21st of February, 2024 A. D. (It has been 1,453 days since the 1st of March, 2020 A.D.)
I'm back. Back at my footprints in the dusty tracks here — nearly obliterated by time and dust, gathered over a yawn of twenty years – or was it thirty?
Where are my classmates now? They are dying a slow and painful death, pretending to be impeccable adults in a cruel, hostile world.
My parents? One is losing his mind – maybe he never had one, and is suffering for it – and the other is experiencing torture by severe disease.
The library, where I used to find escape in books? The writers of recent months seem to be doing nothing but juggling balls, dishing out clever entertainment while, near by, war-mongers rain missiles on blood-soaked villages.
Nothing is here. What did I come back for? Maybe it is just to realise how dusty and weary this frail body has become.
And soon, too, nothing will be here, just the sun shining on verdant grass, growing and growing and growing, despite the impotent efforts of humans to curb the invasion of unruly weeds.
“We don't care,” the weeds seem to say. “We've been here for a long time, and we'll still be here after you're gone.”
A soft, quiet voice speaks now: “Know your place, and be still, for God is in Heaven and you are on Earth. God has wisdom and you have folly. Tremble and quake as you prepare to meet your Maker.”