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 Six Hundred Ten

Our long, glorious autumn seems to finally be drawing to a close. This week has brought the first real taste of cold for the year. A winter chill that matches the ever shortening days. There has been snow to the north, east and west, though only a few flurries here. Soon enough, no doubt. We are returning to the realm of the long, cold night.

A few weeks ago my love and I ventured out in the darkness to see if we could spot any northern lights. There was a solar storm that was making them particularly active in these parts. I cannot remember seeing any this far south before, but people were catching glimpses of them in the centre of the city itself, which I had not thought possible. My love has never seen the lights, not having grown up in this sub-arctic region, and so we found a country road and settled down to wait. After two hours we caught a hint of something behind the clouds that massed across much of the sky and declared victory, returning home. Of course, if we had only known we could have stayed home and gotten up at two in the morning and seen a fantastic display from our doorstep.

The storm that brought the winter chill here and snow all around us also wreaked havoc over the mountains to the west. Days of rain, which I remember well from my time living on the coast, led to rivers overflowing their banks and mudslides. East of the coast where the fires raged all summer there was snow and rain, which again led to flooding, landslides and washouts. As my love pointed out, with so many trees now dead from the fires, the earth on the hillsides and mountains was weakened without those roots to hold it strong and absorb the water.

At the moment all roads and rail to the western coast are closed, the damage so extensive it will take weeks to repair. Even before this the price of goods was rising because of shortages and now those shortages will grow more acute. Ships will have to be routed to more northern ports that do not have the same capacity, or the goods will have to go overland across the United States to make it to the rest of Dominions. It will take a good long while to set all that to right, to say nothing of the homes and livelihoods of those impacted. Just as the tide of the grippe reborn has crested and begun to fall back here, and we allow ourselves to imagine resuming our normal lives, another has rushed in to take its place.