“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses
that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”
When has breathing become so agonizing? Living and breathing
and just surviving until the next day was simply too excruciating.
"I am sorry ... Please forgive me..."
Her words are barely a whisper and her only companion is
just an infant, so he doesn't react. He's just sitting there, left hand half in
his mouth, because he is probably still teething and he has his own pain to
occupy his thoughts with. Her two oldest daughters left early the same morning,
probably to search for something to eat.
None of them has eaten in two days and
her milk has dried up or maybe she just never had it in the first place, so the
baby is squeamish and hasn't stopped crying since she gave birth, three days
ago. She's small and pink and wrinkly and nothing like her other children and
she simply can't make herself take that strange creature in her arms and feed
it. She's spent the last two days watching her, almost begging every God whose
name she could remember to take its life so she wouldn't have to do it with her
own hands. And, with every breath the fragile creature takes, she becomes even
more convinced that the gods must hate her.
It all began when her husband left to fight in that damned
war and abandoned with two small children to care for and another baby on the
way. Life had been difficult with him too, but without him she was just another
forgotten woman. Why did men crave foolish dreams of greatness and bravery? It
was nothing but an illusion. What difference does it make to the widows, the
orphans left behind and the homeless if some men depart this life covered in
glory while others have no honour but survive?
Theirs was one of the villages that held well until the
third year of war. Everyone was running low on supplies but somehow they
managed and survived. Until that morning when the Duke's men stormed in.
Because their house was out of the way they heard the
screams when it was already too late. Some of the neighbouring houses were
already on fire and she can still recall seeing one of her friend's younger
children flying out through the window and falling directly in a spear. The
smell of burnt fluesh was the worse though. And the screams. She hears them
every single night. High pitched shouts of small children whose chests were
mercilessly pierced by the soldiers' swords and the muffled wails of women.
She doesn't have nightmares about how it happened, but she
remembers his face and his sharp features. His scar and his hard lined jaw.
And, more than anything, the pure hatred in his eyes.
Later, when he got tired of her, she was left behind in the
snow, the throb in her entire body a painful reminder of what took place in her
own courtyard.
Her daughters emerged later from behind the barn, carrying their
younger brother with them. Her children survived, yet she felt like she lost
everything.
Five months later, the evidence was there and the signs
impossible to ignore. Three days ago she birthed that strange creature that
hasn't stopped crying and now she is exhausted and tired of life.
The rope feels rough around her neck and the trembling in
her limbs is slowing her down, but her movements are almost mechanical, so she
doesn’t need to concentrate, which is pleasant. She takes one single step
forward and in a couple of minutes it is over.
