Eight Days To Live

One: I'm a junior staff

Monday, 9th March 2020

The woman returned home barely three hours after she left for work in the morning. She was euchred, following long days, nights, and weekends at work that proved abortive. She was employed at a State-funded health and safety research lab, and for the past few weeks, the pandemic caused by the deadly coronavirus, Covid-19, and the race for a cure against it had been the main preoccupation of the office. It was more like a race between agencies, and their directors, to find the cure first. The woman, like many of her colleagues, did all the major work, with the directors and managers breathing down their necks, waiting to take the glory for any fruit that blossomed.

The woman sighed as she approached her front door. She had her key in her handbag, but recently, due to the 'stay-at-home' directive, which had been issued nationwide, her husband and three children were stationed at home, but not her. She knocked twice and within seconds, she heard footsteps scampering like heavy raindrops towards the door. It was the usual routine for her kids to try to outrun each other to the door hoping to be the first to open it. In the past, the woman would give biscuits, lollipops, or whatever she could lay her hands on, to whoever welcomed her first, but today she had none. All she had was bad news.

The regular "who is there?" resounded from inside the flat, and the woman answered.

"Me," she said.

"Me, who?" three tiny voices retorted, one after the other.

"Me!" she snapped. "Open the door."

Nothing happened.

The woman banged the next time, then ordered, although mildly, "Open the door."

Another set of footsteps were heard, then a masculine voice asked, "Who is there?"

"It's me."

The door swung open suddenly in front of her. It was her husband, flanked by the kids. One look at the mask covering her lower face, all three of them ran off. The woman looked at them in confusion, then at her husband, before realising that she resembled a surgeon returning from an operation, who could also pass for a monster in the eyes of children. Before she went in, she took off the mask and gloves she had on, wrapped them into a ball, and threw it in the dust bin sitting outside by the door. She walked in and her husband closed the door after her.

"You are back quite early today. You left less than three hours ago if I recall," her husband remarked, as they walked into the living room.

"There wasn't much going on in the office," she replied, as she plonked herself down on the couch. What her husband didn't know was that she could have come back even earlier, were it not for the choking traffic she had sat in for hours on her way to work.

Due to the ban on commercial motorbikes and tricycles, which should have significantly reduced traffic, the whole world seemed to have moved into Lagos; because all the roads were constantly blocked. Moreover, the closure of a faulty major bridge exiting the Surulere axis did not help matters, and the recent advice to stay at home and self-isolate seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. The woman was glad to be back home for the time being.

"I see that they've started giving you all masks and gloves to take home," her husband said, waking her from her thoughts. "It's about time."

"Yes, they finally realised that safety in and out of the office isn't for only senior staff."

Her husband approached with a bottle of hand sanitiser, squirted some into her hands, then also sat down. After she massaged the liquid into her palms for a few calculated seconds, she opened her handbag and brought out two rectangular packs; one, of surgical gloves and the other, of face masks. One dozen of mini hand sanitisers followed the packs.