The Change

It is not that I see no future, she said, but that I fear the future that I see. A world where simple contact with another is to be seen and understood as prelude to Armageddon, the end of the world They tell me I must stay away, she said, from friends and family from life No touching of the flesh,no salutation but from afar, no breathing the same air lest we all become infected carriers of our doom. They tell me I must change my life, she said. Nothing can remain unchanged henceforth The nightmare scenario of doomsday is now real and I must now adapt or die in a new society whose latest paradigm is to separate and divide They have closed the nation’s borders, she said, around the globe we must all now fear the others bearers of sad, bad tidings and the plague, the ones who are different because they are not our tribe, our clan, our family,not us ourselves They tell me, for my safety, I must fear, she said. Fear contact, fear contagion, fear my friends Fear neighbours, fear children, fear you, fear me, Is it not deadly this fear? More deadly than its cause? The world, our world, may never be the same Though we may die, and though it may lay sleeping for a while, this fear once now awakened will, I fear, never leave. . Kim Helen James 17/3/2020