hope and promise

The virus made use of our customs and trade its inroads and success were too quickly made until a small council of wise people met to examine options we'd not thought of yet. This occurred way back in the thirteen hundreds when much of what was Europe lay about dead when blight war and pestilence were all around and piles of corpses stood heaped on the ground. This council of men and of women held court and discussed our nation's few and last resorts and devised a schema for saving us all from wizened old geezer to children still small. We must put these bodies at once in the earth and give all sick-houses a wide solemn berth and clean up our quarters and wash all our clothes and wear clean white kerchiefs before mouth and nose, is what this wise council did wisely propose. Grigovia's death-rate fell quickly and soon and ours was a widespread but still-cautious boon for we found some lands to the north south and east had been quite abandoned to weed-growth and beast. Our borders expanded as the sickness fled and within a fortnight we'd buried the dead and started to build on the lands that we'd gained while strength hope and promise did fill us again. With stubborn defense we held onto those lands from roving marauding and murderous bands that swept from the plains of Asia's wide steppe to break up and shatter upon our doorstep. The pest never came back for we did keep clean our bodies and homes and all places once mean and foul with effluvia trash and vomit and never again did we let or permit invaders of human or non-human sort to drive us to seeking few and last resorts.

​© americanifesto / 場黑麥