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 Seventy Five

Turmoil again in the grand old empire to the south. This time it doesn’t concern the dread lord, or not just him. All roads lead back to him eventually these days it seems. Now it is almost as though he has ceased to exist, his incursions forgotten. Old injustices, deep in the fabric of the empire, cuts that won’t heal, have become infected again. Always they are left to fester, never dealt with, and in times of turmoil like these they can only worsen.

Make no mistake that the grippe reborn is not the direct cause of the violent clashes, but his return has exposed the fault lines everywhere as never before. Those of us with wealth and positions that allow us to remain in quarantine in comfort are so much better off than all those others who cannot afford to do so. They must risk their lives and venture out and it is they who will suffer the most from the dread lord’s touch and from all the other fallout as well.

This has begun in the grand old empire, and other places, but it will only continue so long as we continue to suffer from the dread lord’s attacks. It will come to the Lost Quarter in some shape, it only remains to determine the form it shall take, for many here suffer and will grow angry as their suffering shows no end if nothing is done to aid them.

The collapse of old certainties – that this is how life must be, that our governments and our beliefs and everything cannot be otherwise – will only serve to make people believe that the fault lines that we have accepted as facts of life, as necessary in some way, are nothing of the sort. They can shift, they can be redrawn. The earth can shake and reform and we can too.