Being an accounting of the recent and continuing plague and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown. 

Day Two Thousand Two Hundred Six

Over two thousand days since the Dread Lord made his appearance in these parts. I started writing these notes in those early days in an attempt to impose some order in a world where it felt like there was none. We clung to anything that looked like solid ground, any routine that might restore meaning. What strikes me now, looking back at those early missives, is how frantic they feel. I was reaching for anything to put into words, a duck paddling madly, while above the surface it leaves a gentle wake. 

The days before the Dread Lord’s arrival were filled with portents of doom. It was like watching a wave cresting toward you from far out at sea. Knowing it will soon reach land, but having no sense of when or how badly it will engulf you. We went about our days, knowing it would happen, that it was inevitable, but with no idea of what that might mean. I recall going to a travel clinic in preparation for a trip we had planned. This would have been January. The travel nurse told me then we would not be going and I thought she was being ridiculous. The Dread Lord would come, yes, but it would be manageable. Our lives would not be upended. It seemed impossible. 

My memory of those first few months after is still so vivid. These parts were spared the worst of the Dread Lord’s power and the days were quiet and peaceful. I recall we spent our time talking about leaving for other dominions, starting life anew. Later we realized that restlessness was a response to what we were enduring. Lives apart from friends and family, unable to do so many of the things we loved. Lives interrupted with no timeline for when we might restart. 

The months that followed have vanished into a kind of blur. Things were opening up and then they were closed. Hospitals in crisis. You can only gather outdoors. You are allowed fifty percent capacity, but everyone should wear masks as they move about. Rinse and repeat. After we received our inoculations I felt a strange sort of relief. It was not over, but the end was in sight, and matters were now under our control. And yet, within weeks the hospitals were under threat again because others declined to do their part.  

It was false spring after false spring. You think the winter is over. The days are warmer, the ground is bare. It is only a matter of time before the grass begins to turn green. And then the snow returns and you are waiting again, while protesters march by crying out against the tyranny of inoculation.  

Waiting is what I remember the most. It was all waiting. An interlude. People don’t think or speak of that time now, everybody happy to get back to their lives and not dwell on what was lost. Except for those who protested so vociferously. They now govern us and have set about getting their revenge on those who they feel wronged them. We shall all do what they tell us so that they never have anyone tell them what to do again. Sacrifice for a cause, doing good for each other, these are foreign concepts to them. They are in it only for themselves and will do whatever it takes to get it and they assume the rest of us are the same.  

Strange to live in a time where the events that most define us, and will continue to echo through the remainder of our days, are the ones we refuse to dwell on. Their absence in our memories grows larger each day, shadowing everything.