HELLO, INTERNET.
I know, I know. I can practically hear you screaming at me from across the seas, demanding to know where in hell’s bells I’ve been.
To cut a long story short in the most cliche way possible: life happened. Of course, that’s a crude oversimplification of a series of borderline-hilarious events that have made me question my sanity on several occasions, but I don’t want to bore you with the personal and professional mishaps that have coloured my life since I last wrote to you. No, you deserve better. I want to dive straight into the juicy stuff, because you’re my readers, dammit, and by the gods, I will give you a good plot to quarantine your time away to. So sit back, microwave that popcorn, and get ready to dive into a totally unnecessary, unsolicited slice of my life.
Traveling on the Brink of a Pandemic: A Saga
Back in the day, when Covid-19 was only a bewildered elephant in the room, I had just embarked on a cross-continent trip. I was in Thailand for a few days to see my mother, who lives there on a temporary visa and needed me by her side. At the time, my home country had zero Covid-19 cases (hell, it hadn’t even been branded ‘Covid-19’ yet), so when I saw how uncharacteristically empty the streets of Bangkok were, I knew I had to stay indoors as much as possible. Mind you, public transport was still active (and bursting at the seams as is the norm), but Bangkok, being the ever-vigilant home of conscientious citizens, was taking great precautions to curb the spread of Covid-19 before it could become a serious issue. Every mall and public place had hand sanitiser dispensers installed at entries and exits, and it was rare to see a citizen without a mask on.
Art by Alberto Mier/CNN
This is probably why, when I eventually hopped onto my scheduled 13-hour flight to London, I was shocked to see that I was the only one wearing a mask and taking what little precautions one could in a packed flight. The couple sitting next to me were were enjoying a few complimentary bottles of white wine, and when I mentioned how surprising it was that our flight was full, the lady beside me said she hoped her flight to Italy wouldn’t be quite so full.
“Sorry,” I interjected (I have the unfortunate disposition of an Englishman who would apologise to his own reflection). “Hasn’t Italy just become a coronavirus hotspot?”
“Yeah,” Mary replied — a little too brightly, but I think that was owed to the liquid courage clasped tightly in her hand. “We’re headed straight for northern Italy.”
“Sorry,” I found myself saying again, flabbergasted. “But isn’t that the epicentre of the disease in Europe?”
“Well, if we’re going to go out, we might as well go out having a good time, innit?” she grinned. I disagreed — not with the notion, but with the possibility of becoming a vector for the disease — but I wasn’t going to shit on the poor woman’s parade. Besides, who was I to pass judgement? Wasn’t I traversing continents for (what I retrospectively believe to be) trivial, albeit mandatory, academic review panels?
Mary’s husband (who was fast asleep beside her) is a former pilot, she informed me proudly. “He knows everythin’ there is to know about planes. You know…” she leaned in conspiratorially, “he asked the crew about the air circulation here to see if they were following the rules, and they aren’t. The air hasn’t been circulated in hours, so we could all just get coronavirus right here on this plane.”
“Would you like something to drink, darling?” a passing flight attendant asked.
“Coffee,” I begged without hesitation. “Please.”
Fifteen minutes later, Mary touched my arm as I typed away at my laptop: “You know, you always want to keep your seatbelt on, even when them signs are off. I’ve seen videos of people’s heads going straight through the roof because they didn’t have their seatbelts on.”
It was a turbulent flight from the get-go, both literally and figuratively. Mary’s unprompted bursts of information, coupled with surprisingly violent turbulence every 10 minutes causing me to keep opening and shutting my laptop (and consequently, draining it of all battery) would have driven anyone who was operating on one hurried meal, no caffeine, and two hours of sleep absolutely up the wall. But the Universe had so much more in store for me that morning.
At one point, the airplane felt as if it were being tossed around in the air, and images of heads flying through roofs flooded my mind. But I was a frequent flyer, and turbulence wasn’t a new thing to me. I lifted the window shade beside me, stared at the cloudy haze outside, and calmed myself, dreaming of the bland airplane coffee and barely audible in-flight movie that would await me once this brief bout of turbulence had passed. I would be okay.
Two minutes of calm followed as the seatbelt sign was switched off. Then, a second wave of turbulence hit us — this time much worse than before. The person sitting in front of me gasped out loud, as if voicing the reaction we had collectively suppressed. I looked around and was met with wide eyes, pursed lips, and white knuckles clasping arm-rests. We felt like beans trapped in a can, being shaken by some celestial creature who hadn’t read the “do not shake well before use” fine print. I half expected the overhead bins to fly open like they do in the movies, spewing luggage onto us all. The click of a seatbelt caught my attention, and I stared as an older gentleman actually got up, opened the overhead compartment above his seat (thank the GODS this was empty save for one bag!), and pulled out a fedora hat. He donned it like a cowboy who knew his time had come; he even gave it a little flick with a wrinkled thumb and index finger, as if to say: “Come at me, bro.”
I couldn’t decide whether he was a colossal fool or the coolest man that ever lived.
I clicked through the “Your Journey” section on the screen in front of me. Apparently, we were only 6 hours in and were currently above a city called Baku in Azerbaijan. My eyes flitted between the screen and the window: one minute we were 30,000 feet in the air, and the next I could see an entire city looming beneath us. I have never been more grateful to have my face partially concealed by a mask, because boy, was it the site of an Oscar-worthy performance.
Eventually, the turbulence subsided. I breathed a sigh of relief, telling myself that I would stop wasting my life and finally finish my blasted book. Gosh, was I starving. Could we have our hot drinks now, please?
Apparently not, because twenty minutes later, a third wave of shaken-by-a-drunk-celestial syndrome descended upon us. And this time, shit got real.
Mary’s husband, who thus far had been the epitome of calm and collected, peeked out the window to my side, stared open-mouthed for a second, and said his first and only word on the flight: “Shit.”
When the former pilot thinks you’re doomed, you know it’s time to go.
Because my brain is essentially a Bollywood film just waiting to hit the big screen, I began to quietly “prepare”. I slipped on my shoes and jacket — because if television has taught me anything, it’s that nobody survives on a desert island without combat boots and a faux-leather jacket — and tucked my essentials in. I’ve always maintained that if I were to have any choice in my death, I would die to the sweet drones of Jimmy Page’s guitar ripping my ears a new one. Too bad that I had switched my memory card out in favour of my Thai SIM card, so instead of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, all I was left with was the Friends theme song. This is how I would die, I thought miserably. Still toiling after my PhD, no caffeine in my system, and only a shitty song to send me on my way.
Oh, well. At least I had a banger of a jacket on.
Fortunately, the turbulence subsided eventually, but I could tell that everyone was pretty much holding their breath, just waiting for the next wave to hit.
It didn’t.
Six hours later, we landed at Heathrow airport. Pale-faced passengers, clearly stricken by the events of their journey, unfastened their seatbelts.
Ah, by the way. Have I mentioned that when the Universe fixes its gaze on me, it’s usually set to the cruel theme of a mediocre MTV Punk’d episode?
Exhibit Z: just as we began to gather our things, the captain’s voice suddenly crackled through the speakers and asked us to remain in our seats. Something felt off. Fifteen minutes later, as passengers began to voice their irritation in the form of outraged murmurs (as only the British can, bless your hearts), a hesitant flight attendant was forced to announce that there was a coronavirus-suspected patient sitting on board, and that the crew was waiting for a doctor to come and retrieve them.
I have never felt a silence so heavy.
I would also like to clarify that we never got to have our hot drinks.
***
Although I didn’t find myself at the receiving end of a deadly virus on this flight, the rest of my trip was marred by the constant fear that I could and would end up with it (the odds have never been in my favour, as you’ve probably gathered by now) and that I would end up infecting my entire country, which had been blessedly coronavirus-free at the time. This seemingly irrational fear was further exacerbated by my body’s historic inability to cope with weather changes. Because I am a smart, independent adult who knows what’s best for her, my friend and I decided to visit the Kew Gardens on our last day in London: a sprawling botanical garden that is home to over 50,000 plants that are kept alive through ten different computer-controlled climate zones. And yes, we strolled through every single one of those zones.
I felt like I was living through the worst hangover on earth when I checked in to London Heathrow once again, praying for a turbulence-free flight back to Bangkok.
I had a scratchy throat and terrible headache (at the time, a runny nose and fever were the only confirmed symptoms of Covid-19), and my body was telling me I needed to slow down and rest. Fortunately, my Mum’s house is the most comfortable place on the planet (there’s just something about mothers and fluffy pillows; I believe the two are an immutable package deal formed by the heavens) and after a good night’s rest, I was back in fighting form. But the question still lingered: was the Universe done with me?
If you’ve been paying any attention so far, you already know that the answer to that is a resounding hell no.
But I won’t bore you any further with my Thai escapades. What I will say is that I did end up contracting a cold during the final 30 hours of my trip, which was owed to a pre-existing medical condition that had flared up due to all the stress. When provoked, it can cause my immunity to plummet. This was about a week before Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic, but back home, airlines were already cancelling inbound flights from Bangkok. I knew I only had a small window of time to go back home to my family, but I summoned my courage and contacted two different doctors, deciding that if my cold was indeed the result of the virus, I’d much rather be quarantined in a foreign country than infect innocent people. Frustratingly, though, I was not tested for the virus because I didn’t have a fever — at the time, this was a prevailing factor for testing — and I was told to simply take it easy and drink lots of fluids.
And so I sat on the flight back home, terrified beyond my wits, telling myself that I would self-isolate as soon as I landed because even though I believed I didn’t have the virus (my symptoms were distinctively in line with a recurring medical condition I have endured since I was a child), I could very well be a carrier, and simple temperature checks at airports couldn’t possibly determine this: only a proper test could. But like I said, I didn’t qualify for testing because I didn’t have a high enough body temperature.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t horrified by the disorganised levels of precautions I had seen at every airport thus far — from airport workers going about their daily business without masks and gloves on, to not being checked at Heathrow despite having been on the same flight as a suspected patient, to zero checks at Bangkok immigration desks, and the inattentive wave of a thermometer gun in my face while I visibly sniffled and looked just about ready to collapse once at my final destination — I am not surprised by the violent spread of this disease across borders. And while I realise it was utterly irresponsible of me to think that traveling in the midst of it all wouldn’t have been a big deal (to be fair though, it had only been considered a serious threat in China and South Korea at the time), I cannot help but feel white hot rage coursing through my veins in the knowledge that I had to practically beg to be tested, only to be turned away despite my colourful travel history.
Again, I will avoid indulging in the customary blunders that followed me on the 3-hour drive home from the airport. All I will say is that the Universe did not let up; though thankfully, after a two-week quarantine period at home, I was satisfied that I could do no harm to anyone (and I hadn’t — phew!).
When I finally stirred from my self-imposed hibernation, unsure if I had somehow dodged contracting Covid-19 or miraculously recovered from it, I found that my country had seen what is being referred to as an unprecedented (though is it really?) surge in Covid-confirmed cases. My city has been on total lockdown since March 15th, and the once-bewildered elephant in the room is now staring us square in the face.
Today, that elephant is done with our shit. He is raging and trumpeting until kingdom come because we wouldn’t look his way, and we are now suffering its catastrophic consequences.
Over the last few months, there have been moments when our species has proven to be the more dangerous disease. We are surrounded by near-stifling darkness: cases of police brutality in less democratic countries; of racism, hatred, and blind xenophobia engulfing us all. It makes me want to scream and weep and rage at social media feeds that disseminate this information to us on an overwhelming basis… yet it also makes me want to appeal to what I believe is humanity’s greatest strength: our dogged ability to cling to hope. And when I look — when I really look — I see it: a light struggling to shine through the dark, crumbling crevices that surround us.
I see roses blooming in barren lands. Healthcare professionals working their fingers to the bone, risking their lives with every passing minute. Ordinary people going the extra mile to provide food, water and supplies to the less fortunate. Grateful citizens, banding together in the safety of their socially-distanced balconies, lifting spirits and singing of better days.
Of course I see the darkness. But I also see hope… and I don’t have to look too far to find it.
‘Desert Rose’ by Anton Van Dort
Despite the fact that we now have a legitimately pissed off elephant stomping his way all over the planet, the internet is being flooded with the most incredible art — stories, poetry, music, paintings — creations that sing of humanity’s ability to thrive, survive, and rebuild. Because we are the light.
This is what motivates me now to rise from my self-imposed solitude: from the self-pity, self-loathing, and immaterial excuses that often plague those of our kind. Today, I feel compelled to create — to spread hope and smiles with my overactive imagination, even if only for a fleeting moment.
I am a writer, after all… it’s what I do.
***
Author’s Note: I apologise for the rather long post, but I felt that an update was overdue! On the other hand, if you weren’t entirely put off by my sudden departure from fiction and would like to hear more personal stories, do let me know. And if you’ve had a similar brush with turbulent flights, Covid-19, or simply an unfortunate lack of coffee on a terrible day, comment below to let me know I’m not alone!
Cadence Rage 