The five o’clock alarm he has set on his phone
Goes off loud with his favorite song as ringtone
Grudgingly, he drags himself out of his foam bed
His lucid fantasy world still stuck in his head
He sets the electric kettle with tap water
He goes inside the tiny bathroom to shower
He prepares his things and self for the work ahead
He wears his uniform—another day of dread
Another struggle to catch the shuttle service
If unlucky, patiently wait for the UVs
To cramp himself again with fellow commuters
Who all think that their daily bread is what matters
Arrives at the cubicle, a long to-do list
To survive the onslaught of work to accomplish
To endure the endless upbraiding, shouts, and blame
From those who care not about his feelings or shame
This cycle of office engagements seems torture
Now for years more than he could think he would endure
Day in, day out, time ticking, punch in the Bundy—
Eight hours daily, and the bag is in the ready.
But then, an unprecedented moment happened to the world
His generation experiencing it firsthand,
That it would go down in the annals of history.
The virus that caused this pandemic
Caught the country unprepared for many things:
Lives of the infected are lost
to lack of medical facilities and personnel
Livelihoods of the small people are lost
to the haphazard lockdowns imposed
Priorities of the authorities are focused
not on the suppression of the disease
but of the voices of the masses, of the constructive opinions, of critical thinking.
Thus, this ordinary employee has his sense of normalcy scattered
In his sleep
In his routine
In his goals
In his dreams
In his life
As he still forces himself to work from his apartment, alone
As he sees faces all covered with masks whenever he shops for essentials
As he reads the news in all levels of oppressing and devastating
As he witnesses the divide among his country people
As he breaks his heart with all the suffering around
While realizing that the most mundane things he had detested before
Have been privilege all along.
How long would he wait for everything to return to the way he was used to?
Would he actually survive from all of these trials to humankind?
Who knows. #
