Chapter 10
Brandy Pallan
Look back and think a year ago from now. Where do you see yourself? Can you even remember? It is true a year has come and gone, and that time was lost. We were left to sit and rot in our homemade prisons. Going to the market was an attempt to escape the loneliness but met with faceless people and colder shoulders. Are we people or systematically controlled robots? There was a time when connecting with your community was a daily privilege now lost in lockdown. The reality of life has changed, and the world has made a deeper connection to being numb. Last year some of us took time to stop and smell the roses, but for many those roses were laid on graves. The pain has been constructed and harvested from ignorance; the only things to come out of 2020 were division and fear. Fear of not being heard— of being heard with haste rather than empathy—something that fast-talking politicians know nothing of. In 2020, the world was torn apart. The number of foes keeps rising even though connection is key for existence. It is time to heal the broken hearts and split families. Tenacity is the new necessity. A world molded into what we the people deserve. 2021, we are ready.