if only it were a dream

A few years ago, as a global pandemic had spread throughout all the living species on planet Earth, things have been eerily quiet. Humans that had not yet been infected by this disease huddled in their homes, fearful of what may happen if they should step outside. Hundreds of millions had died in a matter of days after a mutated and unforeseen form of the virus rampaged the Northern Hemisphere, then consequently wiped out the Southern Hemisphere. Deathly quiet, the planet was without movement or noises. 

I’d experienced the horror of the disease and also the effects that it had, yet I’m still unable to wrap my head around it. A sudden, swift strike had knocked my life and my reality to the ground, and shattered them to pieces. In its first move, the disease caused all the schools, workplaces, and public transportation to close. We had thought that this was the worst of it, and that the brunt of it would be that we’d be heading into debt if my parents couldn’t work their minimum wage jobs. How naive we were, to think that. Desperate times had called for desperate measures, and my parents had no choice but to sneak out and to earn the steady trickle of income that barely sustained my two brothers and I. Returning late at night and leaving early in the morning left my brothers and I no time to say goodbye.

It was a week after the mutated form rampaged unsuspecting humans that I lost my mother, then my youngest brother. We weren’t able to bury them or grieve them, leaving them in the place they died. Then my older brother committed suicide, and my father left the household in search of safety. He died only a few days later. I found his body outside our door, face stricken with grief and regret, and painted with the grizzly marks the disease had left on him. While I’d been stoic and unemotional ever since my mother passed, the moment I saw my father’s rigid body outside, I screamed and sobbed, tearing at my hair and body. Then, I saw black. 

It’s been four years, and almost eighty percent of the world’s population is gone since the fateful outbreak. I’ve been living alone since then, with a couple of sympathetic neighbors who’ve left me some of their scraps to survive. I curse the people above for taking my family but left me, but only in my head, since speaking ill about God was forbidden by my mother. 

I’m listening to a young female TV anchor, not much younger than me, read a piece of paper in a monotone voice, chewing a dry piece of tortilla as my dinner. The lives lost from the disease, two million, two hundred thousand, three hundred forty-nine. From suicide, thirteen thousand, six hundred two. My windows are open, and even with the pitiful warning from that old lady next door, I stand and stare at my still and silent neighborhood. Half the houses are desolate and delipidated, falling into disrepair. But the moon is shining as bright as can be, and in the howling wind, I hear my mother’s voice, singing my brothers and I to sleep. I’m suddenly met with a wave of dizziness, but as I reopen my eyes, her voice is gone.

I strain my ears to hear more of her soothing voice, but the wind calms and it's silent once again. “Nothing’s the same anymore,” I whisper woozily into the dark streets. Every step toward my bedroom is heavy and ominous, but I’ve no fear of death or disease, numbed and unfeeling. I fall into the bed where my younger brother and I used to play dress-up, and where my mother would laugh at our painted faces. I see my father and my older brother arguing about his latest boyfriend, which ultimately led my brother to flee the house and seek refuge at his friend’s house. A photo of my father rests on the bedside table, and as I stare at it, at his bushy beard and stern eyebrows, I see the selfishness that led him to run away and leave his fourteen year old daughter alone, but also the great regret that was painted on his face when I found his body outside my home. I don’t feel anything anymore, but in that moment, a tear dropped down my face as an overwhelming sense of grief flooded over me. I look at his face, and my sadness takes me to my only peace of sleep.

Birds didn’t sing anymore, but I woke up with a start to the shrill cry of a mockingjay. Indistinct noises fill my ears as I sit up, the distant sound of chatter growing overwhelmingly loud. Shielding my eyes from the brightness of the sun, the pit in my stomach crawls up to my throat. Something is wrong, my sleep-ridden mind screams at me. I sprint to my living room, then to my front door, only hesitating a second before throwing it open. The sun is bright and orange, pouring down on my neighborhood, and I gasp at what I see next. 

A churning sensation fills my stomach, and I hold my door for support. My mother, wearing her beautiful and brightly colored skirt, and my father are outside, watering our apple tree and chatting loudly in Portuguese. They turn at my scream, but instead of disappearing like my usual hallucinations, they smile and wave me over. In absolute horror, I slam the door and race back into my bedroom. Feeling the bile rise in my throat, I feel dizzy and nauseous and queasy, but then a sudden calm that flooded over my senses helped me to breathe. I stepped toward the window, where I could usually see the dark and dilapidated homes and found them to be shining with color and warmth, and suddenly, I knew where I was. 

Walking slowly to the door and stepping outside, I look up toward the sun, and see it. The bright yellow sol was slowly rising from the west, and my parents were with me again. I sighed in relief, and whispered my thanks to whatever god that brought me here. As I ran to embrace my parents, I can’t help but be glad that I’m someplace better.