Editor’s note: This story was written during the COVID-19 lockdown that exposed what modernity has buried in silence: our need for each other. A pandemic moves Saeed, a man softened by exhaustion and kindness; Omar, a man chasing connection through screens; and Shafi, an exiled poet who has long known solitude, together. Although they do not meet directly, their lives touch each other invisibly as a strange epidemic seems to spread through physical contact. As the contagion spreads among the public, the sick becomes more empathetic, emotionally available, generous, and eager for human connections. When strangers help one another with no expectation of reward; when social divisions begin to matter less, a quarantined city becomes a space for collective care and belonging. Readers need to understand that the epidemic cannot be understood as a standard medical epidemic. Rather, it functions as an extended metaphor through which we investigate love, loneliness, memory, exile, vulnerability, and the need to belong. The origin is purposely left unexplained. It asks whether tenderness can be as contagious and as transformative as catastrophe itself. Read the final diary entries slowly. Each of these bullets contains an entire world that silently changes. The final line is intentionally ambiguous. It belongs to everyone.
***
Saeed had been feeling odd the past few days. His eyes teared often, his chest tightened, and his throat caught before speaking. Despite the exhaustion, strange hunger drove him to talk to everyone and listen. Driving home, he noticed an old man standing in a daze by the road.
‘Do you need a lift, sir?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
For ten minutes Saeed tried to talk about many topics – rain, the government, dogs, until he realized that the old man could not remember his house. Then he panicked.
‘Left, again left, down this street, now right.’
‘Oh wait, it’s the next block.’
‘Where did the barbershop go?’ The old man’s voice shivered. He remembered the broken cobblestones in his street, but then perhaps they had just paved it again. Saeed glanced at the man’s pockets — no wallet.
Saeed stopped his car and bought ice cream. ‘The world is a better place because of butterscotch. Remember this if there is nothing else. Do you recall your neighbors or any famous shops near your house?’
Saeed stopped passers-by, thanking each other with a handshake. Fifteen minutes later, the old man was home, hugging his wife, refusing to let her go. Saeed gave his number in case he needed a lift. He politely declined the old man’s invitation to tea. In the park near Saeed’s house, children were playing football, and Saeed realized that he wanted to play too.
*
‘I cannot do another lockdown. You know, I got it now. Solitary confinement is a punishment for a reason.’ Omar texted Nadia. Lately, he has been talking to four girls. He felt he was in between with all of them, but things would not move ahead if he did not take initiative. ‘Have you been to the Oxford Bookstore?’ She asked. ‘It is not just books; they have all these types of exotic teas. There is also a tarot card reader. She was right about my mom.’ Omar was a regular at the Oxford Bookstore. He checked the new releases were there, and I bought them from the Sunday roadside market in the old city where bootlegged books were sold by the kilo. ‘No, I have not. We should go there then. How about Sunday at 4:30 pm? The world is open again; let us make the most of it.’
‘Sometimes, I am still afraid that there might be another lockdown,’ she texted. ‘And this time, they will not even pretend to care for us.’
‘It is worse when someone is isolated alone. Imagine the two of us locked down together,’ Omar wrote excitedly.
Silence for two hours. As he was weighing whether to apologies or make a joke, Nadia replied, ‘I can’t imagine being away from family.’
He pivoted, recycling a text he had sent yesterday to another girl. ‘Perhaps the virus itself looks for love,’ Omar sent with a smile. ‘Think about it. It moves from host to host looking for connection and chemistry.’
‘Weirdly, it does make sense,’ she replied immediately. ‘You know, some never accept the invitation. Some are too weak and die.’
‘But that is a poor dating strategy. Unleashing oneself on like that. How will it ever find someone who can endure its madness?’
‘But that is the true question, isn’t it?’ She sent the first smiley of the chat. ‘How will I ever find someone who can endure my madness?’ came her reply. Before he could answer, Omar was distracted by commotion outside. A car was asking for directions. An old man in the passenger seat. Omar had seen him once shouting at a woman, in the street across the park. He told the driver, who thanked him profusely, shaking his hand.
Omar came back inside, slightly different. He closed his eyes and thought of his family. He drew their faces in his mind – first the outline, then he colored their skin. He traced their smiles and then shook their dimples. He began crying as he put color in their eyes. He sat on the pavement outside his house and looked at the sunset, calling his parents, crying the whole time as the cats came and started rubbing against his leg.
*
Shafi was a poet from a land blessed by the gods and cursed by its men. His earliest memory was of uniforms rounding up the village men, then entering the houses, where the women and children waited. His grandfather was a well-respected doctor, and his father taught abroad. Even the men at the checkpoints knew of his family. ‘Master Shafi, never worry. We know you are not one of them,’ the shooters said. So, he only got angry after he left home. His first book sent him to exile. In leaving, he thus became one of them.
When the lockdown hit, Shafi felt no fear — curfews, shuttered shops, universities shut, nothing new; this was how his people had lived for generations. He was angry. It was still unfair: all these governments and their armies were at least trying to protect their people.
Landing in the city, he noticed heavy security. ‘Just like home,’ he chuckled. As per new directions, all incoming passengers were required to supply a detailed travel history and a plan for their stay. The eastern district was cordoned off. Rumors spread amongst stranded passengers. People in the eastern district were acting in strange ways. The entire area had turned into a lawless banquet where people sang and shared meals — rich and poor, believers and heathens, citizens, and aliens. People were giving away cars and TVs. Police officers sent to restore order had joined the festivities. The National Guard had been called in (officials struggled to explain what for: some called it a celebration, without naming the occasion; others a protest, without naming the cause). The first noticeable development was when all the children began playing soccer. This went on for a week. Then someone began putting up music systems in open spaces.
Shafi threw a diary over the wall at night. ‘Whatever you need, just write it down,’ he shouted. Shafi had nothing to lose. What did it matter if he was banned from another country; he already was torn from his home. Money, weapons, he would help anyway he could — at least somebody could be free. ‘Tell me what you need,’ he screamed. ‘Nothing’ came the reply.
*
‘The shareholders need to know the losses. Do you know what this is?’
‘I cannot say. An infectious disease. The factories are fine — some inventory taken. We can always hire more labor; there is no shortage of refugees in these times’
‘What are the doctors saying?’
‘They are clueless too. They describe it as a —’ the second man opened his phone. ‘— mass hysteria transmitted by physical contact. Hormonal imbalances, anomalous emotional responses, reinforced as these people interact.’ He raised his head slightly but kept his eyes low.
‘Have you revised the forecasts?’
‘It is difficult to say anything right now. We will have to see what the government does.’
‘Is there anything useful you can tell me right now?’ the first man asked.
‘I am in touch with my contacts. They are isolating the ministers. If they get infected, things could go in any direction. Meanwhile, the stock can swing either way. So, we need to be ready for that.’
‘Fine. Schedule a board meeting on Friday. And close the door.’
*
The government cordoned the city, only allowing for food, water, and medicines. The internet was cut off. All reports about the city now came from journalists living outside the city. The people of the city were worried that outsiders would never understand — nor could they be made to. Even for those who lived here, the city was now filled with so many stories that rumors and truth could not be told apart.
Saeed was tasked with reporting events for posterity — one news item a day, which he recorded in a diary that someone had thrown him over the city walls. The first page read:
• People have stopped filing court cases.
• Cosmetic surgery clinics have shut down.
• We need more musical instruments.
• There are no more stray dogs. All have been adopted.
• A pharmaceutical company CEO visiting the city patents released all his company’s before hanging himself in his hotel room.
• A poet sneaked inside the fence tonight. He has not spoken since, whispered something in my ear.
• I have finally found someone who can endure my madness.
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