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 Fifty Eight

We are in the early days of winter still, the days will continue growing shorter for some weeks now. More of it awaits us than we have left behind. Thus far the season has been kind enough. There has been a little snow, and some still lingers, but the days are warm and sunny. We have escaped the bitter cold, but we all know that can’t last forever.

The early stages of winter are often like that. The weather is crisp, but not frigid, and we wonder how long it will last. It is a strange kind of oasis before we find ourselves in the absolute depths of the thing. Midwinter arrives around the solstice. The days gradually, imperceptibly grow longer, but it feels like we are trapped in the longest night. The coldest days arrive and everything seems frozen in place, immovable, something we will never break free of, something that has broken the will of nature and all our future days will be winter ones.

March arrives and people elsewhere think of spring, but this is only late winter in these parts. Most years the coldest days are past, but it is often the snowiest month. If we are lucky the weather will have turned by months end and begun to warm. But just as often winter lingers on, far past its welcome, the guest who sets up camp rather than leave. April passes and there is still snow, sometimes even into May. Spring, when it finally does come, is so sweet. We emerge to the sweet smell of the air and sight of green at long last.

Right now we seem to be in the long midwinter of the grippe reborn. His hold upon seems impossible to break. We are all so tired and we long to hibernate for a time until spring comes. For it will, we know it will, even if it is hard to see past these long, cold, lonely nights.