August 14th 1348 - Noon
Dear Alfredo,
The man who collects the dead has just left. Guido ended up dying and straight after that Mother caught the plague. I don’t know what to do. I’m the only one left now. I just loaded mother onto the cart. She looked so peaceful among the pile of bodies around her. I am not barricading myself in my house anymore. I can’t bear the quite in there. There are only ten other people left in our village now. Alvaro and I are the youngest people alive. My Uncle Luigi is taking care of us. Our food supply is declining. The whole village has been cut off from everywhere else. No one can go out and no one can come in. Uncle Luigi says that by doing this we will be able to stop the disease from spreading to other places. He’s very smart, my Uncle Luigi, I do hope he is right. The whole village is in disarray, nobody bothers to clean up. There are no living animals anymore; rats run around everywhere, all cats have already been killed off because many people suspected them to be the plague carriers. I don’t know if I agree though, we have had cats around the village for a long time now and the plague only appeared a while ago. It just doesn’t seem right. I can’t help but shudder whenever I see those rats. I sometimes wish that there was a way to get rid of them. But I suppose that I shouldn’t be picky and I should just be happy that I am alive.
August 14th 1348 - Dusk
I must correct myself. I know I said earlier that there were only ten others living in the village now but I am sure, by tomorrow, that number will be decreased to six. I do not know those people well so I am sure I will not grieve for them after they have gone, but I can’t help but to pity them, lying in their beds, altogether in a bricked up house, in pain. Because we have cut ourselves off from the rest of the world, we are not able to bury our dead outside of the village. There is little space to bury anyone, so everyone is buried on top of each other in one mass grave. When I first found out I was sickened. If I died I definitely wouldn’t want to be buried in that way.
Now that I think about it, it is quite strange. My father was the first to go, my brother and mother followed, but I never seemed to catch it. With all this dying though, I have been keeping as clean as possible. The mortifying death all around is starting to overwhelm me. I can’t help but feel my skin crawl as I see rats scurrying here and there along with the mounds of dirt that symbolize the resting place of so many. I am not sure when my time will come but I am neither dreading nor looking forward to it. Either way I am sure either of them will come soon.
Yours truly, for who knows how long, Louisa
