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The lives of five disparate characters whose paths converge through a period of time we now call The Pandemic, each seeking meaning and purpose in their disparate lives, through restrictions, lockdowns and paranoia, from 2019 into 2020. A narrative, similar in structure to Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, that creates a single gestalt of five destinies.

The main protagonist Sienna Forrester 27 is travelling in India. She is an independent single woman who loves India. As she meets each of the other four protagonists, their back story is told in past tense and then they join the main narrative in present tense.

Sienna travels from Delhi to Varanasi, Goa and back to Delhi where she meets the second protagonist Christine Barclay 23 a volunteer at a World Vision project in Kanpur. Christine is conflicted when her fian​cé in Australia breaks their engagement.

Sienna returns to Australia at the beginning of the pandemic where she travels to Margaret River and Broome. Christine is stranded in Delhi by the March lockdown.

In Broome, Sienna meets Luke Wilson 60 an itinerant who studies conspiracy theories working in a travel bureau. His partner Akira returns from visiting her family in Japan.

Sienna and Luke both meet Bryce Adams 58 a former Greenpeace activist now a political press secretary.

Bryce travels through Europe, visiting Nuremburg to ponder the Holocaust and to Rome where he ponders Catholicism from which he has lapsed. In Paris he has an affair with Abrielle who works in a Free Trade emporium. Bryce returns to Australia and travels to Broome with his wife where he meets Luke and Sienna.

Sienna’s father has terminal liver cancer.  She meets Jeremy Oakwood 42 a Radiologist who is part of the team caring for her father.

Jeremy attends a Buddhist retreat in Thailand. He returns home to his wife and children. They travel to Kalbarri where the meet Luke en route to Perth to see his daughter.

The narrative from here, weaves the five characters together in past tense Each of them deal with personal issues and difficulties. Sienna’s father becomes ill and dies. Christine falls in love with her Pastor but he rejects her. Her Christian faith is tested. Luke separates from Akira and travels to Perth to spend time with his young daughter Tahlia. Tahlia’s mother objects to Luke’s influence and tries to prevent him seeing her. He becomes suicidal.  Bryce becomes disenchanted with politics and quits his job. Jeremy becomes alienated from his medical colleagues over the issue of mandatory vaccination. 

All five characters consult therapists seeking to deal with depression. All five eventually begin to find their way through their respective personal crises.

The five find themselves meeting at a market for a meal then a beach campfire where they exchange share their personal views on the impact of the pandemic.

The narrative concludes with an epilogue and each character preparing to move forward in their lives.