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 Forty Two
People come and go in the Lost Quarter, as they do everywhere. That was never more the case than in those years when Those Who Left were exiled and Those Who Came began to stream into the Quarter looking for a better life. Some found it there and set down roots, while others came for a time and then passed on.
Mabel was one of the latter. She came with her husband, after the first rush of Those Who Came had settled. Her husband was an itinerant labourer who went from job to job, never staying anywhere long, and as such they had lived a somewhat desperate existence in several towns on the outskirts of the Quarter. Her husband was a man of schemes, forever hitting upon one idea after another to make his fortune, until at last he decided upon buying a smallholding in the Quarter. It would be hard, toiling work, but there was money to be made. Everyone said so.
Continue reading