Woke up tired again, with nothing worthwhile to look forward to. Taking a stroll through the corridor outside while brushing my teeth was a bad idea. It was windy and the sand again got into my eyes, needing me to retreat back inside. Hunched over the sink I looked at my face in the cracked mirror, recounting once again how life had brought me here. Covid-19 had hit at an annoying time for me. My after-graduation trip to Istanbul had to be cancelled and I had to shelter-in-place for four dreary months. In lieu of travelling the world, I couldn’t even start a job, nobody was hiring entry level Data Analysts. Once the reopening started, I clutched the first offer that came my way. It was a medium sized startup, nothing exciting but you couldn’t afford to be picky at this time. I had to ramp up remotely and only met my coworkers on Zoom. I was looking forward to October when the restrictions on IT jobs were to be lifted and I could go to work in person. But nobody imagined the second wave...
I was 8, clumsy and sheepish. She was almost 10, with a personality of bright sunshine mixed with copious quantities of thunderstorm. Mr. Bishter’s field was her favorite playground where I helped her steal the sweet red strawberries and carried them around in my Pokemon themed denim pouch. One of the first times we did this, I had asked her why she wasn’t scared of Mr. Bishter; he had a reputation for anger and loved his damn strawberries. She said it was because she had me. Me?! She felt safe because of this small guy with not enough guts to even enter this field, let alone face Mr. Bishter? She laughed and said, only half-jokingly “Well no, it’s because I just need to run faster than you to avoid getting caught.” I chuckled then but one of the evenings ended up with us running from Mr. Bishter, her outrunning me easily and my hind parts facing the terror of Mr. Bishter’s wooden stick. On the way back home she was waiting for me right outside the gate and, forgetti...