A Letter From France
Entry 3: March 21st, 2022
It’s amazing what a war can do. In the weeks after Russian forces entered Eastern Ukraine and pushed West, all mention of COVID has vanished here in our region of France. Most of the restrictions were lifted March 14th. Several days before it became official, we returned to our favorite restaurant and ate a meal. I found myself hurrying and looking at the door.
Not one mention of a vaccine passport and the wait staff weren’t wearing masks. It was like someone had broken a spell. It felt odd.
Today, the internet went down. We thought it was our cable box and went into town for gas, groceries only nothing worked – not the gas pumps, the ATMs, credit cards. You could only use cash if you had some. The stores were open. People were perplexed. No one we spoke to knew why.
It’s a strange feeling being shut out of the internet. We are so used to getting our news online so all we can do is wait. Hopefully a neighbor will have news tomorrow. Maybe it will be back up. The electricity’s still on. The shops are all open. But it’s awfully quiet. It’s hard not to feel vulnerable.
Update: Internet just came back on half an hour ago – out all day – nothing anywhere on the news about it.
Citizen X