Emotional Slave

The year is 2050 and we are in the middle of another global pandemic. It is the sixth global pandemic since 2020. They are now a normal part of life. It’s not some future Dystopian society, it’s now. I watch robots delivering the news on a device that used to be called a phone, I still can’t believe this is happening. How did this happen? I am in shock. I will never have the answers.

Earth is no longer called Earth. It is called Isolon - a place where no hope exists and there is only isolation.

I hold my mother’s heart shaped locket in my filthy hand. It’s all I have left and I don’t know what will become of me. I feel like there is something wrong with me as I look around and all I see is death and destruction.

How did it come to this? I close my eyes and I have a memory. As I look back I can see the shadowy visions of earth which seems now like light years away. I feel like I’m floating through space yet my feet are planted firmly on what is left of the ground. Dark, wet soil pungent with a smell that reeks of death.

Is everyone dead? Is this all there is death? What’s the point? There is no point anymore. Everything is shutting down around me and I suddenly feel afraid. I’m afraid of what is and I’m afraid of what is to come. I no longer know if I should live or die when I have lost everyone and everything that ever mattered to me. I’m standing in this abyss that just feels like a living hell.

It's hard to remember who I am or where I am. Time doesn’t seem to exist anymore or maybe it does but I can’t remember much. Is it really 2050 now? Who knows? It must be because this just can’t be happening. Everyone is sick and dying. The globe is shutting down and the only word on everyone’s lips is vaccine.

"But the vaccine will kill you", they whisper. It doesn’t matter if it kills me because everyone I love is already dead. They died a long time ago and I have never recovered. I hold my mother’s heart shaped locket to my chest and the grief overwhelms me. In that moment I believe the suffering will never end.

There has been so many vaccines but with every new pandemic, more and more new strains of the virus emerges. The latest more deadly than the previous version. Airborne viruses are the new normal but no one is used to it yet. Everyone just wants to die. There is very little reason to live these days.

Why did I live? I shouldn’t have lived. I should have died with them. There really is no point to living because every day I just feel incredibly alone. This pandemic is the worst because the isolation has only increased and is now overwhelming to what I already felt before. This is like a slow, painful death like being torn apart from the inside out and having nowhere to go.

The global situation only mirrors what I feel inside. A zombie apocalypse would be better than this slow, enduring torture and knowing there is no end to this. Simply nowhere to go but a deeper, darker form of hell. That’s the saddest part. I just have nowhere to go but hell. They are all dead and the world is shrinking into this anti-utopia where there is no hope. There is only despair, no money, death and dying and the only people that feel any sense of control is the government.

There is no justice or equity or fairness for the masses. They can’t get vaccinated and everyone wears masks outside on their face but the hardest mask is the one we wear on the inside. You have to wear a mask to stay alive.

Everyone just looks and feels sinister.

We are told to stay inside, to be safe and the people can no longer gather or smile or have fun. Just stay safe, be vaccinated. There are no airplanes anymore and people can’t travel and explore different worlds. They have to remain silent and indoors as we watch on small screens as the world slowly dies. It’s another pandemic and we have no control over our own lives anymore.

Just when you think it’s getting better, it strikes again. A new variant more deadly than last one and we can’t get on top of it. We can’t win and there is simply nowhere to go. And it's only the governments around the globe that have control, faceless men, totalitarian , telling us what to do and how to live and the same word keeps playing over and over again, “vaccine”.

Get vaccinated they shout but the vaccine will kill you but so will the virus. I don’t know who to believe. It’s all just so confusing and I just really wish I had died a long time ago anyway. I wish I had died when they died. I scrunch my mother’s heart shaped locket in my hand and I wish she was still here. She might know what to do. At least she would hug me.

Maybe if I hold that locket tight enough it will bring her back. I know it won’t but it’s the only hope I have. In this pandemic there is so little hope when there is so much death and dying. My Mother died in the second pandemic and my siblings in the third. My dad died when I was a child of a heart attack. I feel like a victim.

And while some nations have enough money to look after the sick and dying other nations do not. Many countries are facing financial ruin and it’s not even some imagined drama. It’s real and it’s happening and it’s happening all around us. I feel this unending sense of dread and impending doom every time I watch the Robot’s deliver the news.

By the time the third pandemic arrived there was no more humanity. Maybe we never really had humanity anyway. It’s everyone for themselves. These multiple pandemics have just highlighted our innate lack of humanity I don't even know what it's mean to be human anymore.

I feel trapped and stuck with nowhere to go. It’s always the same. I am an emotional slave

Nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. All I have is my mother’s heart shaped locket and I cling to it like life itself. Maybe it will save me. I need someone to save me. Please can somebody just save me from all this?

I plead and I beg but there never seem to be any answers. Can someone just please give me an answer and then I will be ok. I hold the locket even tighter. Why didn't my Mother save me?

The hopelessness and despair during this pandemic is featured like some apocalyptic horror movie. It plays on the outside but just mirrors how I feel on the inside as I watch the news. I still can’t believe this is happening. Is this really happening?

I just can’t get anywhere and I feel stuck. Here everyone is a victim and we are all emotional slaves. There is no separation. Everyone is programmed to feel the same thing – negativity, hopelessness and despair. In this land you are not allowed to feel anything positive and nobody smiles. It is not allowed.

Economies and currencies all over the world are collapsing and no one has any money. There is no freedom, there is no justice. If anyone feels anything good, they shut it down and hide it. Positivity is not allowed because we are all emotional slaves that live here.

We are not allowed to think for ourselves. With every new pandemic and every new outbreak and lockdown we know we have no control over our lives and believe we never will.

In the first pandemic there was plenty of food but by the sixth pandemic there is hardly any food left. The hoarding increased to such severe levels, with each new pandemic and because of economic collapse, agriculture and food manufacturing was decimated. It just became everyone for themself.

Mental and emotional health is non existent. If you don’t have the virus or live in fear of contracting the virus then suicide is the way out for many. With each new pandemic the suicide rate increases.

I don’t know how I should act anymore or I don’t know how to be. I walk around with this nondescript expression on my face. It’s good that we are not allowed to be positive because it masks the searing depression I continually feel inside. I’m surrounded by people who I know believe it would be easier to die.

What’s the point when there is just no hope and this is the new normal.

How did we get to this new decade and this is happening where people can’t even go outside their homes and all you hear is lockdown. I feel incredulous as I watch the vials of vaccinations spin around and around on conveyor belts and everyone is debating which vaccine is safe, no vaccine is safe the conspiracy theorists still tout. Don’t get vaccinated.

Confusion reigns.

A single tear runs down my cheek as I am flooded with memories. Remembering the days when I was happy, the days when I had a family and I was loved, there were people around me that I could turn to. The tear falls on my Mother’s heart shaped locket lying dully in my hand. God how I wish she were here.

I would give anything to actually be happy again, to start a new life and leave this godforsaken place but that would be selfish when you are surrounded by sickness and death and no one stands a chance. The easiest thing to do is to give up and just wait for a slow, painful death when you are a victim of the virus and an emotional slave.