Death. No matter how much I tried to cover it, its stagnant odour fermented the air around me and crept into the back of my mind. The streets lay filled with the dying populace of London, as if Pestilence had marked the Apocalypse early. No matter where you went in the city, a corpse was sure to greet your stride. The fruit this world bore was now rotting, and the seeds had to be cured by the crows. They, who pick away at the rotting flesh to allow the bones to heal, are the sick’s only hope. And I find myself among their ranks.
As the town folk suffered, welts of infectious blisters growing on their hides, I continued to the appointment that a family of wealth had made with me. It was true that many were sick, but we doctors had to make a living as well. A crow only goes after the shiniest of materials to build its home, after all. Shouts from the helpless ricocheted off of my mask; an expressionless white canvas, only marked by the large beak that protruded from it. Their profanities meant nothing to me as I had grown accustomed to the pleas for help and stones thrown at my black coat, as if to try and mark me for an inevitable fate. Do not misunderstand, for I am no monster. I find great anguish when I see these rotting souls, but in a world doomed to die, adaptation comes quickly to the opportunistic.
The streets that led to my patient’s home were narrow, and paved in a mossy cobble that clicked beneath my boots. As I ascended the stairs to the estate, a faint song could be heard from the neighbouring home.
“London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.”
The delusional song of a madwoman cursed by the plague. I ignored it, as she was not my patient. I knocked on the door and was almost immediately greeted by the sweaty, pale face of a handmaid. The reds of her eyes met mine through my mask as she spoke to me.
“Do come in good doctor. My lady is waiting upstairs,” she managed to say, “And please do remove your hat and… mask.”
“Unfortunately my dear, I cannot do that. This mask is what keeps my health with me,” I responded.
A partial lie, as most doctors believe the plague is miasmatic. Inside of the beak to the mask I had lemon balm, mint leaves, and rose petals; a personal concoction I had devised to help keep my air clean.
I requested that she take me to the patient, and after a harrowing trip upstairs, filled with paintings of presumably deceased relatives, I found myself outside of a room, reeking of the affliction. White rags were scattered throughout the space, painted in a blackening viscous blood, some dripping onto the wooden floor and leaving a mosaic of droplets to be admired. The rags and stains led my gaze to a bed, surrounded by a coven of sickly individuals, whom gathered around the pitiful sight of an ill woman. A silence quieter than night grew over us as the crowd blankly stared at me, as if I was the Angel of Death.
I stepped into the room, and was immediately pulled over to the bedridden woman. How these people could survive the stench was beyond my comprehension, as a more prominent expression of sorrow lay upon their faces, and not one of repulsion. The party consisted of a priest, two other handmaidens, and a man I believed to be her husband. I could tell as my bird-like eyes caught a glimpse of gold around his ring finger.
The husband stood from where he was kneeling and implored, “Do something, Doctor. The plague has eaten away at my wife. You can’t let her die from this God forsaken illness! You mustn’t….”
“I have treated many cases in this dire time. I shall do my best,” I interrupted the distraught man. The patient nodded at her husband, agreeing that the process begin. I never told a client that I would heal them; it was always “I shall do my best.” As a doctor you always can see Death lingering above your patient, its scythe around their neck. There was no guarantee that she would survive, or that anyone would.
I asked the man to show me the wounds, and he lifted her covers to showcase bulbous sacks of blood along her right arm, whilst her left was completely purple and dead. The audience gasped at the grotesque sight; one maid fainting in the process. I opened my jacket and removed the tools from my pocketed belt. The treatment for these wounds is not for the faint of heart, as I penetrated the buboes with a needle and released the crimson fluid that found sanctuary on her right arm. Next, however, was her left, and I had not anticipated amputation.
“What will you do, Crow? God’s Will has been apparent and I believe He requests her in Heaven,” ejaculated the priest.
“Hold her right arm down, good priest, and save your gospel for the Church,” I responded curtly.
After encouraging the rest to each grab a limb and hold her down, I gave the woman a piece of leather to bite into. The saw from my tool belt was placed upon her arm, and before carving into bone and flesh I naively reassured her,
“Have no fear, my lady. This will all be over soon.”
…
With a shudder, I left the house, and replaced my bloody gloves with a clean pair. The sounds of her screams still haunted my mind, now leaving the house vacant of sound except for the sobbing of a man. I carried on my way, to the next patient, and to the next death. There is a reason they call us crows. It’s because we travel in Murders.
lockinloadeadly, “Plague Doctor.” Photo. deviantart Nov. 29, 2013. Jan. 12, 2016 <http://lockinloadeadly.deviantart.com/art/Plague-doctor-The-black-death-comes-416728791>