It's about time.

When my grandmother passed away and it went to my mom. I almost dreaded the day that it would become mine. Every time someone did, that dumb locket would be passed down.

As part of the tradition, new photos would be placed inside commemorating the new journey of the new owner. For 70 years this tradition continued memorializing the brazen sunset at the end of the day just after that person goes to sleep.

This locket has seen three lifetimes in less than a year. These last four months are like a horrible nightmare that I cannot wake up from.

I have spent more time in a hospital than I ever have in my life.

My eyes felt like sandbags touting the exhaustion that hung over my face. I dosed off slightly until I was momentarily awakened by the sound of a knock from the outside.

At that moment I drift back into consciousness staring at the cream and red tile with a tiny paint splattered pattern beneath my feet.

I look over to the bed to see that my mom is still visibly uncomfortable. She lies in a gurney with my jacket unzipped and draped over her upper body for warmth.

Her face covered with a mask as required. Mine too. She was only allowed one person to come back with her as we awaited the result if her test.

Her white shirt is laced with blood droplets that have seeped in and dried into stains. She was coughing up blood for an hour now.

Her locket was covered in it too. We left in a hurry and did not think to bring anything to clean it up with.

It was chilly in our room. Hospitals are normally cold, but this was ominous. Like an omen that creeped closer and closer to me sending chills down my spine as it approaches.

As if it was specific to this room and this room alone.

I feel a sudden surge of pain from my back from sitting in the stiff wooden chair with cushions that feel like they have gravel sewn into them.

Coupled with the seemingly infinite beeping of the vitals monitor rattling my ears with a 160hz frequency every two and a half seconds.

It was getting slower and slower with each passing minute. Though it was an annoying sound, I was hoping it would never stop.

I wanted this all to end. For everything to go back to normal. For this pandemic to never have happened. Or at the very least to have died down in its initial stages like the Ebola scare in 2014.

I arch forward to stretch my muscles before the nurse sees that I fell asleep waiting on her to get back.

My feet start tapping as a wave of anxiety towering over the sandy shores of my rational thought, threatens to swallow me whole.

I held my breath to keep from imagining the worst hoping to hear the opposite of what the nurse said that day.

I had not time to prepare for the impending doom that approached me. The nurse enters the room holding two holding three small doses of medicine, a needle, a plastic hose, and an IV pouch full of fluids.

She was small. The two mask straps were wrapped around her head. One draped around her ear and the other circled around her head of short white hair

The nurse speaks in a calm and soothing voice that sadly did not match her actions. “Maya, you have to leave the room. Your mom tested positive for Covid-19.”

I felt my heart sink as my squeamish nature invokes fear at the sight of long needles. I had not even noticed that mom had slipped out of consciousness.

The last thing I remember is seeing my mom's expressionless face as the nurses tied a rubber strap around her arm like she was wrangling a bull. Then slapped her arm like she was Paul Swift slapping Flex Seal on a hole leaking water in search of my mom's vein.

She was wearing the locket which was drenched in her blood. It had dried in the time we spent waiting in that room.

As I watched her be poked and prodded like she was a crochet sweater, I heard pagers from doctors treating patients in different rooms. Frantically speaking in messages, I could not understand.

I could only imagine what this work lifestyle is like on a day-to-day basis. Gurneys rolled across the floor holding patients with oxygen tanks trailing behind them. A man who had just been in a car accident was wheeled to the OR. What was once quiet was now bustling with excitement.

It had gotten worse. Much worse.

They escorted me out of the room and into a waiting room specific for guests where I waited and waited and wanted.

It seemed like time was dragging on for the express purpose of annoying the hell out of me. The pitter patter of feet hitting the ground constantly moving like a colony of ants working coordinated with each other.

Mom arrived at the hospital bloody and wheezing but that does not take away the importance of her treatment.

She needed urgent care and the influx of new cases of people coming in and had prevented the doctors from being available for her as they have done for many others.

I sat in the waiting room for two hours though it had only been 20 minutes into the wait when the doctor came back to give me the news that she was dead.

I wish I were still asleep. woke up to the reality of where I was, only to find that the severity of my situation pales in comparison to what others experience here.

I was not the only one who lost someone. From what I can recall over 100 people does that day. A father lost his two-year-old son.

A set of twins went from a dynamic duo to a dynamic uno.

I did not even get to say goodbye. If I could even watch the nurse administer her medicine helping her drift off into a long and well overdue rest, covering her in a warm blanket to ensure her comfort, her eyes shut like curtains to a play, until we meet when you wake up, when we take our leave from this beehive. I would utter a “Thank you” for the care of these health care workers.

The doctor left and the door shut behind her ridding he sounds from the inside in an instant. The lights are dim, and the curtain is pulled back.

I sat there in a daze distanced from reality, trapped in thought, and frozen in time.

I once again sit back in my stiff wooden chair at her bedside and fall asleep wishing that the next time I wake up, it will be at home in my bed.

My mom would still have her locket and I would watch it dangle from a small chain down her collarbone shimmering in the light. Bouncing with every step she took.

She would touch it whenever she prayed because she felt like her mother could hear her conversation with God. She must have been praying for her in heaven.

She took it off at night and stored it in a small red jewelry box with velvet lining that she kept in her nightstand by her bed.

She took care of this necklace. Sometimes I even felt she took better care of it than me.

I remember getting in trouble for sneaking in her room at night and taking it. I thought it was so pretty on me. Even more pretty than on her. I wanted it to be mine.

Why did grandma give it to her and not me?

I was jealous of her and wanted to see what she would do if something so precious to her went missing.

It was golden with a utopian trim, ageless. It contained one single diamond over the top. I noticed there was a clip on the side and a tiny hinge that allowed for it to open.

Inside was a photo of us. My mom and I together. I felt my heart fill with guilt as I stared into the mirror at my reflection thinking I had won this round.

I realized then that she had replaced the photo that was inside of her and her mom with the one of us. The locket soon grew cold around my neck, and it was not long before I was discovered.

I loved that locket, but I did not realize what the burden of owning it cost me.

Though it was older than my mom and I combined. It stood the test of time far better than we ever could.

It was there to give my grandmother's wedding dress an extra bit of style.

It was there for my mother's senior prom where her lips met the warmth of another's for the first time.

It was there to guide my mom through the burial of her mom and the cycle continues.

It was there to witness the birth of my mother and me. It watched us grow and mature into adulthood. It promised to preserve the good memories with those who we had lost.

Now it is my turn to receive it. And it is about time.

It has been five months since that day and the world has gone to shit.

After the riots broke out, more people were exposed, and the cases kept rising. There was nothing we could do to stop I then.

Hospitals were shut down after the cases became too much to handle. Cities began evacuating the people who were sick into shelters, small villages, and camps meant to siphon off those who were on the outside.

They had locations like this spread around the country to save survivors. Those who did not were processed like chickens. No one knows where all those bodies went.

Rows of white tents kept 10 feet apart from each other are heavily guarded to make sure no one can come in contact with another.

280 million deaths in the U.S. alone and over 6 billion worldwide. We are all orphans now clinging to whatever remanence of humanity is left. As we watched our lineage dwindle to from oaks to twigs, we had one thing to consider: Time.

And with nothing to remember it by. That is right, my mom still has the locket.

I tried to get it back, but the doctors insisted on keeping it to prevent the virus from spreading.

In a way I guess I should thank them. If I had gotten it, I would have died from it. Who would it go to then? I have no children and unless I can get pregnant from six feet away, I will have no luck.

How else would it have been passed on? Its secrets lie with her and so do its memories forever encapsulated in that tiny frame.

Time would tell, though it was only an illusion we humans use to make sense of the world we live in. Hell, we only started counting it about 2000 years ago which is not reflective of all time.

But time is relative, ambiguous, and running out. What time would I have left after this is over if it ever ends? And what would I spend my time?

I want my goddamned locket. It was my time. My way of keeping it. When I get out of here, I am going out looking for it.

If I must search until my time runs out, then so be it. I will not let my chance slip away through my fingers like dry sand again.

These days saying, “At least it can't get any worse.” is a luxury phrase. However long it takes, whatever misfortune I must endure, I will get my time back from mom.