The Heart Shaped Locket

The pandemic way of living was the most eerie feeling day and night. As the woman wandered the darkened streets alone even though it was just 9pm at night but no one was to be seen. The restaurants had all closed, people weren’t leaving their homes anymore those that had survived and not moved away to remote locations. Anyone who was there was just keeping themselves inside the house. She reached in her pocket of her vintage coat and felt deep in her pocket the object she was searching for. She began tracing her finger over the surface of it, just to relieve her stress and anxiety.

The cool metal surface of the heart shaped locket offered her a soothing effect over her body. A strength filled inside of her as she walked down the dark street, stroking the metal deep inside her pocket, the eerie street that was once filled with lit up houses and pets outside with cars going up and down the street was now a ghost town. She kept stroking the metal, hoping that it would help to gain her courage as she had gone down the darkened road.

As she made her way past the dark houses and abandoned buildings of business that had closed and would not be opened again. She began to realize that this was life, no longer were there to be the same happiness as she had experienced in the past years. Parks, shops and outdoor shopping where she had enjoyed her life with her family and friends. No more smiles and enjoyment as they lived their lives. She felt calm although, recalling this while she stroked the locket in her pocket offering her peace and calm to think about this while she had walked. Ahead, she saw the dark building that she had called home, where she would be going to watch a few retro movies, eat a few snacks she had picked up and dream about a normal existence again for the world.

As she walked up the darkened stairway she had seen her building entrance to go into. She walked up the twenty stairs, grabbed the key out of her pocket and entered her house. As she unlocked her door she grabbed into the pocket to take out the metal object she had stroked throughout her whole walk home. A metal heart shaped locket and inside were two photos of her son and daughter. The reason behind her strength and the force of gravity that had kept her going for the past year and a half. Lets just say the sanity that kept her grounded through these crazy times.

She heard them call out for her, her son and daughter always stayed home as she went out to do errands. It was safer to be inside the house, and for her to wander the dark streets. Her daughter had an autoimmune disorder and could pick up the virus. She didn't want anything to happen to her as she was her world. The person who was the most important thing to her staying alive at this point, and of course her son also. Her two worlds and the most important people in the world.

As, she hung the heart-shaped locket around her neck, she walked up into the house. Where she was greeted by their smiling faces and warm embraces. They radiated so much love and happiness for her, which she appreciated to have so much. She was so grateful for them, as most people had been taken away from her and they were the only thing that she had even close to love or close to physical touch in the past year and a half. She didn’t know what it was like to be close to another human being other than the two of her children, how to speak to someone without the chance of getting sick or ill. The deadly virus had affected so many people, and she didn't know how she would be able to go on day to day if it hadn’t been for them.

The virus had raged throughout the world, slowly working it’s way from country to country as people travelled the world and not knowing that they had contracted the virus. The virus then went through the people first that had low immune systems and worked its way up to the people that had unhealthy diets and habits. The less careful population seemed to catch it the most, they weren’t staying away from certain hot spots and ignoring taking the medications as regulated.

So slowly places shutdown because of the laws, people had to stay home or didn't want to leave their homes at all. Curfews were put into place and police slowly started to monitor areas to ensure people didn’t leave their homes at all. It was slow in the beginning but after a year it ravaged hard throughout most countries. The horror and stories that had been told over the news had stopped people from wanting to live a life at all. They had kept them contained in order to slow the virus spread but still tens of millions had died, and it ruined the “normal life” we had all gotten to experience.

She kept the heart shaped locket with the picture of her and her children to remind her that they were survivors. That they would overcome this together and no one would die out of them. They were all together and that’s where they would stay forever together in the heart shaped locket, and in each other’s lives too.