This photo essay is a continuation of Photo essay: A great fear

I tried my best to exit the loophole of pain and despair before booking a ticket back home on the first flight available on Easter Sunday. One $239 COVID-19 test and a hurried suitcase packing later and I was ready to leave.

 

The announcement of a second provincial-wide lockdown hit me like a hammer in the late afternoon of April 1. Like many others, the lockdown caught me by surprise. I had only just started to recover from overdue schoolwork and a renewed daily routine of balancing university, free time and sports. 

Two days before lockdown, I had perhaps my best day since January, having finally taken up a 25 kilometre walk to Gatineau from campus. Although cloudy, the weather was warm as I walked with a poetry book in my backpack and my film camera wrapped around my neck. As I walked, everything smelt like summer and hope. 

Pain in all muscles—I got back to my room feeling as if I had eventually regained control of my feelings after the period of despair and anxiety experienced during the December to early February lockdown. Over the next two days, I studied hard and still felt good, a far cry from the past three months of almost no motivation. 

Then the news of the April lockdown struck, and suddenly everything was back as it was in January.

When I got out of quarantine on the snowy morning of Jan. 21, I barely had time to pick up the keys to my new dorm room and sit at the desk before my classes started. I was amazed by the change of scenery—the possibility to go out, to take my own food out of the caf, maybe meet new people. Finding myself relatively free, thousands of kilometres away from home, shocked me from my very first night. 

But I was not prepared for the bitter cold of Canadian winters. Having just finished class at 6 p.m. I aimlessly walked to the nearest Walmart, lost like a wanderer who just arrived in a new city. With bags full of necessities, I met a Greek bus driver on the way back to Carleton, who narrated beautiful parts of his hometown as I listened—just him and I on an empty bus. Back home, I made a toast to Canada with a good beer.

In the following days, I started to realize the full extent of my situation. Outside was extremely cold, so I could survive for a maximum of two or three hours. Stores and museums were closed, online shopping was not viable, restaurants and cafes only offered takeout. 

Campus was a frozen desert on the outside, with impersonal empty hallways inside. Distance was social in every sense; the probability of meeting other people except staff at the caf and other university personnel was low. 

It felt like living in a limbo in which everyone was in their own impenetrable bubble, living life in autopilot, like the proletariat in ‘Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.’

On Jan. 29, I received a bone-chilling email from my residence fellow.

“Hey guys, I just wanted to take a sec to remind everyone of the new COVID-19 conduct rules and a couple updates. As you know the tunnels are currently open for going between your building and the caf. It is important to remember however, that they are only open for access during caf hours (7:30 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.). Campus safety will be watching out for this. The next reminder is to make sure you are wearing a mask when answering your door, taking out your trash and using your microwave, as well as when you leave the floor. Remember there are no outside guests right now. This includes people from other floors, buildings or off-campus. Right now, the only guest you can have in your room is your canmate and you must be socially distanced with masks on. Campus Safety is separate from Residence Life and therefore has a different process for handling COVID violations. Campus Safety has the authority to hand out and apply fines if they catch someone not following COVID policies. Campus Safety is also frequently checking the security cameras for misconduct and tracking down students to follow up. Please keep this in mind and make sure you are following these policies to not only protect your peers but also to protect your bank account.”

I freaked out. Rationally, it was understandable that she had warned us to respect the rules, and that the rules were meant to be enforced by the authorities, but in my mind nothing was rational. 

I started to fear any kind of social contact. I was terrified to be caught breaking the rules, that someone could push me to break the rules, and ultimately, because of this, I could be fined, arrested or even expelled from the country. Although I longed, and needed, to meet real people, I found myself in a paralyzing spiral of fear. 

Apart from some occasional, brief walks with my new friend Saif, the only human relationships I had were the couple of sentences exchanged with the friendly caf staff. Like my quarantine in January, I was not able to study, and schoolwork started to pile up again. 

At the beginning of March, things seemed to change. Lockdown was over and the weather began to warm. 

One Friday evening I found myself on the way to the pub by chance, meeting two other guys as we all waited for the bus there. We were all from different countries; me from Italy, Parsa from Iran, Victor from Nigeria, and for them, too, it was the first night they went out. We spent our first Canadian night in a pub at Byward Market, sharing each other’s’ hopes, laughs and desires. 

The night went on; we met a Lebanese guy, drank together, played billiards in pairs and had a great time. But the spectre of the virus was always in the background, as we perceived in people’s words and in the strict rules that disciplined almost every movement.

Here I am on April 17, writing these words on my second-last day of quarantine, back in Italy in my parents’ vacation house on the mountains I love. Remembering my period in Canada is a strange feeling—like a weird, bad dream. As if I’ve just woken up still sweaty and shivering, but fully conscious about the reality of things, about the great fear I lived through and that I am now fighting against. 

Yet I still hope that next year, maybe in two years, we will be back to talk to each other, listen to each other, understand each other, be kind and sympathetic to each other. Because if we want, we can improve our lives and perhaps the world. In the name of love.

Featured image by Nicola Scodro

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