Who in the world had ever thought, the way a tiny little virus can bring the entire planet to a stop, humans stopped doing what they used to, and yet nature continued in its own ways, without a question asked, without seeking any permissions, without even a cough or a sneeze!!
She sat thinking by her window looking outside at the almost empty roads, loners wearing masks walking with an almost insecure stride, afraid in their hearts of what could strike them? Ill health or even death. That was what the virus held, a 0.1 micron-sized RNA particle called covid 19. The birds of course had become more enterprising, the butterflies freer, the trees continued to flower in yellow and red in the sun !! The purple sunbirds trying to make new nests in the now dusty chimes, ambitions aroar, even trying to reach places where in the past they would have never ventured near, there were always us moving up and down the doors, corridors, passages, under the trees, in the gardens, we were there everywhere.
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We were silent now, huddled inside our homes. They lived in separate cities, far from each other and yet near in their hearts, he would call her quiet to the tick of the clock, as if he was enforced in his own regiment to call her regardless of what they wanted to talk, often there was nothing ….and yet hearing her voice, her silly questions that had no bearing on life, her unreasonable demands that even she knew could not be met in these times as if she lived in an imaginative a fairytale where all that she wanted was always there, he loved to listen to her.
She on the other hand would wait to hear him, listening to all his realistic thinking, his subtle analysis of all situations, & most of all his readings that he would share with her, she would laugh at the slightest of a random association or she would again ask a silly question to which he could not help but smile; She laughed so easily, she cried so easily too. She saw a green bee-eater sitting on the wire and it meant deep summers were around the corner, that’s the time the green bee-eaters are seen, the birds with long tails and sharp beaks, they pound on the insects, their prey. She suddenly remembered her bad dream that early morning, they were together in her dream, and yet she was telling him that she found herself interfering in his life (the frustrations of the separations, the frustrations of being in a standstill, and above all not knowing when the virus would allow them to see each other) had all brought in this bad dream and she out of her habit shared the dream with him on the phone while constantly looking at the green bee-eater.
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He listened patiently and then asked her a question,” what time do you think you had this dream, he asked. She on an instant replied it had to be after 4 am since she said she woke up then and it was after she went back to sleep that it started. He said “, so it explains, it just explains why I could not sleep after 4 am.” He said it in such a manner that it took her some time to register and when she did, she burst out in her usual laughter; he keenly listened to her laugh as he always did, thinking then, does the Cupid strike best in the laughter? He never told her his answer though, some were just for himself !! The fears and tribulations of the heart have no directions or motives swings of mood and the affliction of heart have no directions or motives.
