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 Seventy Nine

A grey day with the promise of snow. It arrives with a vengeance as the light begins to dwindle. Huge, heavy flakes descend in clumps. The ground, brown only a few moments before, is soon enveloped in white. The roads hold out the longest, but soon they are blanketed as well, the drivers having only those who have gone before them to guide their way.

My love and I head out as the storm began in earnest with Christmas cookies to deliver. Ginger, shortbread, peppermint and crinkles, along with some hot chocolate bombs, the latest baking rage which my love had to attempt for herself. With this bounty we make our slow way across the city. We leave the cookies on the step of my sister’s house, collecting the box she has left for us. She waves at us from inside, while on the phone, such is Christmas in this year of the grippe reborn.

The snow grows thicker and thicker and by the time we return home five centimetres have accumulated. The other buildings are barely visible through the falling snow, the flakes so dense it looks like a cloud enveloping everything. It is almost as though the snow isn’t falling, it is simply present, inhabiting this realm from earth to sky.

Morning and nearly forty centimetres has settled upon us and the snow continues to fall. People trudge by through uncleared sidewalks while the sound of snow blowers echoes through the quiet of the morning. The roads are empty for the most part, with Christmas close and the quarantine protocols in effect few people need to go into the office. Those that do face an arduous journey.

On our street the only regular traffic throughout the day are the mail and delivery people, rushing to deliver packages before Christmas, their harried day made infinitely worse by the weather. Two of them get stuck on our street, drawing crowds to help them escape the clutches of the snow.

Afternoon and the snow finally stops, the sky clearing in less than an hour like workers clearing out after a job is done. The sun shines down on a gleaming white world.