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 Twenty Three

The morning comes with sunshine at last, after days of miserable gloom, glaring down upon yesterday’s freshly fallen snow. It looks as though it will not last long under that stern gaze. One can only hope for I have had enough of winter. I tire even of writing of its eternal returns.

Our present moment will not end so soon we are told. The grippe has powers not seen in generations and he has marshalled them well, striking everywhere at once, overwhelming nations both great and small. The Lost Quarter will not be spared and we must be prepared for that and all that will follow. The current defensive measures, the quarantines, the letters of transit, all must persist.

It is surprising the degree to which those in the Lost Quarter and elsewhere are willing to forgo their freedoms, to stand together in the face of this terrible foe for however long is necessary. There are naysayers, naturally, who sing against the chorus and say that the dread lord’s powers are not so fearsome, or that there is no hope of stopping him so we should just surrender. But they are few, by and large, and the chorus drowns them out.

I have seen predictions that this cannot last, that people will inevitably grow tired of these measures and refuse to comply, and so let the dread lord free to wreak havoc as he pleases. Likely they are right, there will be a few who can take no more and will choose to go their own way, disregarding the quarantine and the letters of transit. I think they will be the minority though.

Most people, frightened as they are by the dread lord’s march, long to do their part to thwart him. They want to be involved in something greater than themselves. They want to contribute, they want to help strike a blow against the grippe reborn. So long as they believe that what they are doing is part of something greater and that all of us doing so will make the greater difference, they will stand firm.