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AShellfishLover t1_j6fsm6q wrote
I was born in a place called Thêbai, to a mother who died on the birthing bed and a father who cursed my name. He gave me the name of Madia, a cursed name, calling me the judgment for his foolishness.
It was not a happy home. After a wandering wet nurse stopped giving me suck and became my stepmother I was chattel in my father's eyes. No better than a ewe lamb, fattening myself on the largess of his household and serving as a reminder of what he had lost on that bed years ago.
I came into my womanhood and gained a body that would make Eros pause, and the anger of my father softened to a sickening cloy of glances and soft touches of my arm as I served at his table. Then... it is a tale I have heard before, and one I do not wish to repeat, but it is one that is older even than my story, and so you have heard those words before.
It happened in the vineyard, and He heard my cries. Knew my pain and He called to me. I was lucky, as the beast that replaced my father was slow, and I was quick. Quick as the winged sandals I ran into those vines, and found a place of women singing, and dancing, bare to the sky in a darkness not like the bright sun I had left.
They took my rended clothes and gave me fawn skins. They made me drink of His bounty, in a place where no man's hands could touch me, and I reveled with them. I became one of them, shedding the curse of my name, becoming as they were: the mad women, the wine women, and I was glad for it.
I learned to eat my meat rare and bloody, to rend my skins and draw wine from water and honey from the rocks. Claw milk from dust and lay beasts low with a glance and a touch. We reveled there for years until the feather helmed men came, and then came the Shepherd's flock behind them. By then I was more than a woman and less than a goddess, and as long as I drank my wine and danced I was happy.
I fell in love with a priest, and was cast out of his home in infamy. I ran from my home for the first time then, to an island where snakes did not tread and fire-haired men sang songs of longing and freedom. I loved that place, across the water from here. I dyed my hair using old magics, and became amongst them like one of the Sisters. I would run and revel with them, the binding of my maidenhood lost when He left us to die amongst the Flock, and in return they would write and sing and create until they fell panting and heartstruck... and I would do it again.
But then it happened, and for it I weep still.
AShellfishLover t1_j6fvvlx wrote
In those days there was not the convenience of swallowing pills to keep one away from children. Perhaps some witch who lived in a bog far from the city I stayed in knew a way, but all I knew was death, to quicken the life within me and take it from the world. I was the last of my kind; how could I do such a thing?
His name was Colin. To this day, I remember the look on his face as I told him the news. The way he would hold me close and wrap his hands over my belly, to feel it swell and then kick to his touch. The gentleness of a lamb, my Colin, but he was a man deep in his Faith, and a good one for that time. A good one for this time, I would say, considering your stories.
He never raised a voice nor hand to me. Never took what was not given. He was kind, and loved horses though we were far too poor to have one. He had learned to shoe them, to take care of their soft brittle feet, and for that I loved him. Loved him as I had never loved another, for his kindness.
For such a man I would bring a child into the world.
I do not feel pain, as you understand it. Hunger? It pangs within me. The desire to drink? It still calls, deep in my mind and makes me shake. But the physical ills of man were abandoned long ago. And so in my birthing bed the midwife prayed, as flesh tore and blood gouted, and I smiled knowing I was giving birth to a miracle.
Her name was Dóra. Gift. And she was beautiful. And cursed, as surely as a child born of my thirst would be. That is not to say I didn't love her; she was precious, and as the midwife begged me to leave her aside and claim to my beautiful Colin that she had been born still? I cursed the bitch's name. She was perfect, even for her faults, and I would raise my beautiful gift as a testament to our love.
They call it fetal alcohol syndrome, now. There have been crueler names, but the cruelest was the one the old women would say of her. Changeling. A child stolen from the crib, perfect, and replaced with a broken thing. My gift was not broken; she was mine, and though she cried in a bray and was clumsy and foolish? She was her mother's child. She would be strong.
I drank as I tended to her, and she grew. Like a vine she wrapped up my legs as I worked in the kitchen, or sat playing with my toes as I shucked peas or peeled potatoes. This was after the Great War, and food was scarce, but my Colin had connections, and my little Dóra grew and grew. I loved her as I could, not feeling pain but not truly feeling joy. I felt empty; a vessel filled then poured from, the dregs of her leaving my body held onto me clinging, and that darkness hung on through her infancy.
I was drunk. I was drunk, and foolish, and may the gods forgive me. I had warmed a basin, the one I used to bathe her, mixing lye and cleaning salts to whiten the walls after a long sooty winter of burning peat.
She leapt in. I was slow to react. I heard her crying in the other room but I thought it was hunger... I thought she was begging. Begging for me.
And she was.
By the time I got to her... she was gone. I reached into the near boiling liquid and... I couldn't grip her. Couldn't pull my child from the mess. I keened then, as I hadn't since those days by His side with my sisters. I held her blistered body and screamed until my throat gave out.
The women came. Then the constable. They claimed it an accident, but in my heart I knew it murder. They could not look at me, or stand the smell of the house where she had been. My baby was taken, wrapped in a quilt that was her winding sheet as I barked mutely for my punishment.
I took the beating that Colin gave me, and the tears as he screamed and called me every name in his kind souled heart. I have seen broken men, and he had reason to break. I may have died, if I was not what I was, and I begged for it. I begged between bloody teeth and torn lips. End me. End this life, and set me free from the pain I feel.
It was that day that I gave it up. That day, when I held my gift, the smell of her, the... I gave it all away.
I teach now. A hundred lifetimes of wisdom and I tend to your children. The fathers, and these days even some mothers, remark on my beauty. I do not care; I have taught thousands of children, in hopes of paying back the foolishness of that day, bright in the morning, where I lost my soul.
And that is my story. Judge me as you must, but judge me now.
AShellfishLover t1_j6fwzpg wrote
I looked out at the gathered masses and saw their faces. Men and women, old and young, in shades that spanned the lands I had known in my youth.
And in each of their eyes there was something different. Some wept, openly, while others stared beyond me, lost in thought. Still others seemed relieved, knowing that the bottom I had reached was deeper than they had dug before arriving here.
Then I saw Michail, standing to my side. And I broke. A century of tears, pouring from me, and I felt the love of this man who had waited, knowing I was hurting.
In my homeland we had many loves. Eros, for lovers, or philia for friends. As I was held and felt the hands of others gather around me I felt the greatest of them: agape, the love of mankind.
Your people are strange, but they are kind.
AShellfishLover t1_j6fykfl wrote
Notes: This story is told about a surviving Maenad, the mad women of Dionysus. It also makes reference to the Leanan Sidhe of Celtic myth.
Having spent time in a few church halls I wanted to tell a story similar to qualifications without taking any particular story. While some can be funny and others frankly a bit boring, everyone who comes to meetings has heard stories that have a mix of the themes here. It is part of the human condition and, so, felt like one that would be fitting for the tale.
If you are or anyone you know is having issues with substances reach out to available resources in your area. here's a good link for substance abuse assistance in the US. I swear that, while it may seem dire, it can get better, and you are worth taking the time to help yourself, even if you don't feel that way right now.
Critical_Vermicelli5 t1_j6g85yu wrote
holy shit dude....... that was amazing
i almost cried when she was telling her story, you really wrote that well
AShellfishLover t1_j6gupbb wrote
Thank you. I'm glad I was able to make you feel! I hope you have a great day tomorrow!
SamuelVimesTrained t1_j6ilwg1 wrote
I was not so strong, or the author got more onions. F***ing awesome!
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AShellfishLover t1_j6fq4gb wrote
They gather outside of the hall and I am reminded of the good days. The days before my trip across the bitter water, the days when I was someone.
They burn offerings between cold, shaking fingers, and I love to stand with them and inhale it all. The angst, the gnawing hunger of their inner demons, the bitter acidic breath of those who have fallen since I last saw them.
But most of all I love the smoke. What a brilliant creature humanity has been. A blessed herb of the tribes who had dwelt here long before my People came across the seas, and my own turn it into a possessive entertainment. They yellow their teeth and rot their lungs, but for those here a demon who kills slowly is preferable to one who coos in their ears and begs for swift death from a crush of steel or the sickness of choked vomit.
Mike always goes in first. He's been here ever since I began coming to these things, as I sit on the edges and watch them. Sometimes, like tonight, I go in to help him. The old hall is almost as dingy as his skin; the yellow ashiness of late stage liver failure, and still he fills the pots and puts out the cheap crumbly cookies that dust in your mouth and make you drink more of the bitter hot muck that the old-timer call mud.
Heh. Old-timers. I was there when first the Stoics claimed sto krasí vrísketai i alítheias, as foolish addicts died in the gutters of Athens. Then I had been one of His favorites; beautiful and bare-breasted and feral. I had been one of many, and my curse was hidden behind my mask as I reveled in wine and flesh and death.
Now I sit in the ashes of His making. Microbreweries on the corners of posh places, rotgut bottles for pennies on street corners in the poor places. I watch the walking dead trudge into their seats as Mike tries to start conversation.
"How's tricks, Mae?" He grins, wincing and grabbing his side. He teased me when he was still healthy, claiming I was a common harlot, seeking money from wounded men. Still he makes the joke, even though he is one of the few in your kind's memory to know my name and my secret. "Too expensive for dying men. What did they say about your procedure?" I asked, taking the cup of mud I was given and sweetening it with cream and sugar.
"There's not a liver for a failure. I already fucked up my last chance, why I got this chip." He smiles, playing with his one year chip and showing the nimbleness of his youth for a moment. "Maybe your friend will take it when it's time?"
I smiled, a rare thing in this place, and patted his shoulder. "I make no promises, Michail. Perhaps you will be met by angels in a chorus."
Mike coughed then, the handkerchief dotted with tarry spittle. "Ain't met an angel yet, Mae. But I've met you, so maybe you can put in a good word."
He followed me to my seat in the shadows, where I sat and listened to their stories. Mike had given up on trying to get me to go forward, but never truly gave up the idea.
That kid up there? She's lonely. Hurt. Afraid. She feels she is less than human, that somehow she is broken. If only she knew that this thing we suffer could lay anybody low.
I sat with the walking specter and when I rested my hand he took it. His eyes were already turning, and I feared that it may be out last time to spend together.
"Well, we're just about wrapped for the night. Is there anyone new here that needs to speak, or a regular who hasn't given qualification and wishes to?" The speaker, a beautiful woman whose ancestors hailed from the place the blind poet called the land of burnt faces, looked across the old timers in the back row.
I felt Michail's hand squeeze gently, and felt the need to do a kindness.
As I walked to the small table at the front of the room I felt their eyes on me. The mysterious woman, the quiet one, who had been at meetings as long as most of them could remember. The lurker, coming up to speak to them. It had been long since I saw awe on the faces of the faithful; the followers of the Shepherd, once, or when those men had walked in the tranquil gardens of Artemis high in the sky.
And in myself I felt fear. And it was not unwelcome. A tingle in the pit of my stomach, a flush of heat over my skin like being seen by a lover in an unflattering pose. I took in a deep breath as Naomi gave the stage to me, and prayed to the Sisters that I was ready.
"Hello. My name is Mae. And I am an alcoholic. This is my testimony."