D.110.11

        So I was working on my spreadsheet and I was thinking to myself, Doc, how did you get your name? Why are you called Doc? Shouldn't your name be Ricky or Bobby or Vincent? I am always partial to Liam myself. What do you look like? Then in my mind I see a tattoo of the old 15^th century plague doctor beak-masks with the red eyes on a shoulder surrounded with burns that look like they came from acid, or fire or… caustic soda- lye! Then it comes to me, he doesn't have a name…

Snippet: How Doc got his name.

"Why do they call you the doctor?"

Doc stopped and pondered for a moment. "Years ago I was wandering up north, looking for someone, or something, I don't remember which." He shrugged, set his bag down on the ground and sat under a tree. "Anyways, so there I am, up in the heavily occupied north and I had no idea a war was raging. I walked into this town, not even a town really, more like a little village. The buildings were charred, the ground dusted in lye and the stench," he wrinkled his nose in remembrance. "The major city upwind had been demolished with incendiaries and biochem attacks which drifted down to this village where massive outbreaks of chemically altered yersinia pestis has just about wiped out everyone."

"I heard about that."

"At that time I was only wearing what I woke up in, my black trench coat that went down nearly to the ground, my leather boots and my red sunglasses."

"Always made me wondered where you came from dressed like that."

"Me too," he laughed. "I had no memory of who I was, still don't really." He sniffed. "So I am in this village, death all around me, the whole place just silent, just silent," he exclaims. "And after a few minutes of scouting the place out I hear a small voice. 'Doctor?' I turned around and there is this little boy, naked with what looked like a burlap sack tied around his torso, his sandy hair burned almost completely off, and the caustic lye burns all over his body. I was so shocked that the kid was alive, but when I saw the swollen lymph nodes that kept his left arm propped out and the deep bruises on the skin that wasn't charred or burned I knew there wasn't anything I could do to save him. But the kid's one word seemed to galvanize the air, soon there were all sorts of people coming out hiding. 'Doctor' they whispered, or cried, or even screamed. I knew I couldn't save them, but I could help them, and so I set about trying to help them as much as possible. I was there for three weeks, cleaning out areas to set up wards, sorting people and keeping the place as clean as possible. Practically all of those people died, as I knew they would, without proper medicine all I could do was try to ease the suffering as much as possible. I was down to my last three patients, all three of them children, two young boys and a baby girl who had been born to a mother infected. That baby girl already died on me three times, and every time I was able to revive her. I had no idea what was wrong with her, if she was infected or not, I figured having been born from a woman who was infected and died shortly after childbirth this girl was not destined for this earth long." He sighed, closing his eyes and raising his face to the warm sun. "I heard helicopters, and I thought 'finally, help is coming.'" He grunted. "They bombed the village, incendiaries, lye," he grew quiet, and for a long moment said nothing. "The little boys," he whispered. "There was fire everywhere. I had the girl in my arms, and I ran, ran away" he sighed, opened his eyes again and smiled. "I never stopped running."

^^^

      Oh, I am not sure if I like that story, it's kinda sad. Little by little this story is being revealed to me. But with every little bit that I am shown it answers a couple of questions but spawns so many more. Occupied North? War? He talks about a village, so I assume this isn't America, but maybe it is America, post WW3? Did that boy call him doctor because the way he was dressed or because he was the only person who wasn't injured and infected?

• A wide-brimmed black hat worn close to the head. At the time, a wide-brimmed black hat would have identified a person as a doctor, much the same as how nowadays a hat may identify chefs, soldiers, and workers. The wide-brimmed hat may have also been used as partial shielding from infection.
• A primitive gas mask in the shape of a bird's beak. A common belief at the time was that the plague was spread by "bad air". There may have been a belief that by dressing in a bird-like mask, the wearer could draw the plague away from the patient and onto the garment the plague doctor wore. The mask also included red glass eyepieces, which were thought to make the wearer impervious to evil. The beak of the mask was often filled with strongly aromatic herbs and spices to overpower the miasmas or "bad air" which was also thought to carry the plague. At the very least, it may have dulled the smell of unburied corpses and sputum from plague victims.
• A long, black overcoat. The overcoat worn by the plague doctor was tucked in behind the beak mask at the neckline to minimize skin exposure. It extended to the feet, and was often coated head to toe in suet or wax. A coating of suet may have been used with the thought that the plague could be drawn away from the flesh of the infected victim and either trapped by the suet, or repelled by the wax. The coating of wax likely served as protection against respiratory droplet contamination, but it was not known at the time if coughing carried the plague. It was likely that the overcoat was waxed to simply prevent sputum or other bodily fluids from clinging to it.
• A wooden cane. The cane was used to both direct family members to move the patient, other individuals nearby, and possibly to examine patients without directly touching them.
• Leather breeches. Similar to waders worn by fishermen, leather breeches were worn beneath the cloak to protect the legs and groin from infection. Since the plague often tended to manifest itself first in the lymph nodes, particular attention was paid to protecting the armpits, neck, and groin.

            Like I said earlier, more questions than answers. When I wrote about Rozzi, I pictured a little girl, a child, no older than six or seven. Hugging a little stuffed bunny, dressed in a little dirty dress and covered with Doc's large leather jacket. But I can't see her face, her eyes or even her hair. I don't normally write a lot because these stories are stories to me as well. Like little movies, playing completely out of sync in my mind. Ending, middle, point of interest, beginning, prologue… Where do you come from Doc? And more importantly, where are you taking me?

            Just in case someone doesn't know, Yersinia Pestis, aka Y. Pestis, takes three main forms: Pneumonic, septicemic, and bubonic. Commonly known as The Black Death.

            I use to write a lot as a child, nothing that amounted to anything of course, but still. I always thought about it like my journal writing, it's a lot of noise in my head that I have to write out or it'll overwhelm me. Lots of times it's just little blurbs, no point really, just something that popped into my head. This one though, started out as a writing prompt but Doc and Rozzi and quickly pulling me into their world. I am excited and a little scared to see where this goes.


            But moving on, you cannot rush a muse. I cut my nails last night and sounded better on this last song on the violin. The high arch fingers are sometimes hard to perform and I practiced until my fingertips were black from rubbing the strings and fingerboard.  

To days to come,
/ac