The Day That Death Came to Town

I do not know how long ago it was that the first person died. I was not told if it was a woman or a man, an adult or a child. I was told only that the person lived in the first house on the east side of town. Then, every day for 30 days, a new person died, always  on the same street in a straight line from the first death to the last, as Death visited house by house. Sometimes he would skip a house or three or five, but every day, he would visit a new house on that street, moving always Westward until at last, a month later, he passed out of town. Ever since, people have remembered the day the first death occurred as “The day that Death came to San Juan Cosala.”  I was told this story by someone who came late to San Juan, but she lived in the town for three years and she was told this story and repeated it to me.

Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash. “Everybody Knows” stories are supposedly true town stories passed down to me by different mouths.