The Virus that Shook the World

This write-up is a first-hand account of how the Corona virus changed the world around me. It is a creative nonfiction piece.

There was one month left of school when it hit. It traveled from China, to Italy, to Great Britain, to Hungary, to the States. 26 countries affected. It came in waves through news channels, traffic jams, empty soup shelves, and side-splitting toilet paper memes which made it hard to breathe.

Like a premature Halloween feature on Friday the 13th, TV screens filled with sunken, zombie-like faces dressed in medical masks, the only barriers between lungs and the outside air.

Then, the apocalyptic measures stopped the world.

Travel, Cancelled. Courtesy, Cancelled. Classes, Cancelled. Sneezing, Cancelled. Church, Cancelled. Breathing, Cancelled.

Not breathing seemed to be the only remedy. If we all stopped breathing, then everyone could live virus-free without fear of catching the cureless, fever-chilling pneumonia. Then, we could be free, but freedom would also cost us our lives. Air is essential.

The Corona virus crossed without looking, without a tinge of guilt. It ran naked through the streets, undressing every national vulnerability. It laughed in the faces of die-hard-essential-oils advocates who rub their skins with concentrated fragrance to combat this incurable strain.

Corona Virus shook the whole Earth.

Campus was a ghost town, but grocery stores crawled with shoppers like a Black Friday infestation. Chinese citizens in protest were beat on subway train cars for trying to relocate. Americans sat in disbelief, praying to God for immunity but trapped inside quarantined homes filled with Chinese-made things. The faith of Salt Lake City only spared itself a week before the Corona shock was felt. Fearless Moroni dropped his trump during the earthly tremors which ensued days after the pandemic breakout, causing the panicking city to seize in a spell of epilepsy, magnitude 5.7.

1…2…4…16…256…211,853 diagnosed with the virus. Its exponential growth sends all into hiding, cowering under wooden roofs like ants under rocks.

I imagined an old nursing-home woman diagnosed with one month left. In my mind, she lived only 3 days past a month, her family cherishing the seconds hoping time would stretch into the miracle years that are given to some, but inevitably disappointed by the gravity of death.

Despite the dull, worry-ridden times, the campus bell still chimes jovially at every top hour, ringing in the infectious air which touches every living thing as the inescapable need to breathe curses the world.