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 Two Hundred Seventeen

The snow comes again, carried on a biting wind, as we walk through the darkness of the morning. The flakes are tiny specks that burn when they strike our faces. Unconsciously we duck our heads against this assault so that we are staring down at our footsteps as we march forward.

It is still snowing as I return home, though the wind has slackened. It takes a long time for the light to come into the day and when it finally does all I can see are grey skies encroaching upon me. The clouds don’t seem to end, the falling snow pulling them lower and lower. The trees on the ridge from my window – that golden tree still stubbornly clings to its leaves – are barely visible today.

The snow descends hour after hour, coating the ground. The flakes swirl and dance in the air while falling, sometimes even seeming to rise up, caught in a draft of air warmed by a building. The city is white now, as it wasn’t before from our earlier snow. No grass shows through the snow and the trees, even those with leaves remaining, are striped with white.

Winter, when it arrives like this, always feels like a forgotten, neglected dam has burst. That autumn was holding back all this snow and cold and we didn’t even realize it, were blissfully unaware of it as we went about our days. But it could only hold for so long and now we are swept over.