Standing Beyond a Great Death

 
Stay home, wash your hands.
...This much I know. Then what?
We still have to live, after all!
I'm watching people die, having to watch.
There will be more....


The list grows longer and longer...steadily.
Any of us could slip into this list at any time—
me, you, or anyone else.
Which means our days ahead are numbered,
...if that list is lying in wait for us.


Now? What do we do?
Eating, sleeping. Reading books, watching TV or movies. Or heartfelt prayers.
Husband with wife, wife with husband! Terrible business! Yet we must endure...all these days!
Chatting with parents, lounging with family. Where everyone keeps talking endlessly, mixing and matching whatever they happen to know.
Making some phone calls to check up, to give news. Watching the news, building fear moment by moment. And waiting in confinement for yet more fears.
Growing tired of sleeping, then with teacup in hand, gripping the window grille, helpless gaze drifting past the alley to empty streets or nearby buildings.
Sometimes restless...there's nothing to do, and no way to do anything...keeping both these facts in mind, sitting down once again on Facebook. Going to various walls, inboxes, calling out loudly to the Creator or writing down whatever comes to mind.
Occasionally sending financial help to various addresses, posting about it on Facebook or not.
On Facebook, the procession of deaths and related news—learning and sharing with everyone.
Along with some divine warnings or cautionary words. Then? Life still has plenty left. Then what?


Hard times drag along more hard times. That's the rule.
Maybe ahead we won't be able to buy things anymore; not even with money...no.
While there's time, let me buy some food, store it up. Those who can't afford to buy—
let me mention them at least once, and quickly forget or remember while hoarding food.


Bad mood? Anger building inside? Feel like breaking things?
Right now I go to Facebook, and after mistreating someone or other, I sit quietly again,
or I scold the household for a while. Scolding them is safe, because
they don't have a block button for me.
I've assumed that at this moment no one in the world is more miserable than me. The whole thing is terribly sweet!


The government isn't doing anything. Doctors aren't doing anything. The rich are sleeping soundly. The administration is indifferent!
I gather some more complaints. Hurl them one by one. Maybe that'll make COVID-19 run away a little!


Whatever texts I receive, I forward them all. Along with them I write from memory,
If you don't forward this message to 20 people, then...
Yes, I know everything, the rest are chewing grass. I wonder if grass cultivation is suddenly increasing!


Gradually I go mad and make everyone else go mad too!
I flail my arms and legs; I'm sitting here, let there be some exercise at least!
I turn the room into a mental asylum...! What's the point of going crazy all alone?


After doing all this, have I managed to control COVID-19 even a little?
Haven't I? What do you say? I should have been able to!
Well, alright! No matter, let's think of something else!


If at this moment I were to give up even this life given by my mother,
could we stop the corona infection? If we can't,
then what's the point of constantly jumping around needlessly about this?
Sometimes, we have to stay quiet—when will we understand this?


The ways we cannot walk, the ways we cannot listen and speak,
let me step away from those paths. Really and truly!
If we survive, what we cannot do in these few days,
we can do a thousandfold later. First let us live!
What good will cursing God at the moment of death do?


Let me quickly sweep away and dismiss all excessive, useless, pointless emotions!
If necessary, I'll fight, and keep fighting—with husband, with wife...certainly my own!
If we survive, we can take time later for divorce! No big deal!
But let me not go out just for a cup of tea or to stand at the street corner for a couple of drags on a cigarette.
When the world is healthy, that day I'll dip a few cigarettes in a mug of tea and drink it!
Let me not hurt anyone, not lecture anyone, not wound anyone.
Perhaps I don't even have time to wait for answers to all that. Who can say!


How to walk, how to speak...when will we learn these things?
After how much more delay will enlightenment come?
When will we become human beings instead of merely human offspring?
Now is the time to become human not just in appearance, but in body and mind!
And, if we survive, to prepare ourselves mentally to live as human beings!


Yes, I must deliver some information to some people.
This is my responsibility, this is my duty as a human being.
What kind of information? Something about drinking cow urine or chewing thankuni leaves?
Or an article rich with arguments and disputes about these things?
...We're really capable! If COVID-19 were a sentient being,
seeing us it would flee in amazement!
What difference does it make whether fools are kept alive or not?


The police are incompetent, doctors aren't doing anything, the administration sleeps, the government is blind and deaf.
...Saying such things is quite easy! I mean, sitting on Facebook's shore, not in Corona's field.
Tell me, who among us is doing what? How much? Think seriously and tell me?
In these few days, apart from posting statuses and posts on Facebook, what else are our achievements?
Why do we forget this country isn't in Europe or America? Though even if it were there, nothing would have helped anyway!
We don't have a user manual for what to do or not do in such a pandemic.
We're restless and impatient, saying whatever comes to mind.
We don't think for a moment about the doctor who left his child in that room,
not knowing if he'll ever be able to return!
The member of security forces or administration who stays on the streets every day...for you and me,
on whose shoulders all the risks of community transmission keep breathing,
on Facebook's wall I'm excavating that person's entire lineage!
Couldn't we suspend this pettiness for these few days? If we survive, later we can resume...


In our homes we have rice, lentils, oil, salt...everything! When they run out, we have money to buy more.
In the house next to ours? Two alleys over? In Rahim uncle's house in that neighborhood?
For those who must fill their stomachs with each day's earnings, in their homes?
Are we checking on them? Or are we eating alone and surviving, thinking we're doing quite well!
What good is surplus money...if it doesn't save human lives?
Today the time has come to become human, to look at humans with human eyes.
If we die unable to handle this crisis,
that day, looking at my corpse or hearing the news of my death, may someone at least say, he was a good man!


If there's something in our heads, today is not the time to carefully keep it locked inside!
Let all the wonderful ideas from all our heads come out.
Let some people survive, let some people stay alive,
let some people find a little joy even in day after day of captivity...
This time let me write a line or two, or light the little lamp of protection a bit more!
Let me paint, write, sing...whatever I can! Or simply say a few words that teach us to live!


We none of us know what lies ahead.
When this pandemic will end, we don't know that either! When this time ends,
if famine comes, if unemployment or joblessness increases,
if the world gets some new disease, if people cry from more disasters,
by what path will we survive? Today the time has come
to seek new paths for saving the world, not just prayers or weapons of destruction!


The way it hurts when a needle pricks my skin, that same pain
is felt by the person I prick with the needle. The suffering of crying from hunger's torment
is the same as what someone who hasn't eaten for days experiences.
When a loved one dies, however much my heart breaks in pain,
exactly that much pain lives in the chest of someone whose beloved is lost!
Bowing my head, bending my heart, opening soul and mind...today the time has come to understand humanity!


Perhaps I don't have pockets overflowing with money, no surplus time to give.
Even so, I too want to build walls of humanity to save people, to make people human!
Those who suffer, those in distress and hardship—even if I cannot reach them in my inability,
still, those who stand beside them...with body and strength, with money or mind, seeing them
let me throw them a little smile, keep them in good wishes, love them with an open heart!


When death is right in front or life uncertain, when despite trying everything to live
we cannot say whether we'll actually survive; even then what good does it do
to spread despair or hopelessness? Let our final days pass in joy, in peace, in tranquility.
When the living wish peace for the dead, those wishes just dissolve in air, who doesn't know!
Even after this disease, if we survive—these few days...the happiness we've had, it has touched people...
in this unbearable time;...they've laughed a little, played, forgetting all momentary weariness—how is this small?


When good times come, this world will change in many ways, bringing some new customs,
human conscience and understanding will be shaken somewhat, along with...perspectives will shift.
To survive, we must accept all these things first! Changing ourselves considerably,
we must think anew, dream new dreams, reduce the burden of sin!
May our children survive with assurance of health and natural death, without cursing us for our flaws!


When clamor cannot cure disease, it's better to remain silent.
When restlessness cannot stop death, it's better to be patient.
When even distance in relationships brings us no peace, it's better to keep relationships without distance.
When destruction no longer brings the old happiness, it's better to live in creation and let others live.
In this time of terrible fortune, the more we learn these things, the better we'll be...if we survive!


We have infinite time!
We are alive, we will survive.
We have endless time to give and receive love!
We still have plenty of time!
Those who love us, those we love,
we still have so much time to give them!
...Such thoughts have kept us dead all this while!


Come, today let us believe
the world's lifespan has run out.
Today is the last day, all calculations of time are meaningless today.
All our worries and busyness are fixed today at a point of failure.
Today there is no fear, today we have nothing to lose.


If today is this world's last day,
if the next few countable hours are all our breath has left,
if even all our prayers together cannot save us anymore,
'We have more time'—if today this becomes the world's greatest lie,
...then right at this moment, stepping away from all long-term plans and thoughts,
the way we would have lived,
the way we would have loved,
the way we would have been happy,
the way we would have opened our eyes and looked,
...come, in this slow—meditative—still time, let us live exactly like that!