The COVID Psycho Girl

It was the most unordinary thing to me, everyone just walking around the shops without a mask! They were walking around, care-free with the brightest smiles on their faces. I felt like an alien. Why on earth is everyone not wearing masks while we are having a crisis? People stared at me like I was from another planet, but in reality it felt like they were the outsiders. Actually, people weren’t specifically staring at me, they were staring at my bracelet. Thinking very deep into my mind, trying to dig through the oldest of memories to find why people are looking at my bracelet in shock, I couldn’t find the answer. But then the only thing inside my head was a sentence that my parents had told me, “I leave you to take this bracelet, it shall bring you into the future and you may come to visit us one day”. The puzzle wasn’t piecing together and I was still confused.

Everyone fell as silent as a mouse as I passed them. They whispered to each other and referred me to a ‘COVID psycho girl’. I was wearing a backpack that was basically in the shape of a hand sanitizer and it also looked like a hand sanitizer, I had an oversized mask on, as well as sweaty, surgical gloves and some black sunglasses with glitter on the frames for protection. I needed to be safe but everyone was sniggering. As my tears were running down my face, I ran out of the shopping centre begging myself to take off my mask so I could wipe off my tears, but I knew how unsafe and unhygienic that would be so I fought back my tears.

Taking off my backpack, as well as my mask and gloves, I then went to hide them in my closet and I went to go take a shower. I jumped into bed, with wet soggy hair, making wet stains all over my pillow. As I lied in bed, thinking about how humiliating that was for me, I knew, I couldn’t wear all that to school the next day, if the public is going to laugh at me like that, then imagine my friends at school. I wish I could tell my parents about today, but they are at work every single second of my life. It’s impossible to even see my parents’ face again. 

The next day, I head off to school on my electric scooter, bravely not wearing a mask or any protection at all so that my friends wouldn’t make fun of me. As I walked into class, everyone giggled and stared at me, whilst whispering to one another, looking exactly like how the people at the mall were whispering. I was deeply saddened. How are they laughing at me without my mask or any COVID protection gear? Some boys were waving and saying I was the “COVID psycho girl”, whilst all the girls were laughing. My face turned red with envy and embarrassment. As I embarrassedly walked to my table, I saw my best friend, Bethany, watching YouTube, but it wasn’t any boring unboxing slime videos that she always watches, it was something I was in shock and disappointment. My own best friend was watching a video of me at the shopping centre yesterday, getting humiliated by the public. I was in disbelief. That video of me getting laughed at, gained five million likes and twelve million views. I was going to faint. 

At lunch, none of my friends washed their hands before eating, they just dug right into their food! They got their grubby hands all over their food and licked and slobbered all over their fingers, as they finished and wiped it on their uniform. That was definitely the most unhygienic thing I had ever seen. But If I did tell them, they would just laugh at me like how they did during the morning block. Everyone called me a waster because after I finished eating, I went to wash my hands and I didn’t lick my fingers like the rest of my friends. It was unhygienic, gross and dirty! I honestly am having the worst day of my life. 

I immediately ran to the front gate of our school, where the bike rack was and grabbed my electric scooter and sped as fast as a cheetah. I couldn’t care less that my teacher was screaming at me to come back. My tears felt painful, emotionally, my heart dropped as soon as I realised what Bethany was watching. Thinking about that whilst riding back home was heartbreaking and disastrous. How will I ever go back to school without getting laughed at and remembered as the ‘COVID psycho girl’?

As I got home, I realised that there was a button on my bracelet my parents had given me. I was curious and keen to press it, so I did. I fell into something that looked like a tornado and my head was swirling in circles. Feeling very dizzy, I got up only to realise that I was in the future earlier and now I’m finally back into the present! I was as joyful as a butterfly! My parents explained to me that I had begged them to let me go to the future so they gave me a time travel bracelet to go as an extraordinary vacation for me. I explained every single detail about what happened in the future and how I must change it now. 

I ran to my room and searched for a plain white notebook. After a few minutes, I managed to find a dusty one, but I cleaned it up a bit and drew a few designs on the book as a cover. It was perfect. Glamorously, shining from the sun, through my window. I started writing to myself a little letter, telling my experience when I time travelled to the past and to remind myself that COVID is over and I don’t need masks, hand sanitizers, gloves and certainly no hand sanitizer backpacks anymore! After writing for twenty minutes, my hands were sore and couldn’t bear anymore writing but I was finished, thankfully. I didn’t know how much I really could write. I decided to hide my notebook under my bed, in my secretive box where I keep all my special memories and the parts of my life that really was a huge chapter.

Now I am relieved that I am not a public humiliation, I can go shopping without people laughing at me and my friends aren’t going to tease me anymore. I’m glad I made a stop to my horrifying future. For now.