On Pain
By: Shubi Arun
Tags: Friendship, Coming Of Age, Covid 19, Goodbye, College Life

The Chronicles of the Class of Covid

It was nighttime in Boston. My friend GP and her flatmate sat hunched over a laptop, bulk ordering groceries online. On the other end of the room, I sat slumped against the wall, emotionally spent. Staring dazedly into space, I tried to process everything that had taken place in the last 24 hours. How had a virus, that until a few weeks ago we’d ironically clinked our beers to, cleaved my friend group in such a violent manner?

The previous afternoon, we were all on a beach in Puerto Rico for Spring Break, when we received news of our classes being moved online for a month. The closure had been imminent, but something about it being formally ratified by the university, put everyone in a nervous frenzy. The next hour was spent in a flurry of urgent phone calls to parents, frantic Google searches and distracted conversation. I felt a tingling in my back, as I read and re-read the email.

But, this fog of anxiety dissipated just as suddenly as its came. And in a manner of triage that only college students are capable of, we temporarily put aside all Covid talk and shifted our attention to making the most of our last day of Spring Break. The sun, beach and the drinks certainly helped.

We went out for dinner that night and everyone was in high spirits. We made plans of debauchery for this one month hiatus and joked about how farcical online classes would be. I was scrolling through my phone when my phone buzzed with a notification that the NBA season had been suspended. The blissfully ignorant bubble was burst. Until then, I’d viewed the university shutting down as simply an over protective, better be safe than sorry approach. But the fact that the NBA wasn’t just paused, but had been cancelled altogether set off the alarm bells. None of this was precautionary, it was an emergency.

Our sole focus at the time was to get back safely to Boston and avoid being caught at the airport health checks. After dinner, all of us went to a nearby CVS and loaded up on sanitizers, wipes and paracetamols. The tingling I’d felt in my back at the beach had spread to the rest of my body, and I psyched myself into believing that I was running a fever. I picked up a few extra tablets just in case. The next morning at the airport, we lathered our hands with sanitizers and no one dared to cough or sneeze. Through all this absurdity, I almost took it for granted that we’d all bunker up together and navigate the coming few months of uncertainty exactly how we’d done the previous few years — together.

But, everything changed after we landed in Boston.

Not even an hour must have passed since we returned to campus when I got a call from Sakshi, one of the first friends I’d made in Boston. Her tickets had been booked and she’d be leaving in a couple of hours. Around the same time, news filtered through that a couple of other friends had booked their one way tickets too. The premature arrival of The End induced a crippling fear in me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more helpless than I did that morning. How had it come to this?

Indefinite goodbyes are scary and I noticed a common pattern in them. There would be so much to say so we’d say nothing at all. We’d awkwardly hug and unconvincingly mumble how we’d see each other in a month.

Then there were so many others who left on similar short notice or hadn’t returned to campus itself, that we didn’t even get the chance to bid farewell to. “ Even if it’s just a stupid hug or awkward handshake, you still need to say bye,” my flatmate remarked much later, about these friendships that remained unclosed brackets. By the end of the day, out of our twelve person friend group only eight remained in Boston and by the end of the week, that number fell to six.

Sitting in GP’s room on that first night of the apocalypse, I suddenly became aware of how the tingling I’d felt in my body the previous day on the beach had transformed into something gargantuan. But by that point, I didn’t have the mental capacity to acknowledge the panic of being possibly infected.

Only much later did I realize that this pain that had gradually enveloped me was shock. It knocked me into a horrific daily routine in the immediate days that followed. I’d wake up by 1PM and spend the next few hours in bed oscillating between my phone and laptop. Classes became background noise. Around 4, I’d gorge on a ridiculously unhealthy meal and then sink back into bed in a food coma. The few of us who had stayed back on campus had decided to watch all the Harry Potter movies from start to finish and we’d meet each night to watch an installment of the series. I’d usually end up going to bed by 4am. This routine remained completely unchanged for the first eight days of the quarantine.

Those Harry Potter movie nights were like group therapy. What I remember most clearly about them is how we were all so single-minded about them. Conversation was minimal and we’d disperse soon after the movie ended. But at a time where each departure, be it of a friend or acquaintance, felt like abandonment, there was a strength in numbers. Those couple of hours spent together each night were a much needed escape from reality for all of us.

I think somewhere deep down we all felt this sense of betrayal. We knew that the circumstances were unprecedented and that in some cases, their parents had booked their tickets without even telling them. And even for those who had left by choice, we understood that wanting to be home with family in such a time was only natural. But sometimes, pain doesn’t reason. And these movie nights was our way of dealing with it.

Before watching Deathly Hallows pt.2 , the six of us decided to make Butterbeer together. We found a recipe, hunted down ingredients and then proceeded to make something that tasted like the potion that Dumbledore drank in Half Blood. But, the end result didn’t matter. Because amidst all the spilled drinks, inaccurate proportions and general chaos, I felt a small ray of hope. A feeling that there was still a little bit of the college experience to juice out of our recently formed bubble.

The next day, I was out of bed before noon. The body pain had gradually receded as the shock settled into acceptance. Unknowingly, I had floated into The New Normal.