Seanan McGuire - The Black d**h lyrics

The Black d**h arrived in Europe back in thirteen forty-seven And for several hundred years it just kept sending folks to heaven It spread outward from Messina and struck hardest in the summer And if you were in the path of plague it really was a bummer Well, we blamed it on the rats, and we blamed it on the fleas; We were ignoring crucial facts about the spread of the disease And I think it's time we called for a more thorough inquisition 'cause it's clear that the Black d**h possessed a droplet-based transmission Now, a droplet-based transmission means I sneeze and then you die It's a fairly common vector and we think that's largely why The quarantine developed to protect us from diseases And to help and keep your family from dying of my sneezes The bubonic plague's bacterial, with rat fleas as the vector And the speed of spread's retarded by this animal infector While the Black d**h spread through Europe at a speed that was much faster So we need a better agent to account for this disaster You can't quarantine a rat flea -- no, the rat flea doesn't care If your quarantine's successful, then the virus spreads by air If the Black d**h were bubonic, then the quarantines would fail And the fact that they succeeded tells a very different tale The Black d**h hit hard in Iceland, and there's something you should know: That there are no rats in Iceland, 'cause the temperature's too low And without rats, there's no rat fleas to infect you with a bite So the Black d**h had to spread by means beyond their appetite! Speaking epidemiologically, bubonic plague doesn't make sense to me Yersinia pestis makes you dead, it's true, but it isn't as effective as the common flu If you want to wipe out half of Europe's population, you need a better agent for your devastation; You need a viral agent that that is tried and tragic -- let's take a look at fevers that are hemorrhagic Now a hemorrhagic fever is a nasty beast indeed And we've named it for its tendency to make its victims bleed It can trigger cranial swelling often leading to psychosis And posthumous study demonstrates internalized necrosis It is heavily infectious with a high mortality; When you put it all together, it sounds like the plague to me! And best of all, transmission is from one case to another So you get it from your sister, then you give it to your brother One man gave it to another, or perhaps to four or five And by the time the summer ended, very few were left alive Those survivors spoke of symptoms that were gruesome and quite gory And by looking at their memoirs we can learn more of the story If you study records chronicling how the plague was spread It often started with a stranger who arrived and then got dead It would take about a month before another case was spotted But once the plague took hold the outbreak's course was plainly plotted Each infection would begin with something known as 'latency' That's when you can pa** the plague around, but nobody can see Any sign that you're infectious and a hazard to their health And a droplet-based transmission really helps you spread the wealth Once the latency was ended, then the symptoms would appear And when you displayed 'God's tokens', then you knew the end was near For they were red and hardened patches on your torso, back or legs And they don't match a single symptom that attends bubonic plagues! Speaking epidemiologically, bubonic plague doesn't make sense to me Yersinia pestis makes you dead, it's true, but it isn't as effective as the common flu If you want to wipe out half of Europe's population, you need a better agent for your devastation; You need a viral agent that that is tried and tragic -- let's take a look at fevers that are hemorrhagic The bubonic plague takes less than fourteen days from 'catch' to 'k**' And pneumatic plague is droplet-based, but slaughters faster still While whatever caused the Black d**h took its time and had some fun: For it didn't k** in fourteen days -- instead, try thirty-one So we're looking at a plague whose symptoms differed from bubonic Which swept through for generations in a manner cruel and chronic That took far too long to k** you, and by quarantine was thwarted... Now let's take a moment to consider where it might have started If you take a look at all the waves of certified infection You may see a pattern that demands a delicate inspection For it looks as if the Black d**h, in the hemorrhagic style May have started down in Africa and traveled up the Nile Once it made its way to Egypt, it jumped to the Middle East And with every port of call it found its potency increased 'Til it last it got to Europe and it really got things started Making widows out of nations, leaving empires broken-hearted Now I hope that you'll consider all the things I have suggested All the reasons that bubonic plague should really be contested As the agent that wiped out so many people without blinking And while you may disagree with me, I hope it got you thinking Because history repeats itself, its cycle's never-ending And we ought to know the enemies against which we're defending Please consider all I've said today the next time someone sneezes Or we may find, like Messina, we're not braced for new diseases