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 One Hundred Nine

A week spent with my love wandering mountain towns and visiting glorious, crystalline lakes, glacier-fed amidst towering peaks that seem to extend beyond the sky. The wind blowing through the stands of pine trees sounds like rain falling, a haunting melody that I can still hear playing behind everything now that we have returned to our noisy settlement.

It was restorative to be away, even if reminders of the grippe reborn were still everywhere. There were far fewer people in the mountains than there would be typically at this time of year with the borders of the dominions still closed to outsiders, but so many were wearing masks as they wandered into stores. Streets were closed off to cars allowing restaurants and bars to set up on the streets. Local tour guides spoke of new protocols and current events, with no further explanation required.

We visited a lake that twisted its way along the base of several mountains, forming a basin at their centre, like two hands cupped together with fingers outstretched above. Wandering its rocky shore we dipped our toes in, threw stones at the water, and sat upon a great boulder listening to the waves lap at the shore, while staring up at the snow covered peaks. For a time the greater world receded, the grippe and all the rest, and there was only the lake and the two of us sitting in watchful silence.