Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Migrations

In those days, the Quarter was an empty, lonely place. A return to normalcy some jokingly said, back to the days when the only inhabitants were always passing through, never lingering for more than a day or two. A hard place to live, especially with winter coming on.

He moved into the Ryland place that November as the weather first turned cold. The second year of the troubles had seen more people leave town, especially following the bombing of the elevator and the train tracks. The damage had been minor but neither company was willing to send anyone to fix it. Cowards, the whole lot, but not surprising. It was a spur line, easily navigated around, and it wasn’t as though anyone had got much harvest off. Even keeping the tractors running was getting problematic. Parts were getting shipped in rarely and two of the mechanics had left. People were going to the internet to learn how to jailbreak the computer systems to run the necessary diagnostics. Self-sufficiency was a good thing, he would say when others grumbled, which would generally shut them up. That was what this was all about anyway.

The first to go had been the doctors and half the nurses and teachers, buggering off back to wherever they came from. A bunch of the people working at the grocery and convenience stores, the gas station and the hotel had made a runner too as soon as the violence started. The family running the Chinese restaurant lasted the first year before they too gave up and left. Good riddance as far as he was concerned. None of them were from here either. They didn’t belong.

The complainers soon started to go too. The school was having to triple up grades to make the lack of teachers work. The hospital was closed for days at a time. The Chinese restaurant wasn’t the only one to shut down. The Subway went too and the pizza place. The Rylands had been the loudest of the complainers, but then they had the most to lose. He’d been in the same grade as Mark, had heard enough of that over the years. Whole family thought they were a big deal because they owned the convenience store and the gas station and seeded 8000 acres.

The problems for them had started in the summer when someone vandalized the convenience store. Spray painting the door to accuse them of being federalists, breaking the windows which couldn’t be replaced. Then one of their trucks caught fire. The wind had been bad that night and the flames nearly engulfed the house and those of the neighbours. They’d left that week, as soon as they could board up their buildings. Somehow they found some truckers crazy or desperate enough to come and haul their equipment off the farm. They rented their land for a song to someone who was on the council. A five year term. Good luck collecting that, he thought. The old rules no longer applied.

For they were building something new here. And the people who had paraded the success that had been handed to them were running, leaving those unfairly overlooked behind to reap the reward. The Rylands were part of a whole exodus that summer. All the big wheels who had never given he or any of the other republicans a moment’s consideration. They weren’t looking down on them at all. They no longer mattered.

When he moved into the Ryland place, taking down all the plywood and turning on the gas, no complaints were raised. He’d had a story prepared in that event, a rental document he’d drawn up, but no one in town said anything. Gradually the other abandoned houses in town were taken over by newcomers who were walking the same path. For the first few months he was reluctant to do too much with the place but as winter dragged on he settled right in, made the house his own. As far as he was concerned it was, whatever Mark might say. He was too much of a coward to come back anyway. And if he did, well, there were facts on the ground now weren’t there.