And how long will you wear the mask?
Just a question.
And when you remove it what will you die from?
And now that you are afraid to speak, perhaps you can no longer can speak.
 
The sound of words disappears and the only things left are the signs taped on windows and glued to the doors and nailed on lampposts.
We are reduced to the level of needing to be told how to behave, how to enter a shop, how to line up, how to keep distance, how to not touch, to not breathe, to not…
We are the packaging with the warning labels.
The bottle in the sealed box with the plastic sealed lid with a foil covering of fear over the opening, the don’t try this at home alone, this is not a toy, hot liquids burn, contents may be cancer causing.
And what do you intend to die from?
 
We regret to inform you that due to the epidemic of heart disease it is now the law that everyone is required to have a pace maker implanted in their body and every home shall have a monitor designed to record every heart beat or non beat, a monitor that remotely controls the heart, speeds it up, slows it down and everyone shall forever and ever be dependent on the system to supply batteries to keep the pace maker working.
Or not.
 
And what do you think you will die from, with the implant, with the mask still on?
How long has it been?
Have you forgotten that life is a risk that no one survives?
 
And they promised the vaccine would be the miracle, the end all, the be all and that this winter or the next winter would finally be the winter when the enemy would disappear because the ultimate vaccine had finally been made and you got injected and you died anyway, with your mask on, and the Xs taped on the floor and the arrows painted on the ground, the Xs and Os on the tables and chairs, on the bus seats, with the masks on in the city the governor decreed was forbidden.
And how long did you wear the mask?
Just a question.
 
Did you live so long with the mask that it grew onto your face and became part of you and you forgot that once you were wearing it but now it is wearing you? 
And you stayed inside behind Plexiglas and shields and didn’t hug your grandma and you died anyway.
With the mask on.
Because fearing death you forgot to live.
But you read all the signs taped on the wall and followed the rules and spied on your friends and tattled on you neighbors.
And you died anyway.
With the mask on.
And what do you believe you died from? 
And how long will you wear the mask?

Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash

"And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer." Rainer Maria Rilke

"No, we don't need more sleep. It's our souls that are tired, not our bodies. We need nature. We need magic. We need adventure. We need freedom. We need truth. We need stillness. We don't need more sleep, we need to wake up and live." Brooke Hampton