It took me a while to accept that numbers could be words. At least that’s what the gatekeeper of trending words proclaimed last year.

“As long as it stays on the other side of the pond we’re fine,” I convinced myself. And so began my rigorous campaign of checking everyone here for infections.

It started to spread as fast as the pandemic. First it fell out of the mouth of a teenage girl in the store. Then a colleague. My sons.

I looked out my window. Etched into the snow below were those numbers, one right after the other.