Diary Of A Deltan Kuffa

Chapters Ten

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was only yesterday, today and the day after.

Yesterday bloomed with pride, 2020 seemed like a duple effect, a year to even the odds, set matters straight,... the list is endless. You could say it was a woman burdened with the swell of a baby in her womb, the days leading up to conception filled with pride and joy, as was the case for that month in 2020. Analyst might have even dubbed it a year of goodwill. Social media buzzed with the "egungun be careful" soundtrack that dates to the time of my four fathers,-forgive my sarcasm.

About this time, in no distant town, Asaba; we bid farewell to friends and foes-not that I had any. I remember that day like the back of my Palm. Chidinma, the Egyptian Queen as I always apprised her-something in her eyes spoke royalty, was present in her white top and khaki. That day she would draw the curtains on her CDS activities. Chinwe who's smile was golden, with deep-seated sparkling eyes, sat somewhere in the crowd that assembled in the courtyard of an office complex. That day would leave prints of nostalgia as would the days after. This end was just a beginning but something else loomed, in what would become my today.

A strange enemy had taken form, they say the last time it struck was over a century ago, no it wasn't the Ebola, it predated that, it is what they call the influ-, it did influence, for the worst, the people in that time, dwindling its population by the minute. Years rolled over, and this tale buried in the history books would be reopened in what is now my today. The news media, like a messenger of doom, announced this enemy birthed in Asia, then followed reports of sudden deaths, would this pandemic be contained within the borders of this town? As fear birthed doubt, most people dismissed it as speculation, I remember one certain CDS meetup, we talked about the Nobel virus as the internet had identified it, one person even remarked, "them de eat everything now see wetting don happen, to them," this enemy grew in strength by the minute, and it wouldn't settle with 'them,' and at that time we didn't know that, some even tagged it the virus, 'made in China'. It consumed that country but that wasn't enough. Its borders kept expanding and in the months that followed fear had paralyzed the earth, the one thing that united us would be the death of us. But that's not how this story ends.

That month in 2020 recorded so many deaths, dead bodies pilled the cemetery daily in their hundreds. Humanity at the verge of what seemed to be the end.
Money lost its value and the prayer on the lips of all was the sight of a new day. I was in my little corner, my friends in theirs, my family a thousand miles. The internet oozed with life like a new(to some) civilization, thriving on bytes, time its biggest commodity. Our conversation housed in clouds where this virtual reality existed, some allowed us facetime with a thousand different faces. With Sunday sermons reduced to a rectangular screen, and schools closed down indefinitely, homes were crowded as can be. I bet my mum would yell '10x' times than she did before with my little sister rattling around, those little feet were the quickest. With everyone cocooned in their homes, earth truest heros, no, not the avengers, lined the frontiers. Probing beneath the skin that clads our flesh. Their goal? A vaccine, a cure, some relief to this death-dealing pandemic.

The tomorrow I looked forward to, lingered with each passing day, and soon reality had itched one too often. You see amidst this pandemic, what really mattered was our humanity, the truest of virtues would be what preserved us. I remember getting texts from friends and family, "hi I just wanted to check up on you during the pandemic..." And suddenly I realized, it wasn't a death race, it was a marathon, and the pandemic was only one hurdle. Our truest demise would be the preservation of life, only to lose our humanity. On many days I would pour my heart out in a text, saying 'i love you' to friends that mattered, I spent facetime laughing with my buddies I had known since forever, I even called my crush, experiencing that awkward moment of silence, but damn we weren't robots in the end, the lifeblood flowed beneath our veins. For some reviving their humanity meant sending cash out to families who needed them. Imagine if Christ walked the earth during these times, he would still, feed many through the hands of a few. I know in a way or two like many others I gave of myself. You see this was something no pandemic could take from us. Hence, my tomorrow was the today I created that tapered into the day after.

(c)Mariobee