74th Thread: The Apocalypse

Posted May 3, 2020

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We were lying in a haystack. A hand on my shoulder woke me up: I did not recognize him right away, we had been searching for him for so long. From village to village, from hamlet to hamlet, we had stumbled on the pebbles of every road, of every trail. I had no idea how vast the country was, but she was undaunted. When I cried from fatigue and fear, she said saints would protect us, god would hear our prayers. We wandered towards the west, towards the north. We asked everyone about my brother, at markets, inns, pilgrimage sites. Now it was he, despite the great scar slashed across his face, who had found us. My mother cried and cried and caressed his sightless eyes. I hugged him and buried my head in the folds of his tunic. That moment of intense happiness, which I had stopped hoping for, stopped my breath in my throat. I almost choked, and my mother and my brother had to shake me and rub me before I could recover.

Now that we were together, we would not be wandering randomly any longer. There was just one direction. Home. But the war was spreading all around us. Before, we had watched for signs of my brother. Now we looked out every step of the way for the armies he had fought with, or worse, for the deserters. A whole band of them fell on us one night that we were sleeping under the porch of a church. Despite my brother’s pleas, they stripped us of our meager bundle and of the few coins we had left. I was lucky they did not realize I was a girl, it was so dark. We kept going. When we approached a valley, my mother would climb on a ridge to look out. Did troops encamp in the plain? Were villages on fire? We had to loop around the area, losing hours or days in skirting the troubles. I knew the war had not reached our region, because our village was free of sinners. It comforted me to imagine arriving home, far from all the chaos and violence we were witnessing.

We begged from door to door in the devastated countryside. My mother, in her men’s clothes, her hair shorn short, did not inspire pity as much as my brother did, with his infirmity. The peasants all had a brother or a cousin who had been forced to join the army. I, still a child, told our story to any woman who would listen. They wiped their eyes with the corner of their aprons before handing me a crust of bread or an egg. They said: pray for us as the end of the world is upon us. We had heard it too, and could see it was truly coming. People who were learned had read the prophecy in the sacred texts. At every door, we asked for prayers and blessings to prepare for doomsday, as farmers gave more generously if they thought the end was near.

Finally, we arrived home. Nearly home. We asked a shepherd for the way. He replied, just one more valley to cross, one more hill to climb, and from there we would see our village. At the deepest of the valley, my mother knew of a spring blessed by the virgin. She wanted my brother to bathe his eyes in the holy water. I begged to go to the village first, but she insisted she could hear the virgin’s hymns. As we walked down from the road, he slipped in the mud and fell headlong. I was so mad h hurt his knee. We had to take care of him instead of getting on our way. I could not wait to eat fresh bread from our oven, to warm myself by the fire, but my mother, I think, was scared to face my father. She had left without his approval, taking his clothes for protection.

We weren’t sure how he would react to our return, and whether he would welcome home a blind son. She would not stop fussing over my brother. She rubbed his limbs to warm him up, soothed the pain in his knee with clay mixed with herbs, kissed his forehead and finally, finally bathed his eyes in the holy water. Then we were on our way. We went further down the valley and up the other side. At the turn of the road, we saw our village. It was in flames. We ran almost all the way. I was holding my brother’s hand but still he fell several times. We should not have bothered to rush. Everyone had been killed, the houses looted and set on fire. As we got nearer, my brother said: “Mother, I see lights, small flickering lights in my darkness.” My mother didn’t listen to him, she was still hoping to find her other children alive, my father, my grandmother. If anyone had escaped death, they were gone from the village. Then she wanted to rescue something from our house, anything, but we could not go near, the heat was so fierce. Finally she asked to wait for the flames to be extinguished, to bury any remains we found. My brother crumpled to the ground. As she ran about like a mad old witch, I lost patience.

“Mother, that’s enough. Come with me.” A boulder which Saint Anne visited often stood intact behind the burning village. I shepherded both of them to its protective shadow.

“Let’s give thanks to our saint protector. She saved us from certain death by detaining us at the spring, and she is healing my son’s eyes.”

“Fine, let’s pray , spend the night here, and leave tomorrow.”

We were so hungry we could not sleep. We laid against the side of the rock that was as warm as a mother’s body. At last, after hours praying and sobbing, we slept. In the morning, my mother agreed to leave. We made our way to the next valley. Maybe, somewhere, a village was still standing. Maybe our relatives had found shelter and would welcome us. But not a single village had been spared, not a single soul was alive.

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This is the 74th of 100 women who talk to their daughters over 2500 years. The 63rd mother rejects incest which was common in noble families to preserve their wealth. The 62nd mother hires a poetess to help them fight for their inheritance. The 61st woman was a warrior, as were a number of women throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The 60th mother takes out her frustrated ambitions on her daughter. The 59th mother rewrites the 10 commandments for her child. The 58th girl does not take kindly to plucking her forehead. The 57th mother does not realize her husband is a villain.

Before the Crusades:
The 56th woman is a powerful preacher, as was common in medieval times. The 55th woman was upset at her father’s trade. The 54th woman tells a fairy tale about aging. The 53rd woman, having climbed up socially, rejects her own mother. The 52nd woman‘s sister, a smart and lucky business woman, improves the fate of her niece. The 51st woman leads the hard life of a hunchback. The 50th woman’s mind is as feeble as her back. The 49th mother explains why women should not fish. The 48th woman finds refuge in a fishing village. The 47th mother lulls her baby with an optimistic song. The 46th mother rebells against the wealthy.