The Black Death

 As I walk through the markets, I see people everywhere sick, dying, dead. Houses closed off, clinics overflowing. As I walk, I see people taking their last breaths, and I smell the horrid stench of pits full of dead and decaying bodies. The black death is everywhere, and it spares no father, no mother, no child. I know I should not be out here, but I have no idea how else I could feed my family. I know I must make it home soon, or I run the risk of contracting this goddamned disease.

When I get to the baker's shop, the usual welcoming atmosphere is now replaced with the grim, unwelcoming feeling of death. The shop is closed. I have no idea why I'm surprised, nearly every other shop and home in this village is closed off, sometimes even with the windows boarded over, so that the public doesn't witness the gruesome happenings in the living space. I decide that nothing good will come out of this if I just stand here, so I quickly head home. I walk past countless people sitting in front of their huts, people laying on quickly knit blankets, waiting for the day they can return to their normal life and be spared from this atrocity.

"Please, sir, help me," I hear one of them call out to me. I don't have a thing to offer him, so I don't even spare him a glance. He begins to weep, which slowly grows into a pitiful sob. By the time I turn the corner, I can hear his shrieks of sorrow turn to screams of agony and pain. I sigh before I enter my home, saddened by the fact that I can do nothing to help these suffering people.

The usual excited shouts of children happy to see their father are notably absent. I venture further into my house, frightened at the possibility of them having fallen victim to this plague. At last I find them, their mother on her hands and knees, shivering over the children. In an instant, all my worst nightmares are coming true. I walk over to my wife and kids and am forced to take part in the sorrow that is this disgusting disease.

"It hurts, father," one of them says, coughing up blood.

"It's going to be alright honey, I promise," I said back to her.

"Please help us, we're in too much pain," the other cries out. Hearing their cries of pain was just too much for me, I have to leave the room. I don't want to leave, but I don't need them to feel even more scared by my own sobbing. I can still hear their cries from the other side of the house, so I must leave again. There's not a sound more hellish than that of your own child's screams of agony and torment. I decide to go for a walk in the woods behind the home. Hopefully I will be able to clear my mind and try to forget about all of this for a while.

Apparently I thought horribly wrong. Not even 10 minutes of walking around and I come across a pit full of bodies of people who died from the plague. The stench returns to me, and I feel like I'm going to be sick. Just as I'm about to leave, I see a caravan of people, with bodies slung over their shoulders. I ponder if I should return home or confront them, and I decide to confront them.

"Excuse me, sir, what seems to be going on here?" I ask one of them, not being able to take my eyes off of the dead body on his shoulder.

"We're taking these here bodies and dumping them in that hole over there," he replies.

"Why exactly, if I might ask?"

"Because if we don't, the disease is just going to spread further, faster. Now get going, before you get infected too and end up in a hole like this."

"If you're worried about the disease spreading like wild, why are you putting all the infected into one big area, where the disease can still spread?"

He sighs. "We plan on burning the bodies. That way we can get rid of any trace that still might be on them."

A whole knew fear arises in me. Not only do I now have to come to terms with my children dying to this plague, I have to ready myself for the day their bodies will be reduced to nothing. All I could do was stand there in shock as the men continued on and threw more bodies into the pit. I was still standing there when they lit it all on fire, the crackling of fire bringing more pain to my ears. After what seems like hours, the man I spoke with earlier taps my shoulder and tells me to return home, or I risk getting sick. I started to make the journey home, though it was a lot colder than before due to the expanding night sky.

When I arrived back at home, my wife and kids were nowhere to be found. I checked every room in the whole house, and they're not anywhere. I eventually come across a note that my wife must have written. Reluctantly, I opened it, and read it.

"I'm sorry that I was not able to tell you in person, but we have decided to leave the house so that we don't get anyone else sick. We hope that you will understand."

I couldn't believe it. In just a matter of hours it seems that my entire life has now reduced to shambles. I want to go back, I want to wake up from this nightmare. But I never do wake up. And the realization that I really am all alone and all the people I loved and help so dearly to me are likely now dead. I feel horrible, disgusted, enraged at myself, that there was almost nothing that I could've done to prevent this. All I can hope for is that a sickness as horrid as this one never plagues the earth again. The Black Death, as they so call it.

A few months have passed, and I've never heard from my family again. They're saying now that nearly a million people have died to the plague, but they mostly have it under control. They call it the most devastating thing that has ever happened to Europe, and I don't doubt them one bit.