POUR FOuRTH THIS TALE!

By Jing Villamil

 

SHE called. She, who lived through Covid19, but whose husband did not. She, who dreams of him still.

Through the screen, we touched fives. At once, with no prod – tears, streams poured forth from her. Mine eyes, I closed; but lids are not doors, not walls of wood, stone, lead. I have no shield from the hurts of this earth. I hear, I see, I feel her still, her loss, her grief. When is too much too much?

But much too much is now a swell, a well of woes! It piles high, it digs deep to the core. The third tale was not just hers; it had been the world’s for countless days, weeks, months! Here, in our land, it counts to thousands. But there, in the land of those who had fled, the freed, the free – it counts to hundreds of thousands. And worse, the world has not stopped its count when it passed its first million dead. We dread, we fear the time when it shall count worse to worst! No, this was, this is, not a joke.

Covid19 does not joke; it is grim truth that shall choke us all. There is no smile no laugh in that fact. It thrives in the air on the ground on things you touch. It does not know nor care “”who” created it, “why” it exists, “what” is its mission on earth. All it knows is it is a half-life, till the whole of you shall give it full life. Not “out” of you; “in” you. So there.

She who called pleads: “tell of how bad, how sad is the end. I saw him go, but through the glass, only through the glass. Before he went, he opened his eyes, he looked round for me, for the kids. We were not there; not one of us. Only those masked, those who tried to heal him but can not. Write, tell! That the most of the rest of us may not reach to there. That we must try more than our best to veer away from there!”

She need not ask. The gray dust I find on my bed at morn, where one not seen had “sat” to wait for me to wake. The bones swaying by my windows all hours. Whites flitting through the house day and night. They nudge, they nag; they take care of that.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This fourth Covid19 tale is monosyllabic and disyllabic prosepoem.)

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