Short Story

Great White Plague

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday
where our prompt word is “sum” Here is my SoC.

Consumption patients getting sun and fresh air

When I was a very small child, one of my older cousins was suffering from a case of consumption, also know as tuberculosis. She was 16 years old and literally wasting away from this disease once called the “Great White Plague” due to the extremely pale complexion of those afflicted.

My cousin was always cold, requiring multiple blankets to keep warm, and time outside in the sun and fresh air, especially during the spring and summer. She was either in bed or reclining on a chaise lounge near the window in the parlor.

She looked like death. To the school age children in the house, this was a frightening time and they glanced at her with pity and wariness. They also avoided her, which was not very kind; some of them stayed away by spending extra time practicing their penmanship lessons and math sums.

At least twice each week my great-aunt Chesaria would stop by to administer her special “tonic”,  light a candle and leave her mark on my cousin. The ritual never changed: first a dose of the safe-for-human-consumption red berry juice from the sumac plant. Next, Aunt Chesaria would draw a birdcage in blue ink on both of my cousin’s earlobes. The door to the birdcage was always drawn in the open position which allowed the evil spirits in my cousin’s body to find their way out. Finally, my great-aunt would light a tea candle and place it on my cousin’s chest to draw out the congestion. She would close the curtains and leave my cousin in the darkened room to allow her potions to do their magic.

Who knows if any of this strange “medicine” worked; our parents clung to the phrase “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.  My cousin eventually recovered, because of or in spite of Aunt Chesaria’s administrations. She was never a robust woman after her ailment but she married and was healthy enough to give birth to nine children in just 12 years. She welcomed more than 40 grandchildren and a batch of great-grandchildren before passing away at the age of 86 just two years ago.

As a rule, Aunt Chesaria was summoned whenever anyone in the family or immediate vicinity became ill. She drew birdcages on my own earlobes during every childhood malady. But the question that remains unanswered is “Who took care of Aunt Chesaria when she became ill?” No one is around to fill in the blanks so I can only assume there was a witch doctor of sorts living in my neighborhood …. perhaps a black magic woman from Sumatra residing in the unassuming borough of The Bronx!

Presumptuous? Possibly. But fascinating, nonetheless.

NAR©2024
#SoCS

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS June 15, 2024

This is “Black Magic Woman” by Santana

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

28 thoughts on “Great White Plague”

  1. Aunt Chesaria reminds me of a similar character for her unique tantrums. We used to call her Mausi (mother’s sister). A fascinating post, Nancy!

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    1. I found my Great Aunt to be both fascinating and scary when I was very young. What mattered most was the people who were her ‘patients’ believed in what she was doing.

      There are a few women in my family who had a crazy number of children! My Great-grandmother had 11.

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  5. My grandmother lived with us when I was a child, a crusty old Yankee, and she had more superstitions than I can remember. She was always tossing salt over her shoulder, changing direction, opening and closing windows to change luck, walking around her chair (I forget why) and spitting on things. I don’t believe in any of it, but you bet I toss salt over my shoulder and never fail to pick up that penny or pin.

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    1. All of Aunt Chesaria’s magic was rather spooky and fascinating to me. What mattered the most was the people she treated believed in what she was doing.

      I’m with you about superstitions. I like the little joke which goes ‘I’m not superstitious, just a little stitious!’, so I do the salt thing, too, and will never pass by a penny on the ground.

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