One day soon, I will tell my grandma, the barcode was just a tracker. Not on the forehead but on our phones. It was optional, but I have had it now too, anyway. Yet the food and supplies are never free, like what they used to predict about doomsday.
Can you still feel the reverberating feel of that one March 2020 in our history? The confusion, the disbelief, the fear, but with the kind of unity that blanketed the people in a short while? 
We were once sitting in front of the television feeling sorry for China and the economic halt that they dealt with. We watched how people were barred from their homes, and how their hospitals were exhausted. Little did we know, we are also in for a great awakening with the rest of the world. But with poverty on our shoulders and a naïve government to boot, we suffered our worst share of the pandemic.
The count off of COVID-19 cases started from one until we lost track of the figures. From that day forward, we learned so much that we never thought we would. It shed light on the reality of life on the opposing end and every color of the social spectrum. It is on how the rich family rejoiced in having their time together while the poor are scavenging to feed hungry mouths; the working-class are just struggling to fit in between.
Businesses are stressed about their bank balances, while the employees are wandering with empty wallets. The street crime rates decreased, but the domestic abuse ballooned. Many abhorred the liquor ban, others reveled in their partner’s sobriety, while liquor stores are heading downhill.
The earth finally got served a little time to breathe free of pollutants. Although it is some kind of a calm before the storm of solid waste from food packs and disposable masks piled up.
My late grandmother once told us a story about how a time will come when, without a mark on our foreheads, we will starve. As the local government scoured the street with their master list and food packs, I realized we were on this side of starvation.
When social events were canceled and postponed, celebrants and couples awaiting their weddings were sad about the changes. For us people working in such a gig economy, it is some kind of a system down. We have no employers to run to, and no government organization to back us up. We only have friends and family to rely on at the time, who are also struggling by themselves.
One day soon, I will tell my grandma, the barcode was just a tracker. Not on the forehead but on our phones. It was optional, but I have had it now too, anyway. Yet the food and supplies are never free, like what they used to predict about doomsday.
It has been a year…
Have we progressed yet? We can never really tell. The vaccines we have long been waiting for are already at our doorsteps. But the cases are splurging up- maybe exponentially- over the past weeks. We are in danger of getting our second dose of lockdown and all sorts of banning (public display of affections are banned too, by the way) before we even have our first dose of vaccine.
Are we afraid? Maybe. But we have gone past the level of anxiety to cower in terror. We are still braving the everyday hustle of living. Let us just wait. And hope. And pray./WDJ