For Sale!

By U. Fathima Farzana

Sneaking in silently after 12.00 –

Midnight’s hour of spell-casting –

Into the backdoors of hospitals

For discounted blood tests and CAT scans;

Everything is 50% off!

Smell of fear everywhere

Covid-19 in the air, lingering...

Waiting to strike.

A three-hour wait in crowded halls,

Smelling of blood, sweat and death

Darkness blowing her trumpet...calling...

Over masked faces, beak-like

Horrible ghosts in the dim-lit dusty chamber.

Each clutching their reports to their chests,

Breaths wheezing, life marked out on that cheap paper.

Another wait in yet another grave

To consult the doctor at 2.00 am.

Discount at midnight! Sale!

A security ferociously guards Asclepius

Like fated Charon hovering over the souls in wait

No one wants to cross over, yet...

The price of life on sale at midnight

In a corpse-filled hall;

Disease glittering on the Threads of Fate.

The hour draws near, the bell tolls,

The plague-doctor approaches;

All masked, suited and gloved in perfection

Like a knight in shining armour.

One look at the grey paper – his eyes are grim –

His mask twitches in irritation.

Yet another lined up to die

Yet another number in the government’s list

Yet another demerit for the doctor.

He counts the precious oxygen cylinders

Lined up, waiting...

For those not yet marked by fate.

The witch-doctor knows who to save.

His reputation dances over his head

Like a sword tied to a fine gossamer thread of the past.

The dead have their papers forged. For money. For sale!

The living stake their lives at midnight. To save money. Sale!

The Blue Mask of Pride walks stealthily

Touching a shoulder here, a lung there.

None can escape his freezing touch.

He whispers as I write and you read,

Beware. Your breath is on sale.

By U. Fathima Farzana