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It’s two in the morning and hell seems to have come down here, in department 5A3 in San Giuseppe di Empoli. However, this is only the first of the rounds, the most bearable of all: a lady asks for water, the nurses from outside her room yell at her that there are ten minutes until the end of therapy, and that they will only be able to dress in a diving suit in a bit, so you will still have to be patient with the oxygen helmet; a gentleman is hallucinating and delirious against the ceiling, talking to someone upstairs; another blasphemy in dialect, and then there are those who complain or ask for help invoking Mary; who coughs continuously without being able to speak, while someone is brought to resuscitation because something is wrong.
I, a fragile boy in the time of the virus, live in fear of not being treated
by Iacopo Melio
And then there is me who is afraid of dying. I have had that fear for a year, or rather with each bronchitis, but now it has reached its peak. So I try not to think about it but think about it anyway, because the cough has subsided but not the worst thoughts. That is why I write these lines in my phone notes, out of urgency and necessity as I always do: even now that everything seems impossible, distant and confusing. All work and life projects, family and friendship projects, disappeared under the weight that crushes my chest, unable to expand, between ribs and vertebrae that catch fire. So I write, in this first breath, because suffering for nothing never makes sense, so let’s give shape to this pain and do something with it. Always and in any case, as long as possible.
It’s two in the morning and the roles have been reversed. The sick, reduced to numbers and graphics in the reports, now once again have their own identity, a life to be treated individually, with patience and affection by the staff. Attention as constant as it is anonymous, from first aid: in the sterilized suits of those who fight in the front line there are no longer labels with passport photos, names and surnames, roles and hierarchies. Covid has also canceled this, any mention of the stories of OSS, nurses and doctors, everything that would allow me to thank them, one day, meeting them by chance, on the street or in the movies, in the grocery store or in the restaurant. Where we will return, very soon, if we help them in this collective effort, especially during these holidays. Today they are all the same, white from head to toe, with only their eyes uncovered but clouded by a plastic visor, because there is no time to lose and the only space is that of the‘action, swift and decisive, even if it is winter, but there is a hot beast there.
Iacopo Melio is positive in Covid, he writes it on Facebook: “Think of me because it is not easy”
Because hell has come down to San Giuseppe, but some still don’t want to understand. The sea of skepticism does not stop, on the contrary it spills through me and who I am: “If Iacopo got sick, he hadn’t left since February … If his parents have infected him, they have always been careful … If only the father went to work and to do the shopping … If they have never had a social life and are isolated at home … Then all that is required of us, all the general closures and closures of the premises, the masks for carry and the hygienic rules imposed … They are useless or ineffective, so we could well go back to living as before, and leave it to fate if there really is a contagion ”.
I, a fragile boy in the time of the virus, live in fear of not being treated
by Iacopo Melio
What do I imagine them then, after my eventual departure: “Hey, but he was disabled, he had a rare genetic disease, any bronchitis would have been enough to kill him: he died with Covid and not with Covid.” They still would have told you a lot, which I can barely read in these hours. From my room in 5A3 of San Giuseppe di Empoli, Covid department, while outside the ambulances do not stop screaming. That is why I write, because closing your eyes here is impossible: it’s two in the morning and hell has already fallen. We don’t stop thinking about it, we don’t stop and we are careful.
