Yellow Fever

I was reading a biography about Mother Jones and this scene in her life inspired me to write a story based on the events from her point of view.

 

             I can hear the trundle carts - the death carts - making their way through the crowded, disease-choked streets. It is coming nearer descending on my house with steady, deliberate footsteps. The cart is a scavenging animal lured here by the stench of the dead and the dying, of soiled clothes, burned beds, s**t and vomit. The neighborhood is screaming. Women for their children, husbands for their wives, children for their parents. The screams are terrible, high-pitched and guttural, screams that I’ve heard before. Yet, in here, in this room, all is silent. Even, finally, the small child, my last to be ripped from my womb, is now silent.

            Yellow fever swept through our hovel town killing the newcomers first, those from the north who had never been exposed to tropical diseases. In the north, in Ireland, a different plague killed us and sent the death carts shuffling through our villages. Death came in the form of starvation, gaunt faces, distended stomachs, and hollow eyes. I had lived through that terror once before and moved to America - the Golden Land - to be free from it. Only to find that in America death just has a different name.

            We were poor, fighting for the privilege to work and eat and in America we were in the same conditions. The house I lived in with my husband and four young children the oldest nine, my namesake just three months, was a hovel built near a swamp, but it was as clean as I could get it and George and I tried to keep food on the table.    

            Then, a neighbor got sick. Just a flu, nothing more. Fever, headache, chills, upset stomach. But, then he got worse. He started bleeding from the gums, the nose, the tip of his penis. He started vomiting black blood and then the screams started. Lunatic ravings and horrible moans. Then, his wife started feeling sick. Finally, his skin became yellow and we knew it was the fever named after that discoloration and we were all terrified. But, it was too late, half the community was already stricken.

            I was thirty. Only thirty. And it seemed that God didn’t want me to live. The community had built a church and I went and prayed every day, but God didn’t hear me. I had already suffered at the hands of starvation, then on the death boats, sickness and starvation killed many, now here I was faced with it again. My faith wavered.

            It broke when my husband got sick. He was a strong man, an iron molder of skill. Strong men didn’t get sick. I watched as the fever took control of him and ate him up from the inside. There was nothing I could do. Even if I could have afforded a doctor, the doctors didn’t know what to do, either. The reports came in from all around us, conflicting and down-playing the epidemic. And so, I turned my back on the world and shut myself up with my dying husband.

            When he died I wrapped his body in our bedding and some men came from the union to give him a proper burial. They spoke some words over his body at the church and I went home a widow with three sick children to care for. Which I did, though I knew it was helpless. They were all sick like their father.

            One by one they succumbed. And one by one I wrapped them in what cloth I could find and lit a candle for them. But, I was hollow. I couldn’t feel anymore and I couldn’t hear their screams. I administered what comforts I could, but I couldn’t give them my tears because I had none left.

            Now, the house is completely silent. My youngest, my fourth child, lies on my breast and has finally stopped whimpering like a wounded animal. The black vomit cakes her mouth and her eyes, once an emerald green to remind me of home, are red.

            Once this house was too small for the six of us, we were cramped and cranky, but we made by, we were connected as only family could be. Now, it is huge and echoing with the memories of them. And now I am alone. The only survivor.

            The death cart has stopped by my house and I step out on the stoop with my last bundle and set it on the cart with the other bundles that used to be people. The man pulling the cart looks at me with pity. No one else on the block lost more than I. At thirty I have lost my entire family in the span of a month.

            I have packed up what little I have, a couple of dresses, some toiletries, and what little money I saved. I lit a candle for each of my family members and left the community and the church that had been home. I don’t know where I am going but I can’t stay here where people are still dying and where I lived.

            I especially think of Little Mary Jones. My namesake. Just three months old. She never even learned how to say “Mother”.

Reviews

[Patient Poet (Yos)]

wow thats sooooo sad .... neautifully written. in few lines you got me back to those black days ....

"The death cart has stopped by my house and I step out on the stoop with my last bundle and set it on the cart with the other bundles that used to be people. The man pulling the cart looks at me with pity. No one else on the block lost more than I. At thirty I have lost my entire family in the span of a month."


what a powerful words ... get deep into my heart.... Thanks you Yossi

[Adela Muresan]

Great piece. Way high over writer's caf� standards.
It's interesting, and the desperation is very palpable.

A.M.

[goldfishgirl]

Wonderfully written, you did a great job, you really made me feel for your character

[A LaDy NaMeD D]

This is sad, but well told. I can just picture myself in the room with her, as she watches her last little bead of hope die. Any reader can understand her grief and feel her pain. You did a really good job writing this.