The Black Death

Plague Doctor

September 13th 1349

Dear Diary,

                    Oh no! I can’t believe it. Today was AWFUL for a million reasons. I woke up this morning to find a gruesome buboe underneath my armpit. The plague has attacked. I feared that this would happen but I am glad that I saw Espere last night. Him being well is my only concern.  Sadly, there has been no improvement on yesterday. As the day went by, he got worse and worse and worse. I decided to dismiss the buboe under my arm and do what had to be done. I worked in the fields for a couple of hours only until my head started throbbing and my muscles ached. I was too weak to stand. That’s all I remember as after that, mother says I fainted. She didn’t find me lying amongst the crops until eleven o’clock in the morning!

                                        For the rest of the afternoon, I was lying on the floor, sleeping. Ma forbid me to go outside, work or even get up from the floor. She is extremely worried about all of us.  Her duty now, is to find us some food. I didn’t find anything decent to eat when I was at the farm this morning. Even the apple trees seem to have caught the plague. Mother went to the village at two o’clock, desperate to buy some food. She got some emergency cash from underneath a floor tile as we have completely run out of money. Me and Espere stayed at home and slept again for about an hour until I heard the door creak open and Ma’s footsteps as she walked in. To my surprise, I also heard another set of footsteps that belonged to a man with a deep, gruff voice. He and ma were talking softly as to not wake Espere and me. I squinted as I saw light flood through the window. It took me a few minutes to fully open my eyes to see what was going on.

                                         The man was wearing a long black cape, a strange mask over his face and a dark hat upon his head. He was carrying a container full of strange instruments and even dead animals. I sat up, but my ferocious headache forced me to lie back down again. The strange figure came over to me. He said he was a doctor and was there to help me and Espere get better. From his container he pulled out a frog and placed it carefully on my buboe. I winced and glanced at Ma. She smiled nervously at me. He told me to leave it there and rest.

                                       After that, he walked over to Espere and woke him up. He reached into his container again and took out a strange device. He told Espere that he was going to drain the infected blood out of his body which would help him get better. He assured us that it would not hurt but I was still nervous. I looked away from Espere as I detest the sight of blood. It took a couple of minutes and when the doctor was done, Espere was as white as a sheet. He looked even worse than to begin with. I wanted to shout at the strange man but my throat was too sore. Instead, I lied back down and closed my eyes. I was only half-asleep as I could hear Espere breathing heavily, vomiting and crying every few minutes. No way is he any better.

                                       As Espere went back to sleep, I asked Ma how much the doctor charged for the treatment. She replied that he took all that was left of our money and started to weep. I don’t know how we will cope anymore. There isn’t a single penny left and we failed to get even a crumb of food. That doctor made us all worse and I beg King Death to take him away from this world. No good has he done to my family. If Espere dies, he will have me to answer to. And I will be extremely angry.

Autumn