Remember these eerie streets

I visited Rome a few years ago. People lined the cobblestone streets of this ancient city, while scooters weaved their way through the crowds and past the street cafés, like a well choreographed ballet. Rome has always been a bustling city, rich with history. Rich with people.

That was yesterday. Today, images are popping up all over the internet of Rome, Athens, Barcelona, Wuhan, Mumbai, London, Paris, Los Angeles, and New York. They all appear desolate. Abandoned. Empty cities. Empty streets. Empty skies. This has never happened in all of human history. But as history shows; the first time is never the last.

This is surreal. This is like science fiction coming to life: “The Day the Earth Stood Still” or perhaps “War of the Worlds".

This is how the apocalypse begins- silence before the storm.

This is how the earth will look once we are all gone. Before nature reclaims what we have stolen, and turns our cities, our skyscrapers, our factories into the untamed wilderness it once was. The earth is resilient without mankind. Mankind is not resilient without the earth.

This is eerie. Haunting. This is a reminder that it can and will happen again. Everything we know and love can be taken from us in a blink of an eye, by any number of invisible forces.

This is precious. This is a glimpse through a window into the future, or at least one possible future. Yet, this is real. This is now. This is a reality we need to remember and to learn from.

These eerie, empty, city streets will not remain empty. They will not remain as they were, but they will remain eerie reminders of what is to come.

They will remind us that our humanity cannot be taken for granted.