No fear

It is a beautiful day, sunny but not oppressively hot. A comfortable breeze keeps everything bearable.

Downtown is crowded. At first glance it looks like business as usual. Until one notices the array of face coverings almost everyone is sporting. They are meant to be masks. Some are real masks. An N95 here, a FF2 there, a smattering of disposable surgical masks. A number of the latter are in advanced states of degeneration making one wonder at the effectiveness of the same. But the true masks are few in comparison to the improvised ones – hankies, bandanas, random bits of cloth of questionable origin, fashion masks – anything really to give the wearer the assurance that there is a guard of sorts on what they inhale.

Then there are the guys at the street corners with backpack sprayers, usual pesticidal contents replaced by a soapy mix they offer to everyone within reach. And most passers-by accept, almost absent-mindedly holding out their hands to receive the soapy spray and rubbing their palms together vigorously as they hurry on their way.

The drugshop is busy. I sit and wait for my relatively massive order to be packed, trying to keep out of the way of the other customers in the small space. Every few minutes, a harried looking person stumbles in, asks at the counter for a mask, and stumbles out again on receiving a head shake from the pharmacy attendant. There is this one guy with a backpack and a nearly full spray bottle. He is trying to sell to the pharmacy. Presumably sanitizer. He succeeds and I see him smile as another man (presumably the owner) tells the cashier to pay him for some bottles of the stuff. The smile is triumphant but tight.

His expression is mirrored in almost everyone I see. The darting glances, the pursed lips and flared nostrils (if they are not hidden behind a mask), the hurried steps, the unconscious folding in of self and minimizing of movements to reduce the chances of brushing up against anyone or anything.

It is not business as usual. There’s fear in every movement, action and expression. And the brightly beautiful day is a disturbing counterpoint to the mood. Dark clouds, billowing smoke, amoured vehicles on the streets would give them a tangible focal point for this blanket of terror. But all they have is stories of a deadly disease devastating outside countries and recently imported into our own. It’s nothing tangible, nothing visible that they can see and run from. So they fear.

I jump on a boda to get back to office with my purchases. The more uptown streets are not business as usual. The empty parking slots are many, the pedestrians few and moving cars fewer. The sun still shines, the breeze still blows. It is a beautiful day.   

I see him sleeping in the shade of some decorative shrubbery on the traffic island. You probably can picture him – his clothes no more than tattered rags that gave up their colour long ago in favour of beggar-brown, more dirt-caked skin than is decent visible through the multiple rips and holes, matted hair and beard – that kind. He is asleep in the middle of the day, snoring softly amidst the fear and panic. No mask adorns his face, and those blackened hands have definitely not seen any soap, much less sanitizer in eons. For him, no planning how to survive the pending lockdown, no worrying about lost jobs, economic crises or super bugs. For him, no fear.