Oh! What Have We Become?

The iris had no shine.

The pupil was listless.

His eyes held a blank look,

They weren’t moist, there was no emotion in there.

The smile that once made his eyes dance,

Had shrunk into a glare.

He looked like someone,

I did not know from anywhere.

He spoke well, he had the flow,

Intense knowledge continued to flow.

In his figures, stats, numbers and words,

Sadly amiss was the human touch of before.

Sitting in front of his screen for hours,

With unknown and known faces he knew,

He had drained the juice off his eyes,

Virtual jargon was all that fetched a neon glow.

Constant calls, where he speaks at length,

Have surely polished his skills of talking.

I know he impresses many ears at the other end,

But real expressions? They surely go missing.

When his eyes meet mine,

Without any mask or Facetime screen,

I feel a difference too big to be ignored,

Can I blame it on WFH? I don’t know.

Months of calls and videos in isolation,

Far from those with whom he worked along,

Or transacted with in person,

Have made him this way or is it something else?

A natural smile that always reached the eyes.

Is now veiled and shielded by screen time.

Only to reflect on glass with robotic faces,

Mostly, adding to the emoticons on typed lines.

Staying at home in such times does have its pros and cons.

He is safe from new strains in the air,

But what about the virus that has crept out, to recreate a person I knew so well?

Aaaaaahhh……The clone fails to see the reality in my eyes.