June 9, 1347
All around me, I hear screaming. They still have not stopped ringing in my ears since I saw the men die. Today, I realized that I did not even know their names. They had no wives, no children with them... I do not think they had any. There will be nobody left to remember them, and they will be forgotten, unmissed, as if they never existed. They will just cease to be.
I have barely traveled outside my home since yesterday. I have had patients and their families knocking on my door, asking if I was all right. Am I all right? That is a good question. Some of the patients that came by needed help, but I cannot help them. I am a failure. I do not want to have any more people die because of me. I do not believe I will ever be able to live my life the way I did before. There were even patients that appeared to have contracted the new illness, and I could not even open the door, because I knew all I would see is the face of that dying man, and their voice would not be theirs; it would just be more screaming, without words or meaning. The only sound I would hear is the sound of pure pain and misery, in the voice of a man I could not save. I now realize just how many mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, human beings I have killed during "treatment". I am not a doctor, but a murderer.
YOU ARE READING
Journal of a Plague Doctor
Fiction HistoriqueThe six-part journal of a doctor during the plague known as the Black Death that includes his struggles to save his patients, and his struggles to save himself.
