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 Three Hundred Fourteen

The winter cold has arrived in full force this week, the temperature dropping well below zero for the first time this season. I was out for a walk this morning and passed by the river. Already the ice has begun to spread its domain, leaving only a sliver of passage along one shore where the water is free. In some places the water almost looks as though it is slowing, the current ceasing, the streetlights glimmering oddly off it as ice begins to form on the surface.

Yesterday the trees were all clothed in hoar frost, shimmering robes of white that glistened in the sun. Even the sidewalks and other bare spots were coated. It seemed, for a few hours, as though we had entered another world, or some enchantment had been cast upon us all. The sun was bright though and by afternoon the frost had been burned away returning us to the ordinary.

It is snowing now, little specks of flakes appearing, almost as if the cold had conjured them from the air. I watch them hurrying to the ground while the air from the surrounding buildings escapes in rising plumes, dancing in the cold as though it is shivering.