Stories Don't Work

"The year of our blessed Savior's incarnation, 1348, that memorable mass-death took place in the excellent City, far beyond all the rest of Italy; by which plague, that came about because of our conceit, or rather because of our enormous wickedness, by the just anger of God, was sent upon us mortals.  Some few years before, it took beginning in the Eastern parts, sweeping thence an innumerable quantity of living souls: extending itself afterward from place to place westward, until it seized on the our City, where neither humane skill or providence could aid any prevention ~ notwithstanding, it was cleansed of many annoyances, by diligent Officers who were deputized.  Besides prohibition of all sickly persons to enter, and all possible provision used daily for the conservation of those who were healthy, there was employed incessant prayers and supplications of devout people, for the assuaging of so dangerous a sickness.

"About the beginning of the year, it also began in very strange manner, as appeared by different admirable effects; yet not as it had done in the East Countries, where Lord or Lady were being affected by bleeding at the nose, the obvious sign of inevitable death to follow.  But here it began with young children, male and female, either under the armpits, or in the groin, by certain swellings ~ in some as big as an apple, in others the size of an egg.  And so, in difference greater or lesser, which (in their vulgar language) the people termed to be a blotch or a bile. In very short time after, these two infected parts grew deadly, and would disperse abroad indifferently, to all parts of the body.  Whereupon, it was the nature of the disease to show itself by black or blue spots, which would appear on the arms of many; some others, on their thighs, and every other part of the body. And in some, great and in few places, in others in many small and thick places.

"Now, as the bile (at the beginning) was an assured sign of rapid approaching death, so proved the spots as well, to those that had them.  For the curing of that sickness, it seemed the virtue of Medicines, that the physician’s counsel or any other application could not yield any remedy.  But rather, it plainly showed that either the nature of the disease would not be cured, or that the ignorance of the physicians could not understand the source of the cause.  And so, as a result, no solution was found.

"Moreover, beyond the number of those who were skilful in medicine, many more, both women and men, became physicians, without ever having had any knowledge of medicine.   So that not only were few healed, but almost all [the patients] died, within three days after the said signs were seen ~ some sooner and others later, commonly without either a fever or any other accident.  And yet, this pestilence was of far greater power or violence, for anything ~ not only healthy persons speaking to the sick, or coming to see them, or airing clothes in kindness to comfort them ~ was an occasion of ensuing death.  Even touching their garments, or any food upon which the sick person fed, or anything else used in his service, seemed to transfer the disease from the sick to the sound in very rare and miraculous manner.

"About these marvellous matters, let me tell you one thing ~ which, if had not been seen by the eyes of many (as well as mine own), I could hardly be persuaded to write about it, much less believe it, even if a man of unimpeachable honesty should report it.  I say that not only was the quality of this contagious pestilence of such efficiency, in passing and being caught from one to another, either man or woman, but it extended further, even ~ in the plain view of many witnesses ~ that touching the clothes, or anything else, worn by one that died of that disease.  And if it was laid on by an animal, being nothing like a man, they [the clothes] did not only contaminate and infect the described beast, whether it was a dog, cat, or any other ~ then it, also, died very soon after.

"One day, my own eyes (as I said before), among many others, experienced evidence of the following:  some poor ragged clothes, of linen and woollen, torn from a wretched body dead of that disease, had been hurled into the open street.  Two swine came by, and (according to their natural inclination) seeking food on every dunghill, tossed and tumbled in the clothes with their snouts, rubbing their heads likewise upon them.  And immediately, each turning twice or three times about, they both fell down dead on the said clothes, being fully infected with the contagion of them.  This accident, and others that were similar, if not far greater, started many fears and imaginations in those that saw; making them rush towards a most inhumane and uncharitable option:  namely, to fly away from the sick, and from touching anything of theirs, by which means they thought their health should be safely protected."

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, written in 1350

at the height of the Black Plague

I cannot help coming back around to this, for perspective if nothing else.  For those not familiar with the Decameron, I've simplified the language to produce a more modern description; I have no Latin professors to impress now, so I can cheat on the original language as much as I wish.  Boccaccio outlived the plague by 25 years; he was 37 when the above lines were published.  He predates the printing press, so most people would have heard a speaker read aloud from the book rather than ever hope to have a copy themselves.  The book isn't short; the Penguin Classic, which I read, has 1,072 pages.  Written with a quill pen.

The above is merely an introduction; in his story, 10 persons flee from the plague to an isolated farmhouse in the hills.  There, still expecting to die of the plague, they agree to tell one story each, one time per day, for ten days.  The book, then, records the 100 total stories told by the characters.  Each day, one of the refugees is charged as the King or Queen for that day; and each day the stories follow a particular theme: love stories that end tragically, tricks people play on one another, examples of virtue and so on.

The stories are fair.  Now, years later, I cannot recall a single one, though I did read them all.  I'm sure I'd remember many of them if I started the book again.  It is very like the medieval period; dumb characters are extraordinarily dumb, along Chaucer levels, while those in love are ludicrously, blind and besotted by love.  None are particularly believable.  And no story in the collection makes any attempt whatsoever to address the plague, though they comment a great deal on social culture, families, the power of money, cruelty and troubled morality.

My personal analysis is that while Boccaccio intended to speak upon the unchanging nature of humans through the stories they tell, inadvertantly he highlights how ineffectual these stories are in the face of ongoing tragedy ... or enduring happiness, for that matter.  Look at the first lines of the above, giving the story that supposedly explains the horror of it all.  But stories are not real; they are the thing we tell ourselves to push back the real, to escape the real ~ and we naturally think of this as a virtue, because the power of certain stories to change who and what we are as people is indisputably magnificent.

But in a moment like this, with the virus descending on the populace and kicking the fragile anthill of our society to pieces in not very much time, it's easier to see little power story-telling really has.  For that is what we're doing with ourselves now, to get through this ... telling ourselves stories.  Telling ourselves that this won't last more than a month or two, or that facemasks will keep us safe, or that the government will get this under control.  We tell ourselves that by doing these things, we'll make ourselves safe; and we tell ourselves that watching the news makes us informed and therefore better prepared.  We rush out and horde tons of critical material so that it can sit unused in our basements, resulting in greater suffering for those without the means to horde, and we tell ourselves that we'd be stupid not to do this.  We tell ourselves all kinds of stories about what we're doing and how we're ready and what's smart and what's stupid.

These stories are designed to push back the fear ... very like our pre-historic ancestors invented gods and spiritual ancestors to manage the storms and the sea, along with the moon, the sun, the turn of the seasons, the inevitability of death, famine and, yes, pestilence.  Not because these stories really did anything, but because it felt better to tell ourselves that these stories did things.  Because looking into the hard, cold, brutal face of reality is scary as hell.  And we are all discovering that right now, as despite our efforts we're also able to recognize that, a lot of the time, the stories don't work.

For most of us, it's a d100 roll to see if we die.  The result isn't actually random; it has a lot to do with whether we smoke or if we've had a really bad lung infection at some point in our lives, how old we are, our genetics, what our condition happens to be when we get the disease and how much care we can potentially obtain when the disease comes.  But a d100 roll will do to get the point across.  The odds are quite good.  Personally, I don't know many D&D players who would choose to risk their hard-fought-for 10th level ranger on a d100 roll if it meant a 1% chance of permanent death; but if the risk is forced on them, they'll feel pretty good about their odds of survival.  And so should we.  So should we.

But some of us, sorry, are going to lose that roll.  Some of us, your author right now included, will be quite realistically be dead inside of three months ... whereupon none of the stories are going to cut it.

Which is why I want to take this moment of helpless lucidity on the part of the reader, where none of the stories are going to curtain off the reality, to make a few points.  Much of where we are just now comes from having told ourselves a few too many stories.  Stories about how safe we are, and how great the country is, and how we don't really need everyone to have a good health care system, or why austerity measures seems like a better way to pay back the debt than raising taxes.  These are all stories.  And stories, for all the virtue we tend to heap upon them, are, most of the time, just how we bullshit ourselves.

When the stories gain too much of a foothold, and we allow the odor of mendacity to reach a point where our eyes become utterly blind to reality, this present circumstance is what happens.  It is this present circumstance, this pestilence, that motivated communities a century ago to pay more attention to public health and the general welfare.  The threat was stark and unimaginably terrifying, what with the dead bodies of relatives and strangers alike, and it made people think, "Perhaps it would be a good idea if everyone was healthy, and not just me, and my family, and the people in my county and, hell, the people everywhere on the planet."  And so we took steps to build systems that would fight back such things, and passed measures that would more realistically ensure our safety ~ not by telling ourselves stories, but by having doctors and people with medical experience direct reality in exactly the way reality manifests.  Because a really good story won't keep you alive, even if you want to tell yourself that stuff that happens in some other part of the world doesn't really have anything to do with you.

In fact, it does.  It really does.  And even as we tell ourselves silly stories to assuage the panic, I think for at least a few weeks we're all getting acquainted with this.

So when it is over ... and it will be, once we survive the economic crash that follows this nightmare, we should all be asking ourselves whether or not we want to dive back into those stories again.  Because this could have easily been a lot worse.  We could have easily drawn a pestilence card that killed on a 1 in 20, or a 1 in 12, or a 1 in 6.  A card that is, I promise you, still in the deck.  Just waiting.  If the d100 roll is getting to you ... just consider what a d6 roll would mean.  Not only for you, but your family and all the people you know.  And for the sheer number of cold, dead bodies that would mean, scattered all over the world.

Frankly, I think it's a bad time for stories.