The first short story in this collection was written exclusively for the Chicklit contest "120 Dates" in November 2020. The collection has been growing ever since.
What happened in 2020 still feels surreal to me. In March, it seemed that success and recognition at work seemed finally within reach after I had only been working for 10 years to get to this point (Mark the irony in my words). For once, things were going really great. I thought I could finally put all the bad years behind me.
When some kids I first told me in February that they had heard some talk of schools closing soon due to COVID-19, I thought it was a joke - just like the totally inappropriate Asian YouTube song they were mimicking in the early days of the pandemic. This was not 1945 after all.
The situation became serious soon afterwards when the pictures from Italy and New York City reached us and when our local school closed indeed. We were given 3 hours' notice to shut it down until the end of the Easter holidays. How naive we were then! We thought COVID-19 would magically disappear and everything would be normal again in April.
That wasn't the case, of course. It was hard to go on a summer holiday because people tried to make you feel guilty and so on. On the other hand, I knew I had made the right decision when I was constantly asked, "Where are you from?", like I was an alien from a foreign planet, by some very desperate-looking businessmen, and when the bus drivers were addressing me in their language as they did not even think that I could be a tourist.
Things got really bad in the last two months. Our school had to close again. My favourite restaurants and shops are also closed at the moment. As much as I love online shopping sprees and takeaway food, is it selfish to hope that these places can open up again so that it is possible to go to a burger place again and eat your burger in peace, or to go to a normal shop and buy clothes or even a CD without having to worry about waiting in a long line in front of the store? I would also like to take off that mask as I'm constantly feeling like those men in the 19th century cartoon, which was definitely not about COVID-19.
I know this may sound petty, considering that people are dying, but I would like to resume my normal life again as soon as possible!
Your admirer JesslinaN
اوووه! هذه الصورة لا تتبع إرشادات المحتوى الخاصة بنا. لمتابعة النشر، يرجى إزالتها أو تحميل صورة أخرى.
