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 Thirty One

Last week I felt exhausted by all of this. By the grippe reborn’s steady march and by our continuing failure to hold him at bay. By the knowledge – or rather the reminder – that none of this will be over any time soon. The numbers continue to climb in these parts, and though our defences still hold, cracks are beginning to show in the walls. We know that in a few weeks, or a month, we may be overwhelmed.

I was tired by my work and correspondences. Tired of the meals my love and I prepared. Tired of the habits of my days, which I have leaned upon to get me through these trying times. Bored of the books I was reading, the shows I was watching and the music I was listening to. It just seemed to be more of this, all the same, through day after endless day.

There are days when it is hard to see past all this to a time when things might be different. That time will come, but it will not be soon, certainly not as soon as experts and leaders were saying only a few months ago. It seems they were hoping as much as we all were. Or they were afraid that we could not handle the truth of what lies ahead. The reality of the work that is before us has put the lie to that hope.

Having grown up in the Lost Quarter where, as the old joke goes, you can watch your dog run away for days, I dislike forests, the trees crowding out the sky granting no view of the horizon. We are in the deepest, wildest parts of a forest now, with no paths to lead us out and no way to know for sure if we are going in the right direction. I long for days when I can stand upon a hill and watch the sky stretch on past the horizon, past everything.