Wounds Left Behind

Zoom Call

“We have never been the same since Covid, and we act as if it never happened,” Sly says.

“Imagine fighting an enemy you can’t see, an enemy you’re not even sure exists, till it puts you on bedrest or six feet under? It definitely loosened screws in our heads,” Vik says. 

Wearing masks, washing your hands every other second, the untrustworthy vaccines, being cooped up in the house like some caged animal, Vik thinks.

“And the way time has gone by fast since then, it feels like it was just yesterday, and we are pushing 5 years now. There must have been a shift in the powers that be,” Sly says.

“Someone could gaslight you that Covid never happened, and you would believe them,” Vik says

“I think the only evidence we have is the loose screws in our heads,” Sly says.

And when you do step out, keeping your distance from people you used to shake hands, hug, and be with, Vik thinks.

“Yeah. Nowadays, people are too introverted, extroverted, workaholics, sexual, religious, spiritual,” Vik says.

“We have all become crazy, and people are using different ways to cope. For some, it’s work, others relationships, religion, exercise, success, and the list of indulgences goes on and on in a loop of inertia,” Sly says.

We were used to interacting with people in person, and now we’re staring at each other on screens, pretending that it’s okay, Vik thinks.

During Covid

Sly closes her laptop. She had planned to cook dinner, but she has decided she will eat the leftovers instead. She had thought of opening the curtains in the morning, but it’s now evening and she hasn’t gotten around to it.

“Working in bed! Say what you will about Covid, but it has its perks,” she mutters to herself while putting her laptop on her bedside table, going to her kitchenette, and washing her hands for what feels like an hour.

She has the leftover meal of rice and peas that she had ordered earlier in the day while contemplating her life. She’s single, but Vik visits her now and then. Nobody would believe them if they said their relationship was platonic, and it is. They keep each other company while they work. They might share an intellectual conversation and watch a movie during their meals, but that is as far as it goes. Vik hasn’t come around lately, something about helping his wife sanitize the house. Sly can’t remember the details.

Cooped up in the house, it’s hard to imagine that she had once been a social butterfly, that she had worried about makeup, hairstyles, and put thought into how she dressed. Now she’s ever in a robe and bonnet.

She heads back to her bedroom and gets back in bed. She picks up her phone, assumes the fetal position, and begins scrolling social media. She scrolls through a clip of a toddler crawling, then another of a couple doing a dance challenge, a third one of a child learning to walk, and a fourth of a couple quarantining together. The clips repeat themselves with different people in a loop.

She could marry and have a kid before 40 comes knocking, she tells herself. She opens up her WhatsApp; she’s still waiting for his text. She had thought they had a future together, but his communication is few and far between.

She goes back to scrolling her phone for the rest of the evening; she will do it until she falls asleep. She will wake up at mid-morning the next day with a mild headache, pop a pill, work on her laptop, order lunch, have the leftovers for supper, and spend the evening scrolling through her phone. She will repeat her routine for the rest of the week, and she will only notice when Vik points it out on his routine visits.

After Covid

Vik is from visiting Sly. She’s having trouble leaving the house, sitting in boardrooms, looking people in the eye; she prefers the safety of her house, specifically her bed. “All meetings should be Zoom meetings,” she has been repeating the phrase like a broken record.

He parks his Nissan X-trail and puts on some soothing music. He had visited the doctor recently and told him he can’t seem to relax, everything feels like an occasion, even something as mundane as pouring himself a glass of water. He pops two antidepressant pills in his mouth and washes them down with the bottle of mineral water in his glove compartment. He stays in his car for around two hours before climbing to his 2nd-floor apartment.

His wife meets him at the door with a mask and hand sanitizer. She has never been quite the same after Covid, but who has? “Make sure you take a shower and put your clothes in the bin labeled contaminated. Clean pajamas are in the one labeled, uncontaminated,” she says casually, as if it’s normal to have a contaminated and uncontaminated bin in an average household.

As Vik showers, he wonders what the use of it is when they sleep in separate bedrooms. His wife insists it’s about cleanliness, but he has a feeling that she is hostile to him because she thinks he is having an affair with Sly, despite telling her that they are just colleagues. The late-night calls, the weekend work trips, and the day-long visits to her house haven’t helped. “I should know better,” Vik mutters while putting on his pale blue pajamas.

He enters the guest bedroom and locks the door behind him. He is filled with shame that he is a 44-year-old man who has to do what he is about to do, to be able to fall asleep. He sits on the bed and runs his hand through his head, gets up, and removes a suitcase from the closet. He puts in the number to the combination lock, and it unlocks. Inside, there’s a big, fluffy teddy bear. He gets under the covers with it and hugs and cuddles it till he falls asleep.

In the master bedroom, his wife is sanitizing every nook and cranny, an exercise that takes her half the night. On the other side of town, Sly is in bed, scrolling through her phone, dreading the in-person meeting she has to attend the next morning.

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image credit: pam menegakis