The Shroud Eater: Miasma

by Lizz Rizzo

me first. That little thought he put in your mind... humans are such a desperate kind.” She crossed her arms, almost disappointed.

  “So, you’re not going to avenge your death?” You could imagine my surprise.

  “Oh, I’d love to, but I’m afraid we’re stuck in this spiritual realm until both of us die.”

  “Or if Limbo dies…?” I questioned, wondering if it were even possible.

  “As if it were possible... why do you think he has you out on such a pointless errand? If it were even possible, then the Miasma barrier would break, and all of the shroud eaters would live as we did on Earth, but with the blessing of immortality. Like pouring water from a bucket onto burlap.”

  I perished the thought, “No, that is not an option... no one should live in repent for eternity.”

  “Is it so bad? Immortality is always an option that you never realize you have. I think if you gave it time; you would learn to reap its benefits.” She plucked a forget-me-not out from the garden.

  “How many of us are there?” I said, as I looked at the light-blue flowers.

  “More than you’ve burned in a thousand life times, doctor.” She smelled the essence of the the flower she held in her frail, delicate hand.

  “Time is endless, even for these delicate flowers. Unless provoked.” the stem crumpled and the petals wilted at her mercy, “... kind of like what Limbo is doing to you now. There will never be a release in this life because the only way out is to go back from whence you came.” she said as the wind carried what remained of the wilted flower.

  “Why do you think God forsakes us, and Satan rules below?” she posed the question.

  I did not know the answer to her question, so I remained silent.

  She giggled as her eyes gleamed the way Limbo's eyes had before. “God only allows those who follow him into heaven, Satan welcomes those who have sinned into hell. For those in purgatory... well, no one follows Limbo, so anyone is welcome – the sinners and the blessed.”

  “Why do you think there are so many of these flowers? They smell the same and they all even look the same. These flowers will be here before and beyond us, as long as we respire.” She stared at her reflection in the water, and back at me and smiled weakly.

  “That’s why they are called forget-me-nots. Life does not end in flames to leave you screaming in eternal agony. Neither does it lure you into His forgiving light easing every shred of pain you experienced in life… but when your time has come, I promise you this...”

  She walked up to me, her cold, pale lips pressed against mine. “... it will be breath-taking.”

  End.

  The stench of a burning cesspit bade us farewell from a distance as we were pulled by a wagon, only to be greeted by the sound of horse-hooves venturing off the drawbridge and onto the cobblestone path. To the left of me was a serf girl, whose mother I had witnessed trembling over bleeding words. The serf sat staring at the village soothsayer, gripping his rood with his eyes shut tight and muttering for deliverance.

  An old German woman sat across from us, brooding while she grasped her tattered robes to keep herself warm from winter’s first chill. A frail thing with a thin burlap hood covering a rigid grimace, she too, sat there in mutual silence. Since solitude was our boon for strangers it was unwise to converse out of pleasantries; unless you were the perfumer, but his kind words were often disguised in persuasion, I assure you.

  As betraying as my thoughts had become, there would be no comfort in a service that taxed for a distraction from what is true.

  “Death is a keen blade that one cannot sheath.” the perfumer claimed in defense of his avarice. Nonetheless, I had bartered with him to replenish the musk of sage and cloves in my beak.

  Less we forget our sins had bestowed a curse so fatal that God would forsake his children, and yes; I do speak of the God that promised us a cloth to wash ourselves of impurity, of whom baptized us from eternal damnation. The same God-given cloth would not promise to rid ourselves of our burdens. We heeded no warning of His fallow gift freely given, and inherited by the meek which thus brought forth the Pestilence for the faithless blind.

  Alas, no pity would be taken on the doomsayer who embraced a rood of hollow wood. We had been taken to a place where coin could not hold value high enough to yield a cure, for the hopeless perfumer. The end would not be of a ripe nor gray age for the aberrant old woman. No more would the innocent serf girl see a forgiving light from this decaying sky; and I would see no reason in prayer for them. I’d lifted that forsaken veil long before I had put on the raven mask.

  Their ends are preordained in my log book, and they knew this well. In these times I cannot help but wonder what number will I be when I am destined to reach mine? Has my time been of abundance or of atonement?

  After we had halted to a stop on our wagon, it was custom to continue to Poveglia by water, where we would venture through fog in the Venetian lagoon. Once it was cleared, it was a sight to behold atop a blackened horizon that would shelter the dying memories of the cursed. It was a lazaretto that they would soon call home. To this day, I never knew I would be among them.

  The days passed like the hourglass sands, and I had begun to reminisce of a time when I would sleep at night dreaming nightmares so vivid, I would beseech for God to wake me into the world again. Where is the world I once knew? Where had it gone?

  A per diem from the doomsayer begged me to strike the wrongs out of him when he had shown no ill will, merely precaution. It had been done in gratitude, but what for? Departed were the days of children’s laughter emanating virtue for those that had been forgotten when I had taught the serf girl how to write her own will. Dissection was our inquisition for the contagion. ‘Twas ardent for me to sustain a nerve steady and stable, as I performed the incision on her rotting skin, once pure and anon, which would be disposed of in flame.

  The old woman I regretted to the utmost had my morals not have been stripped in such depravity. If only I had abandoned my healing rites, I would have given her the most tranquil of justice. The plague doctors had accused and branded her a shroud eater from hearsay by those of tainted mind. I admit ignorance of her preexistence, but misfortune wore a cruel smile when looking upon this woman, and I was damned to smile back.

  It was I, who had been given consent to suitably treat her; to remove her from this bane, by silencing her muffled screams with a thrusting stone in between her sullied lips. A pool of crimson mercy stained the leather in my shoes, as her cheeks ripped and ruptured, splitting apart as I kept pushing it farther in. Around me, a crowd of beaked monsters cheered for me to press on.

  A grotesque punishment suffered by the most credulous and paramount of saints, I am burdened with sleepless nights. This is the last of my day as a plague doctor, and I oath to never see through glass eyes again. I hereby denounce my vow among my beaked brethren, and forfeit my life of cowardice.

  “A craven death for the raven doctor… how fitting,” a raven said while jotting a number in his log book.