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 Ninety Five

There is so much talk lately about the economy now that so much of the greater world has raised some measure of defence against the grippe reborn, forcing so many from work. Even in the Lost Quarter, where we have begun to loosen some restrictions the return has been muted.

It brings to mind the last great depression that struck the Lost Quarter, as it did so much of the world nearly a century ago. Those Who Came had managed to build successful lives in the Quarter, starting farms and building homes, having families. All of that was upended by the depression and environmental calamity, the sad result of their own poor practices, and their lives of plenty became hardscrabble ones.

Those who lived through the times never forgot them. It informed every aspect of their lives thereafter. Old junk and scraps were never tossed away; they had to be kept because they might one day become necessary. Every penny was saved and nothing was wasted, because there was no promise that there was more to follow.

There were many who did not survive the depression in the Lost Quarter. Having lost everything, and seeing their lands ruined by wind and drought, they abandoned their plots and moved away. Some to far away cities, others to the north and west where they took up farming again in a more verdant plain, though the winters were even more unforgiving. Those who remained carried on.

The same dislocations, migrations and perseverance await us all in the weeks, months and years to come. We just don’t know how the story will go this time or the characters we will play. The not knowing is the worst of all.