The Black Death

The Black Death           Fahad Al Khaja 9-5

A disease emerged about 10 years ago around 1350 called The Black Death. The name of the disease gives people that read about it a glimpse of what it seems like. However, it can’t even begin to describe what people like myself went through at that time, so this is why I’m telling you my story. This disease spread rapidly throughout Europe killing millions of people including all my family members and friends while decreasing the population by about one third (1/3). The majority of the people thought that God was punishing us; I agreed. However, I thought that God was punishing us indirectly through small insects that carried the disease from rats to humans. You can’t talk about The Black Death without seeing the terrible sights that I saw, without smelling the disgusting smells that I smelt and without hearing the horrifying sounds that I heard. So lets go back to that time.

I walk outside my house to go to the guild, and the whole down is depressed. The town is gloomy and sad, and the air is filled with darkness. I see people on the streets, but none of them are alive. All are dead on the street waiting to be found by any of their family members that were still alive. The cemetery cannot hold this many graves, so all of the victims of the Black Death are put together in one huge ditch. While these victims decomposed, flies and other insects come to feed on these bodies. These victims included my dear brothers, beautiful sisters and my precious wife. Oh how I miss them!! All of them were infected about the same time, and they had similar symptoms. I could see them coughing up blood, and I see black spots that grew in their glands (neck, armpit, groin), they called these buboes. I just wanted to die with them, but I knew I had to live to tell my story.

In the Middle Ages, towns smelt horrible, which we as townspeople got used to. However, when The Black Death struck my town, nobody could get used to the...