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 Ninety Eight

The last few weeks have been exhausting. My correspondences have been overwhelming. Planning and meetings, meetings and planning, all seemingly without end. There has hardly been a moment to think of anything else, and when I do glance away from my work I find the news all grim. It has been dispiriting, the days all drudgery and no hope to be found on the horizon.

What a change from the beginning of March when the grippe reborn seemed in retreat and the inoculations were at hand. It seemed only a matter of time until the dread lord was driven from these regions, his dark desires thwarted. But that was a false springs, as so many springs are in these parts, when a few glorious warm days are abruptly ended by the arrival of more snow.

The dread lord has turned the tide, marshalling all his forces and marching across the Quarter. Wherever he goes he brings more and more unfortunates to his side. His numbers are as great as they were in December when the strictest of the quarantine protocols were put in place. It seems only a matter of time before we must do something similar again, though our leaders are loathe to do so. The lesser ones that were restored several weeks ago have seemingly had little impact and the inoculations are not arriving fast enough.

It is hard not to be grim in the face of all this, to surrender to gloom, to gnash our teeth and wail in despair. How, after a year, and all that we have sacrificed, can this be happening again? Have our leaders learned nothing? It seems not. They will have much to answer for when all this is at an end. For much of the last year we prided ourselves, not without some gloating too, on the Dominion’s response to the dread lord. We looked to south and saw the ravages he left in those United States and felt relief. Well now things are improving there, with a few exceptions, and they are inoculating at a fantastic pace, beating back the dread lord’s forces, while we take our meagre supplies and try to plug the holes in the dike as they appear.

But the inoculations are still coming. Every day more and more. Many of my friends and family have received it and I know it is just a matter of time now for the rest of us. As terrible as our situation seems now, it is within our power to end it and we will. It is a matter of weeks, not months or years, even though every day often feels like an eternity. I will keep reminding myself that soon we will have the upper hand and as hard as the next few weeks will be, there is a light at the end of that misery.