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 Thirty

A humid day. Clouds blanket the sky, yet it is warm, soon to be hot. Storms will follow, no doubt, thunder and lightning and torrents of rain. It has been that kind of year.

Walking in the morning with my love to her office we frequently encounter the same people on their way to their own towers. A land of towers, most of them desolate now. They have become familiar faces and it is almost a comfort to see them and know that the day is proceeding as it should.

There is the petite wisp of a woman, always impeccably dressed who we always encounter at the same corner. The tall man with the wide shoulders and thick chest, and the tiny legs that seem part of another body entirely who I pass on my return home. The long haired blonde girl with the headphones on who walks with a swagger to the beat of the music. The two old bus drivers, both thick in the gut in the same way, who stand on the street and chat of this and that before returning to their routes.

I try to end my walk most days by passing through the park where I was married, which is not far from where my love and I now live. It has a library, the first built in this city, a magnificent sandstone building, along with flowers, fountains, statues and trees. There is an eternal flame to the memory of those who fought and died in the great wars of past ages.

Walking through the park always leaves me at peace, for I remember that hot summer day we stood and said our vows to each other. The future seemed limitless that day and I hope one day it will again.