Someone took photos of the streets of Baguio. They were empty. It was summer, so seeing Baguio with no cars on the streets leading to Burnham park and seeing Session Road without tourists demonstrated that we were not living in normal times. A similar set of pictures from Italy was posted a month ago on the internet and it also showed the popular sites like the Milan Cathedral, and the Colosseum without the usual crowds.
The word eerie came to mind when I saw these empty pictures. It reminded me of this episode in the "Twilight Zone" when a protagonist woke up one day and found himself alone in the world. Everyone has disappeared.
The other thought that came to mind when I saw the empty streets was that somehow, one of my wishes was granted. As a resident of a tourist destination, I've learned to dread the tourist crowd. I know that my city's economy thrives from the tourist revenue but still, I had wishes of claiming this city as mine even for a day. So my wish had been granted.
I shared this thought with a friend and she said that she wished for more time with her children and her wish was also granted since now, she spent 24 hours of her item around them.
We seemed to have received what we wished for; what we thought would make us happy, and yet we were not. We realized that our wishes came with a price.