Agnella

It’s been ten years since the Great Mortality came and took my brother, Domenico, his wife and my best friend, Caterina, and my wonderful husband, Leonello. It’s hard to say who I miss more but does it really matter? Within a year, I’d lost everyone close to me. Thankfully Leonello and I didn’t have children living here. They are all grown and had moved away many years ago. I hope the Great Mortality hasn’t reached them. Maybe it’s spread over the entire world.

I don’t know why I was spared. So, few on this island were. So, few in any of the surrounding towns were. And yet, I’m here. Alone. Here.

I no longer serve a purpose. I still eat and sleep and tend to the animals and stand on the shore listening to the water, but I feel empty. My body did not die with my family, but my soul did. I know I will see them again when I’m released from my fleshy confines and part of me wishes that day was today. And I wonder why it isn’t. I think that it could be. It could be any day if I wished it hard enough. There is no one left to miss me.

Though the sickness has left, and it seems the Great Mortality has ended, my home hasn’t healed. Not just my home, all the homes around us. Some are empty as every member living there died. Others were lucky and only one member was lost. Many are like me. All but one gone in the blink of an eye.

The smell of death and the site of the huge open graves will stay with me forever. My family rests with hundreds of others. In peace? I hope so.

I’m ready to see them again. I’m ready to leave this place. I don’t know why I stay.