SABAH CARRIM
Look at how Africa is
untouched
say the black man and the black
woman
with a twinkle in their
eye
(and a bit of
schadenfreude)
pointing at the map of the world
and at the
vast space
of unshaded colour.
And in the meantime, jokes and memes
circulated
on social media
are there to mock this collective
paranoia
—one is of Mexico, now
urging Trump
to get going
and
erect
the wall
in many
different
parts of world
preventive measures
have been
prescribed by snake oil sellers
and
witch doctors
one suggests
good old cow dung—
another a book
by Hegel
a third details the merits of
black seeds, and
a fourth
of
violet leaf oil (rubbed on the anus).
And in the meantime
people wonder and theorise
about
why shelves in shops are
empty
and toilet paper
scarce
chuckling and laughing at
all the
possibilities.
And in what’s left
of
social gatherings, people discuss apocalyptic
writings
by authors who supposedly
predicted
this pandemic
(when in truth they only had
the skills
of the poet, the astrologer
better known as Nostra
damus,
born in the sixteenth century
who, trust me, is taken too
seriously)
And in the meantime, thinkers and
philosophers of this age
comment
on the absurdity of this phase—
reflecting that if the world created
smart phones, smart this, and smart
that
why is it surprising, that we now have
a smart
influenza
And beyond all of
that,
the talk is about how
the virus is now
the final blow
in a world that was already destroying
itself
by creating distance between
us
where we are now
forced
to abstain from all contact with
one another
and are advised even by
our best friends, our parents
and our well-wishers
to
keep away—to
self-isolate