Clear calendar days

It’s 7 am, but it feels like midnight. The clouds have consumed the sun. I can hear the pattering of raindrops outside the window. Lethargy consumes me as my thumb, heavy and slow, scrolls through Instagram with a certain aimlessness. Another day with a clear calendar. 

The last one week has been the same, the mood liminally hanging between hunger and sleep. Make something happen, I plead to the dark clouds that seem to be ridden with so much drama, to Zeus, the god of rain, next second googling for a complete list of Greek Gods.

I drag my legs to the living room, and see my sister lying on the couch, wrapped in a furry pink throw. Why is she sleeping here? I wonder, rubbing my eyes in an attempt to ward off the clingy sleep. This is odd, I tell myself, happy in a strange way that I was able to make that conclusion without any confusion. I peep inside her bedroom to see my four-year-old niece enveloped by big fluffy pillows.

“Hey,” I shake her shoulders gently. She opens her eyes with a jerk. I take a step back offensively, but in my defense, they look stained with turmeric and saffron. “They are yellowish red,” I tell her, pointing at her face. She sniffles in reply, and wipes her running nose with the back of her palm. “Okay that’s not healthy,” I say, surprised that I had made another clear-headed conclusion. I bring her a box of tissues, and remain standing, in my polka-dotted pajamas and teddy bear t-shirt. “I need to go to a doctor,” her voice comes out with the coarseness of someone grating two stones against each other. “Can you take care of Ally?” she asks. “Of course,” I say, tempted to open my Google calendar and put in the task for the day. Outside a thunder sounds, as if refuting my idea.  

Her hair messy, her nose like pinocchio, she leaves the house with an umbrella. “There is milk in the fridge, she likes it warm,” she says. “The lunch is pasta, give it to her if I get late; and don’t allow her to go out, of course you know that. And if she goes potty, clean her well,” her words seem strained, like her throat is lined with sandpaper. 

After she leaves, and I have a heavy breakfast of cereal and banana, I flop into my bed, and start scrolling again, fully in acknowledgement of a day that would dissolve into the vastness of the week in no time. 

“Ma,” I hear a faint sound, and rush to my niece’s bedroom. She sits in the darkness of the bedroom, her hair in cowlicks, and flakes of dried saliva on her cheeks. Thankfully, she is happy to see me, and says that she wants to do craft. “Right now!” she says, her fists round like beach pebbles. Aah, I am too tired, sleepy, and just so bored to do anything. I look at a shadow of sadness spread on her tiny face and large eyes. She jumps on the bed, and then on me. I let out a loud shriek when she steps on my hair. She is in shock, and I, in regret. I let the rain fill in the silence. “Where is ma?” she asks, suddenly, and fairly so, missing her mother’s warmth. I tell her that she has gone to the doctor and will be back soon. She launches herself down the bed, fetches her doctor’s set, and asks me to be a pretend patient.

I pretend to cough, sniffle, and complain of fever and headache. She places the stethoscope all over my body, and pokes my flesh with the thermometer. That’s it - I sit her down, and ask her if she wants to look at my phone with me. The truth is I am itching to check my latest instagram stories — it’s been my solid brainless routine that takes minimum effort or movement. She lies next to me, and I lazily keep scrolling the pictures with graceful and practiced flicks, until she starts whining about something she saw in the photos. “What is it?” I ask, lifting her chin, from under my armpit. “The mask is scary,” she says, her lisp makes it funny. I laugh, “The masks are just to protect you from the fever,” I say, quickly changing the picture of people wearing protective masks, on my phone. 

“What fever?” she asks. 

“Well, there is a big bug that’s going around and making everyone sick,” I explain. I owe a story to my niece, so why not take real-life inspiration for it. I continue, now excited about turning the deadly virus into a children’s story. “This bug comes and sits in everyone’s throat and makes them cough and gives them fever,” I say. I fail to register the fear that’s building up in her tiny head. “You have to stay away from people, be in separate rooms, if you don’t want it to catch you. That’s what people are doing now,” I say, proud that I was able to explain Covid 19 to a 4 year old. 

“Can we wash it with water?” she asks with genuine curiosity.

“Yes, which is why your ma has been asking you to wash your hands often,” I say.

She jumps off the bed then, and runs to the door and reaches for the latch, standing on her toes. I follow, my legs yearning to go back under the cozy blanket. “I want to go out in the rain, kill the germs,” she says. “There is water inside, and you can’t go out. You have to stay in,” I use my tone of authority. Also, I am tired, and craving some croissants. 

“Let’s brush your teeth and get you something to eat,” I tell her; but she goes back into the bedroom to play with her doctor’s set. I call my sister, who, with a sigh of relief, says that it’s just a strep throat, according to the diagnosis. “I will get the prescribed medicine and be back in 30 minutes. Did Ally wake up?” she asks. “Yep, she is playing in the bedroom,” I say with a mouth full of soft croissant. 

I sit on the couch, looking at the Instagram stories again. It’s flooded with snippets of isolation, death and layoffs. Dark, just like the cloudy sky. I realize I am sitting where my sister had drooled the entire night, but don’t move as I am convinced that nothing matters anymore, which is when I heard a soft turn of a lock. 

I walk to the bedroom, bits of croissants falling on the carpet. I see only a random stethoscope lying stupidly on the bed. I turn my attention to the bathroom door, and a strange sense of fear fills me. “Ally, are you inside?” I call out, trying to open the door with force. “Yes, mimi, I am protecting myself,” she says. 

“From what?” I shout.

“From the bug you said,” she says, her voice so feeble from inside.

New drops of sweat line my forehead. “I killed the bug, can you come out?” I ask, fully aware of a cold anxiety brewing in me. 

“But…” she had begun to sob a bit, I think. I cannot hear over the rain outside, and the hammering sound of my heart against my ribs. 

“But what sweety?” I ask, trying to keep my voice in control.

“But I have to wash myself,” she says. Does she know to turn the tap? Worse, does she know which is hot and which is cold? My ear is now stuck to the door, trying to listen to every faint sound her tiny feet make. 

“And, I don’t know how to open,” she says, “can you help me open?” Unfortunately the knob is not one which you can use the back of a spoon to open with.

The croissant comes all the way up to my mouth, and I swallow it back. Maintenance should be able to help, a streak of relief rises, but soon falls when I realize they are also practising isolation. How about 911? Gosh. 

I hear my sister unlock the front door, and come in, her shoes and umbrella dripping rainwater. “Ally has locked herself in,” I announce, as if wanting to drop a hot pan onto someone else’s hand. “What!” she shouts, almost tearing her throat. 

She bangs on the door, asks Ally to come near the door and turn the knob. Ally says she doesn’t want to because she is scared of the bug. “What bug?” my sister shouts again, drowning the sound of the rain. “The one that causes fever and cough. I am going to sit here today. Isolation,” she says. Though proud of her vocabulary for a second, I ask her gently to follow her mom’s words, so that she can come out and we can do crafts. She seems excited about the idea, and gently wriggles the knob. 

After what seems like eternity, she is out, and my sister is hugging and scolding her in her villainous voice. I try to act like I wasn’t the cause for this, and continue scrolling. But my punishment is on its way. A box full of sequins, stickers, and slime. I look outside at the sky which now hangs in a kind of lull, like a floating dream, like my every other insignificant clear calendar day that I wish Zeus to give me back.