We See You

We see you.

Weary faces and kind eyes, “how’s it going, sir”, sometimes answered and most times ignored. Foot on the accelerator, and the mirror on your windscreen describes empty seats but for the bleak-eyed man with the briefcase, and the girl who takes shifts at the hospital. Five o’clock mornings and eleven at night, but the routes must be followed, the schedules unchanged. It’s a spectral sight; so few bodies to lurch, wave-like, as you pull away from the stop, and the quietness of the usual fifty different sets of earphones plugged into fifty pairs of ears made somehow quieter by no earphones at all. Yet faithfully you crawl the vehicle through suburbs and city, by sunrise and sunset and the minutes sheering midnight. Drivers in uniforms, piloting buses, trains, taxis and trams; the faces behind windscreens that deliver our journeys. Lonely trips they are these days, but heroes, you don’t go unnoticed.

We thank you.

Long shifts and checkout conversations, scanning more sanitiser and toilet paper than you could ever have imagined. You ask us for a receipt, but your eyes ask questions – questions of humanity and the world, of change, the same questions pasted on everyone’s thoughts. Barcodes and cold polished floors, feeling barcoded yourself by the walls of the supermarket, while the others, they stay at home in seclusion and safety. Constant restocking, handling of cash, your hands reek of sanitiser, but better that than COVID, they tell you. We know the shelves don’t stock themselves, and there is courage in those tireless checkout smiles. Heroes, in habitats of cold air and fluorescent light.

We appreciate you.

Grinding the coffee beans, while the squeal of the frothing milk cuts like steel through the 6am air. Adept on the machine, like a machine yourself, the way you grind, pour, froth and swirl as readily and consistently as if the world were not yet racked by pandemic. But it’s life force you pour into those takeaway cups, a glimpse of vitality against a mural of mortality. Vendors of coffee, but vendors also of strength, of constancy. Familiarity is a rare indulgence in this mutable era. And to the food handlers, the chefs, serving ‘a la delivery van’ rather than waiters and tables, thank you. Thank you for serving the restaurants of homes and backyards, the customers in pyjamas and ensconced in front of fireplaces and televisions. Dining in has taken on new meaning, and your empty restaurants are feeding thousands. You are heroes in aprons and quiet kitchens.

We acknowledge you.

Carers, support workers. Roles that can’t be digitised or minimised, lives that cling to your comfort and aid. Every day the same, and every day a service more than most of us can demonstrate. You nurture life in a time where it’s challenged. Unceasing readiness, quiet patience. Your heroism was born long before the effect of a virus, and in your countless hours of labour, often without uniform, you have saved and restored. Your work is done both by hand and the heart.

We respect you.

The mothers and fathers juggling zoom calls and home school, deadlines and the growth of the young minds preceding our future. It’s a messy mix of homework and work tasks, of inquisitive little questions and the hard grind of moneymaking. A jigsaw of responsibilities, and marked by fatigue, but the puzzle you piece together is glorious and admirable.

We recognise you.

Faces perhaps never seen, spectre-like behind conveyor belts and glittering steel. An ecosystem of machinery and calloused hands, monotonous repetition, regimented precision. Your skin is pale, barely acquainted with the sun, but you are the arteries of the factory, the veins that pump our economy and society. Labelled as unskilled workers, but your skill is indubitably our very survival. Factory workers, your labour gives birth to our global livelihood. How poorly we appreciate you for how greatly we need you. Accept this thank you, and own your worth.

We salute you.

Scrubs and gloves, expressions obscured by the same masks that symbolise perhaps the greatest display of humanity and sacrifice. The emergency workers, preceded by sirens and flashing light, every move a race against time, a rebuttal to mortality. The midwives, delivering life into a climate where life itself seems tenuous. Nurses and ward staff, your compassion and commitment are permanently etched onto the lives you nurture, the hands you hold. Around the clock and globe, doctors, surgeons, lab technicians, pharmacists, medical workers of every role and nature – your indescribable courage is admired beyond expression or suitable thanks. It is intangibly engraved upon sterile walls and hospital beds, by the faces that sheered death and the families spared from grief. Thank you, heroes, for your toil and tenacity.

It’s strange – ironic even – that a single virus particle can upend a globe. Normalities challenged, perspective rebirthed in unfathomable ways. And the heroes we once glorified now pale against what were once deemed instruments of the everyday.

And now, every day, are heroes.