THREE DAYS AGO

29th March, 2020

If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that I didn’t sign up for this.

I graduated university in 2017, but by fates twisted threads, I got the opportunity to “serve my fatherland” this year.

For some weird reason, I was ecstatic. Mainly because I had been living a 9am — 5pm (or more appropriately, 6am — 6pm) work life, and a girl was getting very exhausted. I thought this NYSC would be a much-needed break, an escape from the humdrum of my very unexciting life.

To be honest, I wasn’t wrong, but I also wasn’t right. Camp was not a break. It was a body battering, will shattering, muscle tearing ordeal; but hey, it wasn’t unexciting. I began to get into it. I joined the band, contested for a position, won; I was beginning to love the entire thing. We barely had time to look at our phones and when we did, it was mostly to catch up with our relatives and friends. However, every single time I looked at twitter, CoVid-19 ruled the updates. In retrospect, I wasn’t as worried as I should have been, but it registered in my head as a remote danger.

Then tragedy struck. Actually, I’m being overly dramatic. It wasn’t tragedy, but I got the sniffles. I joked about it with my friend, told him to stay away from me so he wouldn’t catch what I had. Then, I began to cough and sneeze quite violently. By evening, my temperature didn’t feel the same. Fear descended on me. Fear like I had not known in a while. I called my friends and told them how I was feeling. I called my parents, and cried my eyes out to them. My roommates probably thought I was crazy for all that crying but the truth is, nothing is worse than fear. The last thing I remember saying that night before I drifted off to sleep was, “I just want to go home”.

Other irrelevant details aside, the next morning, we heard the rumors that all the orientation camps were being shut down, and just like magic, ours was shut down too. I went to the camp clinic that morning. They told me a nasty flu had been going around, and I would be fine. I got on a plane two days later. I went home.

Home was great, except, I had to self-isolate for days on end. My family was sure that I didn’t have the virus, but there is no such thing as “too careful”. All the days blended into each other. I spent all my time ranting on social media about our lackadaisical approach to the very real threat of the virus. There were only 20 confirmed cases in Nigeria then. Maybe I was butthurt that I couldn’t go outside my room; maybe that’s why I sounded really angry on my Whatsapp stories.

However, time went by, I was no longer sneezing or coughing maniacally, and my folks let me out of my room. My “stay indoors” advocacy reduced to the occasional confirmed cases updates on social media, and when I was feeling feisty, an additional “stay safe”. I knew this virus was real, but being able to hug my family again helped me forget about the gravity of the situation.

1st April, 2020

I started writing this piece three days ago. It was supposed to end with me out of self-isolation and hopeful that this storm would soon pass, but a lot can happen in three days. Three days ago, the government instituted a lockdown in three states, mine included. Two days ago, I turned 22 and my only sources of joy were 4 credit alerts and my mother’s fried rice. Yesterday, my relative in another country tested positive for the virus.

Everything is going to shit.

Nevertheless, I will ignore my morbid tendencies to end this tale on a sad note for the flicker of hope’s flame that seems to whisper, “this too shall pass”. That’s the thing about this raggedy race. It’s amazing how we have been able to survive as a species, when you put in context how many things are against us and how fragile life truly is, but we are survivors. We will survive.

I didn’t sign up for this — this fear, this uncertainty — but then again, none of us did. And now, humanity is somewhat united in this fight for survival.

I wrote this for a competition in 2020 and it never got posted, so here it is.