THE NIGHT WATCH

The world is being asked to stay home for the foreseeable future due to the ongoing risk of COVID-19. It is hoped that staying at home will help flatten the curve. Social distancing and school closures are all part of this important process. These measures are not only in effect here in the UAE but in many corners of the globe. Some days one looks out the window and everything seems quite normal, other days there is a dread as to what is taking place. It is as if we are living through the early chapters of a science fiction novel. I am reminded of this quote from War of the Worlds.

“No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinised as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to o”And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us.” - Richard Burton as The Journalist in Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds

Like the rest of the planet, I am hopeful that this terrible disease gets tamed, that our scientists and doctors can develop an easily accessible medication to fight in the war against this dreaded virus and that we take this time to re-focus, to get our priorities right and to plan for a better future. A future that will assuredly be different in ways great and small.

Stay safe!