You know that feeling when you're about to reach a climax during a movie and then suddenly it starts buffering? You look at the bottom right and it turns out your internet has stopped working. It feels like that every moment, every second of living in quarantine. It would've been fine if I had paused it myself but the lack of agency at that moment is crushing. I have been trying to quick smoking for a month now, and since quarantine has started I am 1.5 months clean but when I think about it, I don't feel like I've quit smoking. Once quarantine ends I will smoke again, because it didn't end on my terms and I guess my friend said it perfectly, it's part of hoping of returning to the normal and smoking was I guess part of the normal, throughout a 12-9 shift, the cigarette breaks were normal. What makes matters worse it pretending to fast, though in some ways Ramadan has brought the family together. Be it my bhabi, brother, and I, working in the same small kitchen or the iftaar where all three of us sit with dad without any bickering.
I detest working from home, it feels so much more than what it felt like just 2 months ago. But I'm thankful for it because it keeps me from wandering too deep down the rabbit hole that my brain is and because it keeps me well fed and living unlike many who are hunger-ridden. It's so frustrating that we only count damage in figures because I check the COVID counter, literally every minute, but it doesn't tell me who cried for the 18,000 who were stricken.
By Shah Anas Ahmed,
Karachi, Pakistan.