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 Three

Another month almost over. We are at the height of summer – today will be one of the hottest of the year – and yet I find my thoughts drifting to winter. In the Greater Dominions such thoughts are unavoidable. Last night I noticed that it was getting darker earlier than it had been only a few short weeks ago, 10:30 now instead of 11. Those shortening evenings are the harbinger of winter that shadows ever day.

It is not the cold and snow of winter that concerns me. I am used to such things having grown up in the Lost Quarter. It is that so much of the alteration to our way of life, as part of the quarantine protocols in defence against the grippe reborn, has relied upon it being summer and pleasant to go outdoors. What will we do when we can no longer gather in back yards, parks and patios? How will we socialize? How will we find release from our seclusion?

The hope, and it seems to be just that, is that we will diminish the dread lords stronghold in these parts enough that we can return to a semblance of our normal routines. Yet, as these last weeks in the Quarter have shown, a return to anything resembling normal simply invites the grippe reborn back into our lives. Absent some treatment that wards against his fearsome powers, we shall be at the dread lord’s mercy.

Those are coming, but it may not be until the following winter that we can put those defences in place. It could be grim and lonely during the darkest time of the year.