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 Fifty

A sunny, glorious day and my love and I return to the river to walk, wandering through the valley and then out and above into the bluffs. There we can see the river winding and curling through a landscape at once familiar and foreign.

People wander past as we stare down at the majestic view, coming in pairs or alone. Behind us three teenagers have gathered together in defiance of the quarantine law. It is oddly a comfort, teenagers still being defiant in these trying times.

As we wander along the bluff, keeping the river in sight to our right, we come across a small memorial in the midst of a grassy knoll. It is a sandstone block with a metal plate set atop it, about waist height, marking the passing of a Muscovite princess who had lived her life in exile in the Quarter.

We stood awhile, my love and I, looking down at the river’s course. A breeze stirred and we set out on our way.