Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Seven

Outside it is dark. Clouds blot out the stars and only the lights from distant windows provides any illumination on what transpires there. Snow is falling again, as it has been off and on throughout the night. The flakes are heavy and wet, descending almost like raindrops. The ground remains bare for now, still holding the warmth of the day close to it.

An air of normality has settled upon our new regime. What was so disconcerting only days ago has become the expected, at least for the moment. How long it will actually last is anyone’s guess. The rhythm to the day has returned so that the strangeness of it all is nearly absent.

If not for the claustrophobia of padding around these same rooms interminably day after day, it would be gone entirely. The claustrophobia is odd, calling attention to itself every time it is felt. How many hours of how many days have we spent within these walls gladly and without complaint? But as soon as the choice is taken from us the mind balks. All we can think about is leaving, going out, seeing what is there.

In my dreams, which strangely I can still recall, I am forever travelling here and there. Striving desperately to get somewhere, though of course, being a dream, I never do. I am both ecstatic to be out upon the open road, the wind touching my cheeks, and fearful that I will never arrive where I am going.

My waking hours form a strange counterpoint. I am filled with a kind of unspoken, almost unfelt, dread by the hours that await me within this house and find myself compelled to leave, if only for a short walk. The walk, of course, can only ever bring me back to this place, yet I always gladly return, relieved to be within its sanctity.