mama, her eyes were betraying the confusion that might be there for quite some time. She’s close to her Mama and she often turned to her when she needed someone to talk to.

“Have you ever thought…about all the things that we take for granted in this world? I think, it’s safe to say that we take everything, each one, for granted.” She hugged her legs, resting her chin on the knees. She was fiddling with her slender fingers, teeth biting into her lower lips unconsciously.

“Why did you think so?” Mama crossed her legs, being more attentive than before.

“Look,” Sera’s eyes were scanning the surrounding, “we never thought that we would be stranded in our houses before this, did we? Look what happened now. It’s been weeks and we are still not able to go out. We are stuck in here, in our own house. We lost our freedom. Have you ever thought why we took our freedom so lightly?”

Sera was looking at Mama, as if she was asking if she could proceed, and Mama nodded.

“We were used to be free. So careless. This is it, God is giving us the taste, the feeling of being stuck in our own property. Not only that. Everyone is being separated from their family for the sake of the community, the country. Everyone is longing to go home, to meet their parents or whoever they are missing. But did they go and see them often when they could?

When they were free? Did they cherish the time with their loved ones?”

Mama shook her head. Her eyes were searching her daughter’s face. Her eyebrows were knitted together as she tried to understand her daughter’s concerns.

Sera chuckled. “Health. We take that for granted too. Remember when we used to sleep so little, when we overworked ourselves to the point, we started to get burnouts?

When we have so little time that we just go grab fast foods or skip the entire meals? Now we have all the time in this world. It took a pandemic to finally have time to take care of ourselves, physically, mentally and spiritually.”

Sera sighed softly as the news reported that there were more cases recorded for the day. “It sucks to see people dying and you know you can’t do anything about it. You wish for them to get well soon, without knowing that the last thing they’re going to feel before they are finally gone is to be sick. The only thing I know is that, they regret taking their health so lightly despite being told about how dangerous the virus is.” She glared at the people from her neighborhood, enjoying the evening with each other as if there were no rules imposed, as if everything was fine, when it was not.

“And the pandemic, finally brings me closer to God. After all these time of worrying about skipping even one minute of studying to pray. To spend the short 5 minutes to fully worship Allah when He is the one who determine whether that one minute that I skip to study is worth it or not. Now I have all the hours, minutes and seconds to do that. To submit myself to the Almighty.”

Mama looked at her daughter again after gazing at the sky stretched before her. Sera’s eyes were teary but she was blinking rapidly to get rid of the tears.

“I’m finally grateful.”

Mama patted Sera’s back, silently telling her that it is completely fine to cry and she was there to lend her shoulder. With that, Sera’s tears finally fell onto her cheeks.

Mama gave her a faint smile, a smile that barely touched her eyes. “That’s how humans are. We make mistakes. We learn from them. But sometimes, the lesson learnt can be forgotten. Humans are forgetful.”

Sera nodded, wiping her tears with her shirt’s sleeve before she continued to rest her chin on her knees.

“But, it’s our responsibility too; to fight to be better and learn from every single mistake we did, even if it’s the mistake that we keep repeating for the hundredth times. It’s never too late to start taking care of yourself. It’s never too late to cherish your loved ones. And it’s never too late to get yourself closer to Allah. But it can be too late too.”

Sera lifted her head, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. What does her Mama meant by ‘it’s never too late but it can be that?’

“What do you mean, Mama? I don’t understand. How can it be that way?” Sera inquired. She had always been an inquisitive, curious young girl. Mama smiled, brighter than before.

“When you decide to stay where you are and do nothing about it.”