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 Eighty Eight

My love and I, blessed with a day of idleness, decide to walk along the river. It is something we have not done in the last weeks with her return to work in the towers and the gradual resumption of some of the regulars of life in these parts. There have been other things to occupy our time, but we have both missed those sojourns.

They were some of the good things that have come about as a result of grippe’s return to these parts, something that we said we would continue beyond this cruel time. We have not done well in that regard, slipping back into something of the patterns of life that existed prior to the dread lord’s arrival. It is why I do not quite believe this shall change everything irrevocably as some do. Some things will, no doubt, but perhaps not those we think. The effects will be disparate but deep, showing up only when we look back on things decades from now. Much of what seems of absolute importance now, will no doubt be shown to be completely inconsequential.

It is a glorious day for a walk. The smoke has utterly vanished from the sky, which is back to its glorious and bright blue, a few wisp’s of white passing by. The leaves of the trees by the river are beginning to turn a golden yellow, though some still cling to a fading green. The paths along the river are quieter than before, the people walking along them seeming more subdued, everyone out to capture these moments of the passing seasons, knowing this may be the last chance for a day like this for a long while.

Certainly my love and I feel it as we walk. We sit upon the river bank and muse about why we didn’t make the effort to venture here more often given how much we enjoy it. The usual minor regrets of life at not taking the time for simpler pleasures. As we sit and talk, ducks paddle and play in the shallows, calling out to each other. These are surely their last days along the river too. Soon enough they will go south, a monumental, almost inconceivable journey. But they will return too. They will find these shallows again.