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 Sixty Seven

Snow, wet and heavy, falls in the darkness as morning comes. There is no sign of the sun as light steals into the day, just a grey sky made visible. The snow ceases after a time, leaving white spots in a few places but the ground still mostly bare. The clouds take on more shape above, not just a vast swathe of grey. There is grey and white, form and depth.

Word came yesterday that there will be further quarantine restrictions put in place. Hardly a surprise given the failure of the current measures to dent the grippe reborn’s assault in any way. His forces were simply too great for limited restrictions to have any hope of working. Our government waited too long, not wanting to put stricter protocols in place. In the end it has left them with the strictest measures as their only choice.

The protocols, which will take effect in a few days, are nearly the same as those we faced in the spring. We are not allowed to gather with anyone indoors or out. I met friends this past weekend for a walk along the river and that will likely be the last I see of them until January when the restrictions may be lifted. Stores are the only things allowed to be open and they are limited in the numbers they can allow inside. Restaurants, bars, and cafes are allowed to do take out, but no seated customers. Libraries and museums will be closed.

It will be a quiet Christmas during the loneliest part of the winter. That was always going to be true to some degree, but now we are left with no choice. A date on a calendar has no particular meaning though, so we will celebrate Christmas with our family sometime in January or February when the protocols are hopefully relaxed. By then inoculations should be well underway, if all goes well, and we will be on our way out of the long night of the dread lord at last.

In fact, as I write this, word comes that the first inoculations have been approved in the Greater Dominions. The first doses will be given in these parts next week. The numbers will not be huge, but it is a start. There is an end in sight and we can almost see it from where we are now.