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 Eighty

Don’t you think it might be time to just rest? All these scattered things cast about – we’ve got nothing left to hold onto. We’re all of us a little incomplete, not quite there, shining and corrupt darkness. And yearning for those pieces to fill all those absences.

All lost on All Souls Day. The dead tumble out of the sky, dropping like cannonballs with echoes of precision fire. I can hear the intimations of a new reality now that I’ve got my nose pressed tight to the sulphur-laced ground, as an endless line of boots march by.

The doorway is enigmatic, hanging precariously open. The building shakes with the weight of its hundreds of lives. The pre-dawn raid carried out, a ruffled corpse left – uncollected – on some failed piece of real estate, bleeding clean through. Reservations lost, the final trappings of conspiracy. The far side of the sky is all filled up.

The dregs of the morning’s coffee sit in the cup, cold to the touch. The ambiguity of the situation is now apparent. You smile, in that off-hand kind of way.

The night sounds softly, like the hush of breathing from a sleeping form, a song that drifts on and is lost on the breeze.

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 Seventy Nine

A hurried walk through the city in the morning, the sun up and the towers gleaming in the light. The streets are empty of people, only a few cars pass by. Those I encounter don’t quite meet my eyes and hurry on their way, as I do on mine.

I pass through a park where flowers are in bloom, though the fountains are still empty. In one corner there are two men conversing with a glazed look to their eyes, blankets and clothing at their feet. Beside them a huddled form lies, a face not visible beneath the coverings.

Further down the street I hear an incoherent shout behind me, but I do not turn around. As I cross an intersection an older man emerges from a corner store, today’s paper in his hands. He crosses to the other side and we move in parallel down the street, each going past closed shops and darkened windows. In the middle of the block he unlocks a door and enters a building and I catch a glimpse of a set of stairs leading to the apartments above. Instinctively my eyes go to the second floor windows to see if I can see what is within.

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 Seventy Eight

The conflagrations continue to spread in the great southern empire, while the emperor continues his spittle-flecked hectoring, demanding it cease, demanding everyone obey and his order be restored. It is hard to see an end to any of this, though it will eventually as it always does. Will it be with a conciliatory gesture or an iron fist that bloodies enough people that the populace is cowed, at least momentarily? The empire appears to stand upon a precipice from which there is now no turning back.

We in the Lost Quarter, and the greater Dominion, often look upon the problems of the grand old empire with an unseemly smugness. By comparison we are so much better, we think, and certainly there are many facets of life that I would not trade with anyone in the empire. But it is also a means of avoiding acknowledging our own failures and troubles. If we are not worse than the empire, we are no better.

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 Seventy Seven

The landscape of the Lost Quarter is deceptive. By all appearances it is a plain marked only by rolling hills, like waves rippling across a vast sea. In some parts it is said you can watch your dog run away for three days, and certainly it is flat in places. The horizon is daunting as a result, with seemingly no end to it; the closer you look, the farther it goes.  The sky dwarfs everything else, vast and blue, a reminder that we are but specks upon the earth.

There is a small rise on a road that winds its way through the Lost Quarter that I often think of. One hardly notices it as you pass along, particularly if one is proceeding north. It is not a great hill, one passes by others that are much steeper, whether going north or south. The land simply rises up and then levels off, as it does in a thousand other places.

Yet, if you pause at the top of the rise, facing south and look out upon the horizon your entire perspective will change. For at the edge of the horizon, miles away, there is another rise and everything else lies below. This innocuous little hill, unremarkable in every way, is not a hill at all, but edge of vast and unnoticed valley that contains much of the Lost Quarter. You would never know you were in a valley unless you stand just there and happen to look.

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 Seventy Six

The first thunderstorm of the year awoke me in the dead of the night. The lightning cascaded from the clouds, so many strikes that the sky went white and light filled the bedroom like it was midday. The thunder groaned and roared, near and then far. A hard rain followed.

I listened for a time to the storm, not bothering trying to return to sleep, letting all that clamour wash over me, while the flashes filled my eyes with light.

Eventually I returned to sleep, though it was restless, filled with dreams of terrible battles. Artillery sounded in the distance, cannons booming, threatening to come nearer. We waited and watched the skies, uncertain whether to flee.

I awoke to an overcast sky, the air heavy with moisture, my mind uneasy.

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 Seventy Five

Turmoil again in the grand old empire to the south. This time it doesn’t concern the dread lord, or not just him. All roads lead back to him eventually these days it seems. Now it is almost as though he has ceased to exist, his incursions forgotten. Old injustices, deep in the fabric of the empire, cuts that won’t heal, have become infected again. Always they are left to fester, never dealt with, and in times of turmoil like these they can only worsen.

Make no mistake that the grippe reborn is not the direct cause of the violent clashes, but his return has exposed the fault lines everywhere as never before. Those of us with wealth and positions that allow us to remain in quarantine in comfort are so much better off than all those others who cannot afford to do so. They must risk their lives and venture out and it is they who will suffer the most from the dread lord’s touch and from all the other fallout as well.

This has begun in the grand old empire, and other places, but it will only continue so long as we continue to suffer from the dread lord’s attacks. It will come to the Lost Quarter in some shape, it only remains to determine the form it shall take, for many here suffer and will grow angry as their suffering shows no end if nothing is done to aid them.

The collapse of old certainties – that this is how life must be, that our governments and our beliefs and everything cannot be otherwise – will only serve to make people believe that the fault lines that we have accepted as facts of life, as necessary in some way, are nothing of the sort. They can shift, they can be redrawn. The earth can shake and reform and we can too.

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 Seventy Four

The alkali flats glisten in the sun, shadows of birds flitting across its unbroken white surface. He pulls the truck up as close as he dares and walks down the rest of the way to where the grass ends and the slough begins. The divide is very clear, the ground going from hard and dry, spiked with tendrils of dull grass, to the wet cement texture of the alkali. Beneath the white surface the mud is dark, almost black.

He skirts the edge of the alkali, following an old cow trail. There are tracks in the alkali, coyote and bird, though they don’t go deep into the slough. Littered on the ground, in the flats and alongside, are bits of old machinery and scrap metal. Old wagon wheels, bent and warped. Parts from a Case 830, the only remnants left of that piece of machinery. He pauses here and there, kicking at the pieces, or digging into the alkali to pull them up to get a better look at them. Each time he shakes his head, clicking his tongue, throwing the piece back into the alkali, before continuing on.

Soon he has made a complete circuit of the flats to the fenceline that creeps in to the far edge of the alkali, so he turns around and makes his way back to the truck. He takes a wider route this time, farther from the slough. There is less detritus here, but he still takes the time to inspect all of it, his head down. A clump of tiger lilies bloom and he kneels down to look at their vivid orange and gold colors, his hand reaching out to brush against their petals.

Back at the truck, he leans against the hood, resting his head on his hand, staring off across the flats as if expecting it to reveal its secrets. A meadowlark calls and the wind stirs the grass. He shakes his head and gets into the truck and goes.

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 Seventy Three

My first memories are of me in a hospital. They are images, pieces of a recollection of what took place. The interstitial moments have faded from my mind so that only these singular instants remain.

In the first I am lying upon a hospital bed, unable to move. I have the distinct sensation of something like claustrophobia, an itch to move that I cannot scratch. My leg is broken and raised up in traction – I know this, but I do not actually see it in my memory. Instead, what I see is someone hovering above me offering me a plate with toast and jam. Their face is a ghostly absence, though I feel it is kindly. Whoever it was is vanished from my mind.

The second is some days or weeks later. I was in traction for over a month because I, ignoring the pain it caused, would not stay still enough for my leg to set properly. This time I am outside, seated on the wooden planks of a deck, playing with a toy truck. Some other child comes and takes it away from me and I cry out, trying to get up to steal it back. But my legs don’t know what they are doing after so long abed and I remain seated and forlorn on the deck.

I must have returned home not long after, but I have no memory of that. For years I favoured my left leg over my right when going down stairs or kicking a ball, for no reason except the memory of that broken leg shadowed my young thoughts. Now all that remains are those two images, so vivid and clear, while the greater parts have been washed away by the years.

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 Seventy Two

My love has returned to her office. When the quarantine laws came into effect I thought this would be a happy occasion, that we would feel relief at its coming and the end of lockdown and the fear and doubt that pursued us. Yet that is not quite the case. We have not conquered the dread lord, though we have turned aside his first assault. More will come, but we will hopefully be better prepared when they come.

We have grown used to days spent together at home, both of us busy at work, but without all the attendant stresses and distractions that seem to come from being in the office. It is a strange thing in that I don’t think either of us was aware of those stresses until they were absent. They were just a part of daily life, not even worthy of our attention.

She returns to a tower as sparsely populated as the hinterlands of the Lost Quarter. What purpose can there be in her being there, I find myself wondering, when she cannot meet with anyone and must scurry through the hallways trying not to come into contact with anyone.

By contrast, I must remain at home for the foreseeable future where I can still keep up with my correspondences. Will I enjoy it as much with my love absent? I think not.

It is a haphazard, lurching step into an uncertain future. And yet we must, for life persists with all its sorrows and joys. The dread lord cannot stop it entirely, no matter how many of us he may strike. We will just need to find ways to live within his shadows now that our defences have held. Further attacks are coming and we must prepare for those as best we can while allowing ourselves to resume our previous regimens.

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 Seventy One

Another day away from my correspondences. I transplanted some tomatoes and kale, preparing them for their eventual move outdoors. The weather hasn’t truly gotten warm yet – the days are often delightful, but the evenings still have a chill – so it will be a week or two before I am able to move them outdoors. This year in particular has been miserly for warmth; last year I would have transplanted weeks ago.

After, my love and I wandered down to the island on the northern river – we are between two rivers that join to the east, not far from that island – and had a brief picnic beneath some trees. It was brief because as we sat enjoying the peace of the day, the wind picked up and the sky darkened with clouds. Frantically we packed up our things before the rain came and sprinted for cover.