Hundred cases slowly became thousands and as time went by, made its way to millions, stealing smiles and demolishing the serenity of hope.

The quality of education started descending to teachers staring at screens overcrowded with black boxes, as a persistent attempt to carry out their services. While students navigate their way through the uncertainty and inconsistencies of the restricted virtual platform.

Standardised tests and grading systems still found a way to feed into their own lies of evaluating the capacity of a person through a mere sequence of numbers and even amidst a global pandemic, still believe that these are the barometers of acceptance.

People are universally battling the monotony and mundane quality of the days that go by, each one merging into the next, making the past six months an inscrutable blur that paused possibility and corroded chance.

It still disturbs me and eliminates peace in my mind to think about what the world has become. A scene from a sci-fi horror movie that I previously may have been able to view, but now that I’m living through it, the reality bars me from the ability to confront it.

What baffles me the most is that people didn’t see you coming. I may not have expected you specifically to pay us a visit, but as Newton’s third law states, “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

All around us large companies and profit making organisations indulge in robbing the earth of her exquisite and treasured resources, while relentlessly splurging freshly minted money, so quick to reject the millions of starving people.

Factories produce warm,stale smoke that travels further and wider than most people get to in a lifetime, increasing the global temperature at an alarming rate and providing a disappointing feeling of warmth. These factories stay on the paths of their one track minds, obstinately making the world their personal landfill, and now that the foul odours of their misdeeds are retaliating, they ask you, why have you come and crumbled our existence?

We create our own catastrophes mounding the blame on anything and anyone but ourselves. Coaxing our minds into thinking it’s destiny.

Now that the world is exhausted and tired of our troublesome ways, and possibly sent you to teach us a lesson, we drown in sorrow and pity, still pretending that we are not accountable.

As much as I have my reservations about you, If I placed the blame entirely on you I would be a criminal of my own hypocrisy. I am well aware that humans are imperfect, and we do more damage than goodwill. Even if you depart I cannot promise that the world would change its ways, but what I can assure you is that we are also a part of the problem, you are not the one to blame. After all, we may just be victims of our own success.

Sincerely,

Anam Khaleel.

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