The Geography of Loss

The characters move through a world where distance, borders, and travel change from conveniences into sources of danger and longing.

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The Last Easy Flights

The Last Easy Flights A connected world Miranda travels from New York to Toronto and onward to Asia, while Arthur expects to move between cities for work and family. Air travel makes distant relationships seem practically manageable. A fragile assumption The characters treat flights and communications as ordinary supports. Their later absence reveals how much of personal life depended on systems that appeared permanent.

The Flightless Exodus

The Flightless Exodus Movement without direction People flee cities on foot and in cars, but roads become blocked and fuel runs out. Crossing a border no longer guarantees safety from the illness. A new scale of distance Jeevan walks along the lake, and Kirsten travels with Peter toward the United States. The journeys replace rapid transportation with exhaustion and exposure.

A World without Borders

A World without Borders States withdraw The novel’s account of the changed world describes unmanned borders and the disappearance of national systems. People organize around settlements rather than countries. Local belonging The Symphony must negotiate entry town by town. Safety now depends less on citizenship than on whether a community trusts strangers.

The Airport as Home

The Airport as Home Transit becomes settlement Passengers at Severn City Airport stop expecting to board planes and build lives among the grounded aircraft. The terminal’s layout becomes shelter, school, and museum. A changed meaning of travel The planes remain visible as reminders of impossible mobility. The airport preserves the idea of worldwide connection even when no one can act on it.

Lights Across the Horizon

Lights Across the Horizon A settlement discovered Kirsten looks through a telescope and sees a distant community illuminated by electricity. The lights suggest that some form of power and organized life has returned nearby. A new horizon The discovery does not restore airplanes or the old global network, but it widens the imaginable future. A world that seemed permanently dark may contain other communities and new connections.

The weeks before the Collapse

The first months after the Georgia Flu

The first years after the Collapse

From the first winter onward

Year Twenty, near the novel’s ending