Year Pandemic means a year of drought, barren, arid, and the Prophet reminded us of that before and said "May God protect you from the harshness of time"

Since then, it has been known for the destruction of wealth, crops, and livestock, and it is known by armies or locusts that, if they invade a land, cause corruption and devastation....

Isn't this the harshness of time? Have humans not perished today?

We were not destroyed by armies nor locusts, we were destroyed by a minuscule virus, but it changes like a chameleon changes its skin color, which mimics the surrounding environment with great efficiency, and while we think it is blending in, elusive and hidden, it does so because it is in a state of sexual excitement, blending to reproduce and bloom as flowers bloom in spring.

There is no need for resentment, for harshness of time has another beautiful form besides this; it was known among the Arabs as the Syrian watermelon.

Perhaps we should travel to the Levant, or ask a Levantine, did the Levant bear watermelons or did it become harsh? How can that be when one of its names is Al-Fayhaa (the fragrant)?

I am lost questioning, did not the Orontes River spring from the middle of the valley? Have the poppies with thin, tender, erect stems not blossomed? Did their cheeks not blush bright red?

I do not know for I have not been out for a while...

Poppies are seeds that remind me of humans themselves, they love intimacy and mixing and cannot live alone, they reproduce among the seeds hiding them under their bark...

And here comes spring but it is exceptional and faded like everything now, a miserable spring, in which violets, poppies, and other flowers wear mourning clothes, they bloomed and ripened but alone and in discord...

Their colors saddened because they saw the light but no one has yet come to admire them, tickle them and make them feel flattered...

Summer is at the doors, and no doubt safflower will wonder whether its flower will be used as a spice, or whether its red dye will be extracted to dye the silk and then the texture will be flipped by a woman who loves silk...

Everyone is confused and saddened after everything changed and the movement of all around us was paralyzed, as if time stopped for a moment and each of us froze wherever we were and became frost, as if we became zero in the equation of life, an equation of an unknown degree and its solution depends on which side we choose in it, the right or the left, two choices, the sweeter is bitter, and the time has come to choose otherwise the closer we get, the further away we will be, and the more we think it will be solved, the more complicated it will become, and zero will remain our destiny and home our refuge; while some will get bored and leave to pick a zero and embrace the shadows of the virus.

Ghita Benmoussa