Essential Worker

 

2nd April, 2020

who will feed her children…..where will the money come from this dismal fore day morning…… if she stay home….she’ll stand from a distance and watch an empty -ish ZR….make sure she can sit front seat ….place her long-sleeved body as close to the door as possible….so that she touches nothing…..send up a silent prayer
leaving the bus towards the cleaning job she calculates her weekly wage….she has dreamed of a new life for some time now…….all seems likely to vanish…..this is a land of relative peace……there are this morning few people on the road….social distancing is easy.

the wind whispers in her ears…..you are essential….she puts on her mask and gloves…and begins the ritual of her dreams…..someone enters the building…she remains alert…..the security guard walks all the way around her…..clear of her…she cannot take this virus to her home…. to her children……she breathes as she completes the cleaning…..

she peers through the tinted windows …..half-empty buildings…….essential workers at their computers…..in their high tech meetings…..she crosses the street ……stands at the bus stop ….she waits…she waits…buses filled with people shoulder to shoulder…backside to backside…she shudders….takes out her hand sanitizer …for the sixth time….perhaps the seventh time and finally an empty-ish bus ….it shimmers westwards to the falling sun …..she prays louder this time…..unafraid of the eyes that hear…..tomorrow is another day….unless a total shut down….she enters her home…strips at the back door…empties the clothes in the washing machine… and under the shower… she decontaminates…..and exhales.