They say, where there's life, there's hope. But what if you could
find hope in death or perhaps the undead. This is a story about burning
out, breaking down, giving up, and accepting help from the most unlikely
of places, Hell and the Internet, and also that weird guy Gary who
works in the Morgue. This is the third installment of a little mini series
within Our Yours Truly series. Each episode details the correspondence between a modern seeker
and a long deceased voice from the past. In this episode, we once
more find ourselves a fly nestled within the decaying flesh wall of Hell, spying
on the closs suffit archives of the entrepreneurial demonic endeavor known as Healing, Answers
and Necromancy Delivered or HAND. If you're pressed for time, so turn off
your phone, pour yourself a stiff drink, and lock yourself deep inside your
favorite place to cry as we present the archives of Hand or what they have
entitled the Plague Doctor Debacle. Good Evening and customer Service. This is Kyle,
How may I serve you? M Hi? I'm a calling about your
exclusive program Hands across the Age's essential advice for unprecedented events in order to be
eligible for Exclusive program, you must be medical professional. Oh I'm a doctor?
Okay, calm down? And how did you become doctor? Did you
a inherit the title of doctor from parent? Be marry a doctor and take
his name or see I went to medical school? Oh okay, very fancy
doctor, I will allow it. And how did you hear about the Exclusive
program? I got a referral card from Gary Whitman. He is a technician
in our morgue. I don't know him well, but I do go down
there to cry on occasion, and he thought your service might help, and
so it filled say no more. Gary is a friend. Exclusive program is
here to connect modern medical professionals with the experienced front line invergorent doctor who have
first and knowledge of large scale infectious diseases using necromancy. Necromancy is the use
of black magic to communicate with the day I know neromancis. Of course you
do. You are a real doctor, My apologies. Our Exclusive program will
connect you with diseased medical professional from depths of Hell who treated patience at the
heart of previous pandemic. And how do you do that? We use a
proprietary method that I cannot legally disclose, but I can tell you it is
supported by a dedicated team of Satanic witches who unite within blood sigil to cha
darcane spells Monday through Wednesday from midnight to three am, no breaks, thus
allowing our clients a sustained satanic cellular phone signal. I've up to six minutes
fitting a vacant undead medical expert in Hell. Okay, that works for me.
Listen, here's the thing. I've been awake for three days. I
haven't seen my family in a year and a half. I'm probably legally insane
at this point, So let's do this. Excellent. Our undead souls are
standing by waiting to assist you. Please allow a brief hold. While your
guru is a vacant from unholy slum, sounds great, rock solid. Your
call is important to us. Please wait while the next undead rate from the
underworld becomes available. Due to high call volumes, you may experience higher than
average weight times. So if you're considering lodging a formal complaint, maybe pause
a moment and think about who you are dealing with. Do not anger the
forces of Hell. We will not hesitate to come to your house. In
the dead of night and lightly pinch your skin, just a tiny tug,
after which we'll take that skin. And hello, this is doctor Stevens,
Doctor Stephen. This Giovanni de Balvia. I am a medical doctor and a
plague expert. So doctor Stephen telling me where are you practice? Actually,
Stevens is my last name. My first name is Rachel. Oh marie.
It is worse than I thought. So many men have died, that women
are becoming the medical past. Okay, I will speak a real slow How
can Giovanni help? So you are dead, sea signora? Yes, I
am dead and I am in ahead. And you practiced medicine during a major
disease outbreak, very much so a mega one. Perhaps you have heard of
a little thing called the Bonica plague. I'm black and death. The old
wheezy wheezy. Who's the dead? A guy? I am a plague A
doctor? Oh cool. Well that's a little more historical than I had in
mind. I was hoping i'd get someone from the Spanish flu nineteen eighteen.
But okay, sure, I guess a bubonic plague was like the patient zero
over like plagues see Bella doctors in nineteen eighteen it's so hot right now.
You have to be on a waiting list. You gotta know somebody, not
just gaddy, you know, but the plague of doctors can help. We're
living during time of a pandemica became my brains, many helpful of things.
Please don't send me back just the yeend Bella. We haven't many minutes left.
Sure, Okay, then how about you tell me a little bit about
the course of treatment you used. I'm guessing you were active in the sixteen
hundreds and Italy, probably around Padua during the second wave of the bubonic plague.
Oh for a woman, you really know you're medical history. Now let
a real doctor tell you all about how we cured the plague. First of
all, I hope you live in near a swamp, because you are gonna
need a lot of leeches. Do you live near a swamp? Kind of
I live in Cleveland, befacto. You're gonna put it the leeches under the
body. Get order the blood out of the heart. As you know,
there is a little man leaving the heart. He makes it the blood or
more modern deity, heart of pumper blood because of a little gnome leaving the
heart. So little man or little gnome. We don't know anyway, Once
we get out the better blood, little man ble nome, make it all
the fresh boom here, no more plague. I have heard personally, I
try and it does not go so well. But what can you say?
Sometimes you have to harm to help. Okay, you know that's really interesting.
That actually substantiates a theory that we could use a spectra optia aparesi system
to purify the blood and remove toxins. I gotta write this stone. Oh
and also I am definitely hallucinating right now. Very cool. What else you
got? Okay? How about I tell you how we have general population believe
in the threat of a pandemic and make it them follow protocol huh one hundred
percent. I would love to know how you did that. Yes, I'm
going to put you on speaker now so I can close my eyes and really
concentrate. Okay, get it ready. Let me ask you this, where
are you burning your bodies? Because if you are not doing it in a
town of square, this is a missing opportunity. You want to get a
little cat, go house to house, make a bigger pile of bodies.
Most of them will be dead and the one that I'm not dead will only
add to the hot We are out of Morge space, so that would indeed
create an efficiency. See now you're thinking like a real pregod doctor. We
aren't fire like a bigger pile of bodies. What else you need? Okay,
here's one. Did you find that different demographics of people were more or
less susceptible to being infected? Of course? Yes, which is sinners,
unclean souls the French, right, so financially independent women, yes, which
is good, good poor people, Yes, sailors and unclean souls. You
got it. And the French and the God damn the French right on.
I do not understand that, But I don't feel like I understand a lot
of things right now. So let me ask you this. How did you
save your patients from dying? What? Why people don't die? You don't
get the money. You gotta roll into town, get a lot of patients.
Oh no, I tried to kill them, but they die. How
sad God has forsaken us. You burned the bodies. You're collecting your fee
and then on to the next down. You cannot hang around too long.
You gotta spread of your medical practice around. I learned the hard way.
But the longer you stay, the more decor realize you're not a real doctor.
Yes, what is a real doctor? What does it even mean anymore?
Are you really a doctor? If you can't do anything to help anyone
anymore? And if no one believes in science or reason or your real life
experience, and you just go to work to watch people die, and when
you go to sleep at night, you see all their faces, and you
check your Facebook as a distraction, and all you see our post from your
aunt about how the vaccine puts a micro chip in you and the spoons a
stick on you. Yes, wait what, doctor Stephen? Are you okay?
No? I am absolutely not. Okay? One last question? How
do I make all of this stuff? Will our plague doctor have the antidote
to our hero's heartbreak? Or will the cure be worse than the disease?
Welcome back and thanks for waiting. Doctor Giovanni is ready to see you.
Now back to the archives of hand the plague, Doctor de Buckle, forgive
me bella see again? I asked, how do I make all of this?
Stop? All right? Okay? Do your bunny gonna help you?
I'm gonna tell you all of my secrets. Now. When I was a
little boy, I did not want to be a play a doctor. I
wanted to be a famous prostitutao. But you gotta take a the card that
life a tilia. I was born in a ditch, no education. I
work in the streets, little these, little of that. But then a
plague come along, and nobody wanted anything to do with the plague. So
Giovanni see an opportunity. First, okay, I take all the medical book.
I put over them a page of my page, pour over them Ania
after nia, candle after candle, and then hear a hearing me, Giovanni,
you cannot read, so I burned them. Giovanni don't need the books
to be a doctor. Everything Giovanni need is alrighty here you cannot see,
but I pointed to a little no. So then I get a little brief
a case along a black a cloak and a scanny mask like a bigger weird
a crow. I don't know what a mask could do, but if I
want a people to take me seriously, I got to wear a mask.
I traveled to a little town very infected with the plague. I just have
followed the smell and all of the smoke from the burning bodies. That is
when I get in touch with the people. Now you don't touch her with
the hand. They could be French. Lucky for me, I'm on the
reach of Amilia. They say, oh, doctor Giovanni, my thought,
she is sick, my knowny she ha govea blah blah blah blah. And
I say, oh, but I had talctor to the people. I must
have spread of my healing touch and not the actual touch to all of the
gods of children. And they say, here's a bunch of money. So
I say, okay, okay, I give you a special cure. You
gotta be a little pricey. And they say, okay, here's the more
money. We love you, Giovanni. You're the best the doctor. That
was the best the day in Giovanni's life. But then I have banic I
do like you. I get all said, and I say, what can
I do? Oh? No, people die? Do you want to get
out a help? And here is where I'm really gonna help you. I
suddenly realize, I know I have to worry about curing patient. I can
adore whatever I want because there is no cure. I mean, sure,
if little baby cheeses come down and give a violet of blood, and that
blood makes a special potion to inject in blood using narrow technology to replicate white.
The blood is sell Then okay, maybe there is a cure, but
that is a fantasy. So I do all kind of crazy things you would
not believe, Stevens covering people in mercury and baking an oven, putting a
frog into a center of stomach to find a little elves or spirit and ribit
them out. And sometimes and I don't know why this will work, the
other ones I get, but this want to make no sense. I give
it them a bunch of moldy bread, like a really moldy and they eat
it the moldy bread, and they get a little better, but then they
still die. Letting me tell you, I'm making so much of money and
I love what I do. I love it because of being a plague doctor
is a special calling. And the calling sounded like a this. Yeah,
I mean, you're right, it doesn't matter. What's the worst that could
happen? Well, the worst that could have happened is that you get it
a plague, right, that would be bad. How did you live through
it all? Oh? I died. It was a heart attack. Just
kidding, It wasn't a plague. Oh but wait, I showed a letter
with this. That is the one thing that with one hundred percent absolutely gut
a plague. No joker this time. This is a really true effect.
So what do you do is and that's it so simple? Right? Oh
wait, you're you're breaking up a little? Can you repeat that? I
said? All you need to do is Giovanni. Hello, Hello, good
evening, Doctor Stevens. I hope your visit with doctor Giovanni deep Via was
illuminating. Hold on, can you get him back just for a second.
Very sorry, your time is up. I could get in big trouble with
necromance union, and the necromancy union is the one thing I truly feel aside
from failure and spiders. But Doctor Stevens, before I let you go,
let me give little piece of advice. I can tell you are wearing four
down my life, losing all hope in the face of so much death.
Please remember this. The ones who die never truly leave. They are always
always here for you, always yes, right in my little gnome in my
heart now, and you can reach out to them anytime using our proprietary necromancy
technology. Let me tell you all about our monthly subscription package, and that
was The Archives of Hand the Plague Doctor Debacle. We hope you found it
soothing. The cast featured in this episode include Michael Pate as hand Agent,
Kyle Davidson, Mary Murphy as the real actual professional medical doctor, Rachel Stevens,
Alan La Forest as doctor you can't see it, but I'm using air
quotes, Giovanni de Pavia, and the hand Hold Voice of Hell was contributed
by Yours Truly, Ali Silva. The Archives of Hand the Plague Doctor Debacle
was written by Liz Lizer, Chris Woolsey, and Casey la Forest and directed
by Ali Silva with Liz Liser and Casey la Forest. Music for the Archives
of Hand mini series was composed by Ari Kessler. Fireside Mystery Theater is produced
by Gustavo Rodriguez and me Ali Silva. For Fireside Mystery Productions, the intro
music for this episode was composed by Nico Slater. Liz Liser is our operations
guru, Casey la Forest is our social media Maven. Faith Johnson is our
production coordinator, and Jason Graves composed our FMT theme music. I manage our
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Always learning and growing baby from all of us at Fireside Mystery Theater. We
wish all of you a happy and healthy New Year, and just remember when
all hope seems lost and the darkness is closing in around you, and there's
no end in sight, and the pain just keeps going even when you think
it's about to end. I mean, surely things should be better by now,
right right. What I mean to say is that when life seems unbearable,
you should take a pause and listen to the little voice of your little
gnome. What's that, little gnome? You want me to drink more water
and less vodka, take a break from screens. And what's that? Of
course, you want me to always mind the shadows.