Page 1 of Grim
PlaguedfromtheStart
Northern France — Around Three Hundred Years Ago
Can one die of a broken heart?
It’s a question that echoes in the minds of many, a desperate plea, a whispered cry into the void, a silent scream reverberating through an aching soul’s hollow chambers. It is a question that, if asked in a social setting, I would’ve gladly debated intellectually.
Metaphorically, I can think of many lives lost to that most romantic of conditions: a broken heart. Passions burn, love dies, and along with it the lives of so many rakes and damsels of stories past. But can a feeling affect the body to such a degree that it could change function? To push the query even further, could a sense of overwhelm be so seismic as to cease the beating of the heart?
As a learned medical professional, I feel I should have the answer, but I ask not as a physician or a scholar—no, I ask as a wretched soul, barely clinging to existence. A man undone.
Grief is not sorrow. Sorrow is a guest who will leave. Grief is a parasite—it latches on, it feeds, it remakes. It is a rot that eats away at you and leaves only a husk. It is the weight pressing down on my chest with every breath, my dark shadow beside me, whispering I will never be whole again.
And so, this doctor, a master of the science of the soul, postulates that though heartache might not be the direct cause of death, it can serve as a catalyst, slowly chipping away at our will to live. It is a relentless torment that never ends, gnawing away at our very being until we are nothing but an empty shell. Like an executioner’s blade, it cleaves the soul from the self, leaving us gasping for air as our heart slowly withers away and sends us to our final resting place.
I never thought I would be forced to grapple with such questions personally. I never imagined these musings would be more than a scholarly pursuit or piece of theological training. As a man of noble birth, I was raised by proud and honorable parents, who provided me with an education that paved the way for success in my career in medicine. My life was built on discipline, devotion, and love so consuming that I feared it might one day swallow me whole. But never, not in my darkest nightmares, did I imagine that love would be the very thing to unmake me.
Isabelle. My Izzy. For nine years, she’s been the breath in my lungs, the fire in my veins. A beacon in the darkness of this cruel world. I worshipped her body and soul, moving the moon and stars to bring her joy. What was gold? What was power? What wasanythingcompared to the way her laughter warmed my heart? I did all of this gladly because I belonged to her.
But she did not belong to me.
“Was.” The word is familiar yet foreign as it stumbles from my lips.
Isabellewasmy wife.
Isabellewasmy everything.
Isabellewasmy light in the dark.
Now … she is not.
Heartbreak is a whoreson dog. And any doubts about my love for her were rendered insignificant when rage consumed me, blinding my reason and pushing me beyond the brink of sanity. It is a bitter truth: life is not fair. Never once did I stray, not even a glance. Why would I when perfection waited for me in our home? How could she? How couldthey? After everything I’d done. All I’d sacrificed.
A darkness plagues our world again. Death looms at the forefront as a constant threat amid chaos and desperation. This sickness came like a black tidal wave, sweeping through the fetid streets, leaving behind piles of rotting bodies. The wails of the dying have become a mournful song I am unable to escape, driving doctors like myself to the brink of madness. Even worse, fear has turned brother against brother, causing people to suspect even a simple sniffle as a sign of illness. My professional duties have always been clear: rid the body of disease and save souls. Keep in line the humors and maintain the earthly balance of body, mind, and soul.
But nothing in my years of healing my fellow Parisians prepared me for this pestilence. Entire families are dying slowly, in the tens of thousands. People are locking themselves away in fear and choosing to take their mortality into their own hands rather than waiting for the illness. Villages have been quarantined and then buried alive. The torments are great; the answers so very scant.
Add to that unthinkable anguish the horrors I witnessed after coming home from my tour. Doctors are not above our fellow men, and many of us have succumbed to the illness; therefore, a rule was established. After our missions, we had to confine ourselves before being allowed to go home to our loved ones.
That in-between time seared deeper than any fire nature could forge. Do not underestimate the torment of prolonged isolation. I was locked away, unable to communicate with the outside world, unable to know how Izzy fared. The ache of the unknowing was a physical weight. Stone upon stone heaped upon my chest as I waited to see if I would show signs of the very disease I had been sent to help eradicate. And if I did demonstrate even a hint of the plague, my fate would be sealed. No goodbyes, last touches, or final moments of connection with my beloved. When I look back, perhaps that would have been the better course for my days.
The reality instead was this: after being cleared from my fortnight-long solitude, free of disease and desperate for connection, I made for the home my toils and labors had paid for. I raced to the entrance to hold my wife, tosee my beautiful Isabelle, to feel her warm embrace once again. As I burst through the door and stepped inside, the sight I found left me speechless.
The woman I loved was not waiting for me, not in the way I had dreamed, not in the way I had prayed.
Our bed …
Our bed!
Her body was entwined with his—my brother—a pair of unholy serpents coiled in coitus. My mind couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. The balance I sought in my patients and myself faltered, splintered, and finally broke.
Betrayal. Anger. Heartbreak.
A storm raged inside me, swallowing every ounce of logic, every shred of reason. My hands trembled, and my vision clouded as I found I could not make sense of it all.
But, as I had seen in countless cases over my storied career, madness makes no room for reason, and I could feel—physically feel—something snap inside of me. The calm, understanding man I had always been, he was gone, replaced by a monster filled “from the crown to the toe-top full of direst cruelty.” The scene before me blurred as I saw nothing, but heard everything. Every scream, every cry, every desperate gasp for air filled my ears, fueling my fury. At that moment, I could only listen helplessly as my world shattered into a million pieces.
My brother got away, only briefly, and that was when it all changed.
