The year was 2020. If the strains of a pandemic, lockdowns, and large-scale devastation weren’t adequate cause for concern, whirling dully in the pits of parents’ growing anxiety was the matter of sending their children to school. The choices were simple enough. To pick between their future’s education and health.
And so the government decides, with much contemplation, to introduce students to the tedious world of online schooling. Now, I will not bore you with the details of all those taxing months, restlessly sitting in front of the screen, fearing the apocalypse drawing in closer, although tenderly, like a hesitant bride.
Teachers’ exhausted voices in our ears seemed to float away like clouds on a summer day. Pleasant metaphor aside, to a pair of roaming feet like mine, I was well under house arrest. A sweetly concealed form of torture blossomed with seeing my friends in boxes on my laptop, a desperate need to get out of them echoing apprehensively in all our backgrounds.
How convenient, you would think. How convenient, not having to commute long hours to school. How convenient, to copy all your tests with newfound ease. How convenient, to not answer your tutor’s pointed queries. How convenient, to be lying down in the comfort of your bed while your class streams through a pair of earphones long unplugged from your ears.
How convenient for an average tenth grader like myself to have scored so well on the prestigious board exams. How convenient for an introvert to settle their nerves without the buzz of peers around. How convenient for those who evade sports to sit through lessons, videos shut off. How convenient it is to make excuses- unstable network, power shutdown, microphone issues, unavailable webcam. How. Utterly. Convenient.
Perhaps you would consider it oh so convenient that all my formative years of schooling were done with so little effort. But when the government finally announced the resumption of schools functioning as they did in the Pre-Covid 19 era, I finally felt like I could breathe in months. And now that we’re on the topic of breathing-
I contracted the virus in November 2021, and I felt quite literally- nothing about it. I felt apathetic at most for my loss of taste and smell, the least bit inconvenienced by my high temperature. When they had my RT PCR test done- nothing. When I was quarantined in the confines of my house- nothing. When my throat felt like sandpaper from all the coughing- nothing. When my vision blurred as my oxygen levels dropped, I felt- absolutely nothing.
But as of this moment, I am frightened. I am so terribly frightened, as I sit here under the yellow glare of a night lamp at 3:14 AM, typing with shaky hands. I am in my 12th grade now. The final year of my life as I had known it so far.
I am so afraid that all I will remember of my school days is the sound of a student being allowed into a Zoom meeting and not the school bell; all that I will hold in my memory one day are fragments of teachers’ sore voices begging for us to unmute. I am terrified I will never have school friends like my parents do, who are still in contact and sometimes reminisce about the mischief of their bygone youth together. I feel like I am completely alone in this world.
I embrace people so much these days, despite what is advised. Perhaps, I deserve to be blamed for it. However, I am afraid that every time I hug my friends it might be the last time I get to do it. I cling on to them miserably tight, afraid that if I let go, the clock will tick unmercifully fast until all the time I was granted is gone. I am afraid that if I don’t memorize my friends’ features well enough, shards of their faces will shatter from my mind, fading into the abyss of an uncertain future.
I grasp onto pieces of the identity I’ve been attempting to form and I brawl with the need to make a significant imprint on everything I do. I ran for school head girl, knees wobbling embarrassingly on stage as I delivered my address on the verge of tears. I say hello to every new face I see, ask about the lives of every teacher kind enough to talk to me. I am so desperate for this part of my life to last because I feel as though I’ve lost most of it to something so microscopic already.
I have the childish urge to cry every time I see my friends in person and to know that they are solid bodies of flesh and bone, like myself. I had preferred texting over real conversations in the past and yet seeing someone laugh because of a joke I made makes my gut twist in contentment. Simple pleasures such as sharing a scented bottle of sanitizer and reddened noses because of masks revealed during lunch break bring me a curiously specific sense of joy.
I’ve never been happier than I was on the day I was vaccinated. To me, it was all but a personal achievement that suggested that all of this might be behind us one fine day far into the future. Although I suffocate from behind my mask, my lungs feel like they only function all the hours I spend at school. I adore my family, don’t get me wrong, and the comfort my house offers me is unparalleled. But I’m greedy for what I couldn’t have, as human nature often plays out.
In-person schooling shut down a week ago again, and to me, the year 2022 could not have started off with a more hopeless note. Right now, I miss a load of silly things. I miss the school benches that have left me with splinters, the grass on the football field on which little frogs hop around during monsoon, the winding staircase that leaves me breathless with exertion after I make my way up three floors.
I miss the class clowns, the bathroom stalls, seeing smaller kids in the playground, the painted walls, groups of girls giggling together, catching boys staring at me in class, and teachers dishing out homework. I miss the cold floor of my classroom, looking for the matching sock in the morning when I’m already late, the grumpiest of my teachers, sneezing at chalkdust, walking around in the corridors between classes, and the warm, fuzzy, comforting feeling of belonging.
I miss school. The sentiment sounds almost hysterical as I think back to all the mornings I begged my mother to let me stay home, inventing medical conditions that prevent my regularly scheduled school-going. But I do. And I realize well that the safest option is for me to sleep through; I mean, attend to my lessons through Google Meet as of now- which reminds me that I have my first subject in a matter of hours and I require some amount of sleep before then- but what keeps me going is the hope that I get to go to school at least one more precious day before I don’t have the chance to anymore.
About the Author
Leina Queen
A teen in her eleventh grade, Leina loves to write, bake, cook, sing, binge-watch anime, illustrate and do a dozen other crazy things. She believes in gender equality and equity. She is a passionate reader and chef de cuisine. She dreams of being a Chefpreneur soon.
