As frustrating and painful as COVID-19 has been for everyone, it has forced us to slow down, think, and -- with a stroke of inspiration -- write about these wild days at the end of a mad, mad year.
December reminds us that time moves forward, a new year awaits, and like all books, things come to an end. The reflections we publish this month not only capture a moment in time, but a mood, an era. We hope you enjoy reading this month's publication.
“COVID-19”
The bitter tasting word burnt my tongue
As it rattled
Out of my mouth.
It set off ringing from eardrum to eardrum,
Making me fume,
But it was inescapable.
I peered down to see the phrase
inscribed across a firetruck red dot under my feet
As I waited in line to buy a single roll of toilet paper at
Target.
I looked up to see blank masks
Acting as a canvas for the unspoken word.
Like the word was a baby goose
And I was its mother,
It followed me.
“COVID-19” was everywhere.
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| Artwork by Kate I., Grade 9 |
I stared outside the sad window of my apartment,
looking out below at the empty streets. The once bright outside was now dark,
reminiscent of all the cold dilapidated cities within apocalypse movies. Well,
it was basically an apocalypse. A virus spreading and wiping out humanity is
often the plot for many an apocalypse movie. And while it isn’t completely a mass
extinction, like in movies, the amount of people outside would make one think
it was. Only a few stragglers wandered the streets, avoiding each like the
plague (literally). The occasional car passing by frightened those, showing the
anxiety and fright hidden underneath the masks they wore, both physical and
metaphorical.
Turning
from the window, I plopped down unto the small couch squeezed inside the
apartment. I stared at the ceiling, remembering of the past bright lights. The
first day of seeing center square, the bright advertisements and lamps lighting
up the sky. The busy sound of traffic, people talking and walking, the city
itself seemingly breathing and living. Compared to now, that was a distant
memory, a light fading away, the once living city, the “city that never sleeps”
now dead. In place of the shining city was simply a dead husk of what it once
was.
I close my eyes, trying
to remember the comfort of the complicated, diverse, bright city New York that
was famous, not this one that is cold and leaves a chill down ones spine from
the loneliness, the tension, and the pressure in the air. Sighing, I continue
to do what I had been doing for a while now, what with the quarantine and the
like. I turn on the tv and start looking for a movie. A movie to allow me to
escape this reality. I select a movie and begin watching, trying to leave
behind the cold, empty, city even if for just a small, brief period of time.
The movie starts, and the memory of world outside fades, my mind now occupied
with the flashing colors, blinding me from atrocities on the outside for a few
moments.
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| Artwork by Olivia M., Grade 9 |
Stained Rugs
Like an exquisite, white rug,
stained by colorful juices,
everyone has their imperfections.
And the tragedy to discover,
our own role models have stains:
dark colors emerging from their
walls
of flawless white.
But what if…
what if we appreciated these
colors?
We all acquire stains:
blues, purples, and reds,
that paint our surface.
Let us embrace our stains
and wear them with pride.
Because after all,
what’s the fun
of a blank rug?
by Chantal V., Grade 9
