Memories of the Heart

The year is 2050.The world has ended. A new airborne virus, T5-N2, has emerged and spread around the globe killing most of the human population. A global quarantine in effect for the survivors of the pandemic. News reports from leading scientists claim it is unlikely that an effective vaccine or cure would be developed within the next 20 years to protect the rest of the survivors as the virus has continued to mutate quite rapidly causing the virus to become more virulent and lethal as a result. The news reports indicate that humanity is on the brink of extinction. I knew that I was going to die from this virus I had contracted.

For me though, this pandemic ended my world much earlier than the announcement by the government’s special virus task force. As I reflected on the memories of my family through this portrait photograph of us within this heart-shaped locket that I had bought for my partner, I grip the locket tight within my fist as the reality of them no longer being with me has just become so painful that it makes me shiver with rage and despair at the unfairness of the circumstances. I quickly regain my composure after a brief set of tears have rolled down my face only to be wiped by my right hand before I re-open the heart shaped locket. I look at photo of us that was taken nearly a month before the whole ordeal began and the memories of our past overtake me.

My spouse was the first to go from our family. It started out as any regular illness with cold or flu-like symptoms. A dry cough, a fever and lethargy. Nothing that we thought that a little bed rest and some off the counter medicine would cure. However, when the symptoms started getting worse and started to be accompanied by excessive vomiting and a lack of ability to breathe, we knew then that situation was a cause for concern. It was shortly after they contracted the illness that news stations started speaking of a deadly new virus. T5-N2. After those news reports, my spouse was put into the Intensive Care Unit of our local hospital. I found myself being the sole supporter of our child while I prayed for my spouse to recover. They never did. After about a week, they passed away due to complications brought on by the virus. I became the sole support parent of our only child.

I found myself in the company of my parents since I could not afford to maintain the mortgage on my house due to the loss of an additional income I had with my spouse. My parents were there to console me as news of the virus spread to all corners of the globe. Some countries were able to initiate lockdown procedures and social distancing measures earlier as many of their healthcare services had been strengthened after a previous pandemic that had ravaged the planet thirty years prior known as COVID-19. Other countries, who had not heeded the lessons of the past, suffered greater casualties, due to the gutting of social services and a lack of education about history regarding pandemics. Furthermore, many more people started spreading conspiracy theories on various media platforms that disseminated half-truths, false narratives, and bizarre theories of social and population control of the masses.

My father explained that history was repeating itself and that the issues of the past were illustrating that humanity was not learning from its mistakes and he feared that one day we may not be so lucky to survive another pandemic one day. He told me that he and my mother had done their residencies as a doctor thirty years ago during the height of the previous pandemic. He told me he had never seen so much death in his life and what scared him was the death toll back then paled in comparison to what was occurring now. Death seemed to be all encompassing of humanity this time around.

His words made me clutch the heart-shaped locket I had around my neck as a keepsake by that point and I prayed there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. The first set of scientists proceeded to try and use mRNA technology to create a new sleuth of vaccines to combat this new biological adversary. At first, humanity seemed optimistic that the new vaccines could wipe-out the T5-N2 threat. Many people started to get vaccinated after a pushback from various fringe groups and things seemed to be turning around in favor of a return to normalcy. However, problems arose in two forms regarding the new mRNA vaccines. First, complications started to manifest with the vaccines, most notably the sterilization of women’s reproductive system, impotency in men, and blood clots. The second issue was the virus was mutating at an exponential rate which caused the efficacy of the vaccines to drop below 10%, making the value of the vaccine plummet. No one started taking the vaccines after that and governments were forced to adopt strict lockdown measures. However, these measures did not save my mother and father as they both contracted variants of T5-N2 during their work in combating the virus as doctors and died. I found myself alone with my child, with no other relatives to help me and the responsibilities of raising a child by myself while surrounded by death. Every day seemed to be like a living hell where I was trapped by an invisible enemy. The only thing that kept me motivated was the love of my child and my desire to seem him grow into an adult. However, T5-N2 would even deny me that.

I did everything in my power to protect my child from the evil of T5-N2. I sterilized my parents’ house that I inherited from my parents’ will after their deaths. We wore our masks and practiced social distancing. We stayed inside unless I needed to get groceries. We followed all the guidelines to the letter. But somehow, this virus sunk its claws into my baby. My poor sweet baby. I watched for the fourth time in my life as someone I loved started to be slowly devoured by the disease with me being powerless to stop it. I remember trying to use various herbal medicines and panaceas that turned out to be nothing but ineffective placebos. I was not sure if I my desire was to alleviate the suffering of my child or give myself hope that we would get through this even though I knew what the end was going to be. I remember pleading to God that I wished that my child would not be taken away from me because I had already lost so much. I remember how my child tried to assuage me of my fears by being strong for me and consoled me before they were rushed into the Intensive Care Unit like my love before and then just like that they were gone. Tears ran down my eyes that day like waterfalls, drenching the heart-shaped locket that contained the memories of my family.

The pain of losing my baby burrowed into me like a steel drill and hollowed me to a point where I was just empty. I found myself locked up in my parents’ house in the lockdown with the weight of the reality that my family was gone and I alone remained. I did not see the point of why I was spared. I wished that the virus would have taken me instead and then the news report came that confirmed it was unlikely that an effective vaccine or cure would be develop within the next 20 years to protect the rest of the survivors and that this was effective the end of the line for humanity. I started to cough after I had finished reminiscence of my family and the tribulations we faced and strangely enough I felt at peace with the finality of my inevitable demise at the hands of this disease since the instrument that had taken my family away from me in this life would allow me to reunite with them in the next life. I took one more look at the photograph of myself and my family within the heart-shaped locket and prepared myself to accept my fate with peace and tranquility.