N O T T O D A Y

N O T    T O D A Y.

There is a cool wind blowing. Occasionally, a flash of lightning and the distant thunder claps. 

It is a bittersweet sensation. The promise of rain.

I had written this back in November, wondering then as to whether there was any end in sight – do the monsters win?: https://judithnv25.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-dark-winter.html

It is the heat of summer now and apparently as of this morning, nothing had changed. 

For the past few weeks, as I wade through the daily cycle of agony and grief that is my nation now, I save as many articles as I can.

Names, where they have been shared, heart wrenching accounts of the struggle for hospital beds, medicine, oxygen. 

I do not want to blanket my heart and I do not want to forget. 

There is anger and an overwhelmingly overpowering sense of bleakness, coupled with fervent prayers. 

For healing and recovery for loved ones and for those that I do not know, willing the negative thoughts aside. 

For protection, for all of us, to be safe from this insidious disease that lurks everywhere, willing away again the dark what ifs.

For a sense of purpose, some meaning to all this, surely something good can, must come of this, even this.

But mostly there is anger.

At the sheer apathy, the ineptitude, and the callousness of it all.

In the midst of a raging medical and humanitarian crisis, even as we as a nation look for crumbs, the barest minimum from our leadership, in all that, even that, as history has shown us, they do not disappoint. 

It is no longer the ‘wash my hands off, fiddling while Rome burns’ approach, not even the bare semblance of it.

Instead, it is just us, all of us, reaching out, holding hands, sharing information, bringing meals, oxygen, medicine, arranging beds, transport, funeral services. 

For all the diatribe and the posturing and the vehement, blind support that the leadership and its minions has shown, it has all come down to this. 

There is no one present.

There is no one willing to be present.

There is no pretence, no façade, to show a sense of shame or remorse or sympathy even.

So, as much as the shrill voices, blue-faced, self-entitled, tone-deaf, deprecating champions of the Army of the Dead may say otherwise, today, the monsters do not win.

There is a slow drizzle now and the rain, after a fiery, long day, is welcome. It is not a torrential downpour but a sweet, slow melody. I think, for today, this is what we all need.

The thunder and lightning may come later. 

For now, we are grateful for this.   

A drizzle of hope.

A promise of better days.

And yes, to the god of death?

Not Today.