Vanitas

 

I have read a lot of philosophies and even more stories. There are many things to learn and take away from both of these information sources, and one of those is their concept about death. 

Ideally we want to be not scared of death. There should be no qualms about life's fleeting nature and the transience of this life's possessions and its enjoyments as well as worries. Death is an inevitable destiny. It is the redeemer at the end of this dark tunnel that time marches us across forcefully with a stick. It's arms are wide open, ready to kiss you; to embrace you and make you hers forever. 

Theology would want you to believe that there's life after death and there's more to death than just this life. It paints death as a gateway from one form to another. It takes away the sting from death by making it transitory like life on this world. However the silver linings of these beliefs end here, because it adds 'rung main bhung' by letting you know that the life you're currently living is a test of sorts. My sincere apologies for being presumptuous if you are a zombie, a ghost or any of the other undead reading this. The blogger stats fail to take you into account, or maybe you're all from some hamlet in Portugal because I really do not have any other explanation on why on earth somebody from Portugal would be tuning in to read this 'gob smack of desultory paraphernalia'. Anyway, almost all religions want you to think your life as some kind of an evaluation and the results dictate what will welcome you after death. Obviously sometimes good actions can lead to rebirth as a better creature in some beliefs, sometimes it is just peace and sometimes you get in to the good place (or the bad place; you can never be sure how good, your 'good' actions were). My point being, it is hard to take death seriously when it is only a doorway. And it is hard to take life seriously if the place the doorway leads to cannot be verified. Or if you aren't even sure there is a place afterwards at all. Which is why I think theologians have the hardest time explaining and reaffirming the significance of death.

Most of rest of philosophy (yes theology is a philosophy too), usually deals with life without taking into account the presence of an Omniscience or by negating the presence and talking about an absence of one. Some philosophy fetishizes death while some of it takes it to the next level by glorifying anti-natalism or non-existence. Some of it yet again talks about death as a gateway. But I want to exclude all of those definitions and only factor in the philosophies where death is agreed upon as an inescapable fact. It is the ending. There is nothing after it. And that is alright.

Maybe I just wanted to write the stoic idea of death but didn't want to mention exactly that it is the stoic idea I want to talk about. Too late now.

For some reason, I have found it really hard to come to terms with the finality of death. Maybe that's not the right wording. Let me bare myself of the fancy words and come clad to you in words like 'things', 'stuff', 'many', 'all' and 'good'.

I have no problem with dying. If I were to die tonight, I would die with no regrets. I wouldn't think of all the missed opportunities or all the things on my to-do lists (who needs bucket lists when you have to do lists filled with menial tasks, am I right or amirite?). I have no issues worrying about the state in which people might find my affairs. I do not care about the conditions in which I will die too. In the same manner, this conviction about death, still does not propel me to be ambitious or achieve great tasks in the fear that I might die tomorrow. Perhaps when you make peace with dying, you also make peace with the fickleness of life and the well that your ego is. No matter how much you throw in there, it will never fill up. It is wise to leave it as is. Maybe draw from it when needed though. I digress. Death also doesn't hold a charm over me. I do not want to die. I have been brought into this world, and although that isn't the best of things to happen to me or anyone for that matter, but it has happened. There is no reverting back to my embryonic form and going back into the womb. One does not simply do the Benjamin Button. So, I have been brought here, I might as well live, but when I die, I will die and that's fine. I'll go. I won't let my death feel like a piece of silk cloth stuck on a thorny desert plant to my soul. Hopefully. And you might be wondering, well what's the problem then. Why do you find it hard to come to terms with the finality of death.

Herein lies the problem. I think it comes from my long lasting need for validation and external approval. Or just the thought that I wont be enough. The other day, I got to bed after a particularly normal day. Maybe even a pleasant day. And just before I slept, a train of thoughts choo-choo-ed it's way into my brain. And suddenly, blank mind. Four words. In big red colored Times New Roman font. 

You are not enough.

I might have started crying like a little pussy boy. Thankfully, the dogma came in handy. I told myself, I don't have to be enough for anyone except myself. Everyone else I just have to accept. And I can easily be enough for myself tomorrow by doing 3 out of the 100 tasks in my petty works to do lists.

I take so many winding routes before coming back to the topic. As I was saying; death. My only issue with dying, or the only thing I want modified is that I want a credits scene after my death. I want to know who directed, produced and wrote this C class movie. No seriously though, I want to be able to see what happens after I die. Maybe a week or a month or a day. How everyone I loved behaved on hearing about my death? Or more importantly did they know I loved them? Did they love me back? A part of me wants to ruin a couple lives by dying. The other part wants people to live their life unnoticed after my absence, save for the little photograph frame on their bedside that will remind them of me. Even in movies when rarely the main character dies, they show what happens to all the side characters. That's all I am asking for God, an epilogue type scene. I also want to know what happens to all my belongings, and how someone reacts after finding some unpublished half written writings in my phone notes. All of this makes me come out as deeply insecure maybe. I also understand that these things matter to me more as I live because of my conscience and ego, but when I die, and these elements scamper away from my self then technically they shouldn't matter any more. This last sentence possibly also reveals that this entire writing is wrongly titled and themed, and the problem might as usual be more intricately related to life and how I deal with it, instead of death.

I am not sure if I know the fix for this pattern of thought. Any ideas about death and life's fragility cannot be of much help here, I think. The change has to come from within like all effective and permanent changes, and it has to associate my relatively stable concept of death with this idea of wanting closure after death.

The funny thing about all of this is we do not know. We do not know. Maybe people do get closure after death and we simply do not know. It might be in the form of loss of any factors that make you care for any of this stuff.

Or, and this is a long shot:

Maybe there is a ephemeral personal cinema waiting for us just past our graves, with cosmic popcorns and neutron sodas. There are no crying babies or parents asking when the movie will be over, or friends trying to prove their wit by making ill-timed jokes. No one is going to ask you to give way "please". You don't have to really pee suddenly because you drank the large cup of the overpriced soda. There are no inconveniences. The movie is titled 'Your Life', and I want to believe that you came to watch the 'epilogue' but after watching the entire movie, the epilogue doesn't really matter.

(Final holler to my undead audience from the middle of the bumfuck in Russia or Portugal, if any of this is true, let me know.)

Wants

 

Something about stoicism 

I debated between putting this on here or on my 'secret' digital diary account where I put journal type entries from my life. But I don't know why I have this vague hope that maybe if someone ends up reading this, it'll spark some train of thought in their mind. Maybe I'll send it to some people myself. Or maybe its just the stoic missionary in me trying to preach.

Half a decade earlier, I was so desperate to get good grades in my IGCSE, that every time I prayed, which I did more of back then, I would end my prayer with the dua that 'Allah karay IGCSE kay sub subjects main A+ aye' [I hope that Allah gives me A+ in all my IGCSE subjects.] That didn't happen. I ended up getting an A in English out of all the subjects to get an A in. I remember crying a little when I heard the result, not realising that my result was literally the best in the city for that time (I think it still is). Regardless, when I entered college to do my FSc, slowly my prayer patterns got less regular. However a certain element stuck with me. I was no longer doing my IGCSEs. I had gone past that. Yet every time I sat to pray and dua I would start it with 'Allah karay IGCSE kay sub subjects main A+ aye'. It had unknowingly become a reflex. It was so bad that I remember I had my exams in less than a week and I was severely underprepared, and my teachers weren't helping my confidence. But when I sat on the prayer mat to pray for some divine intervention to enlighten me the words that escaped my mouth were still: 'Allah karay IGCSE kay sub subjects main A+ aye'.

So you see, the problem was really bad. I had drilled myself into that prayer in the 2-3 years of IGCSE that now it was stuck in my brain as the go-to whenever I started praying. I was painfully aware of the irony of this conundrum. I tried telling myself before praying that I was doing FSc and not IGCSE. The fact that both of them sound the same and kind of rhyme, didn't help my case. 

Somehow stumbling, and fumbling I made my way into medical school. Sometimes still having to pause before praying, to make the conscious decision of not making the same prayer that I did back in IGCSE. I think its safe to say that almost by a year and a half or so ago, I had polished and rebranded my 'academic' related dua to being 'Allah pass karday' [Allah help me pass]. 

Then I discovered Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I read it. It was about a lot of things. And I liked it. The best thing about it was that unlike a not of existentialist or nihilist philosophic books I had read, this one felt way more applicable to daily life. And it is in Meditations that I read an idea, which appealed to me. Marcus Aurelius says that one shouldn't pray and wish for specific things to happen from God, say asking for the welfare of your child, or for the removal of a problem, or for a lot of any resource. Instead what one must ask God for are virtues. The virtue to be steadfast and accepting when something happens to your child, which will eventually happen. Its not in your control. The virtue of being patient and understanding enough to wade through the problem. There are unlimited problems in the world, how many are you going to get riddance from due to your God, and how are you going to face failure without problems. And how are you going to learn to right, if you haven't failed. The virtue of being self-sufficient and grateful instead of wishing for things or more of anything you already have. Man's greed no bounds.

I finished Meditations around the same time Ramadan came. I am not particularly religious. I am not sure what I believe in too. But every year, I try during Ramadan to be a good Muslim and try to understand this religion that so many people around me follow. It might just be the last vestige of shame in me crying out for help. Anyway, I decided among other things to use the principle I've mentioned in the previous paragraphs in my duas after prayers. The first thing I noticed is that my duas considerably shortened. I can list the things I prayed for. But I think that will be too much over-sharing and will give too much of a positivity-guru vibe. Both things I detest much, and both of them I am doing quite a lot of already in this text.

Nevertheless, one of my prayers is that 'Allah make me humble and grateful when I succeed, and make me patient and help me see your wisdom whenever I fail in any task'. It sounds very simple. It doesn't take much innovation. What I hadn't realised is that this prayer was trying to stand in for the mammoth of the beast that the IGCSE prayer was in my mind. You can see where this is going, now.

I had my exam result today. Last night was weird. I Barry Allen-ed my way through the prayer, and the dua too but I stopped when I was about to get up. I realised I hadn't prayed for myself or my exam result. I hadn't asked Allah to help me pass. Or give me A+. Or anything of that nature. I prayed that my friends get what they want and more, but nothing specific for me. I had stuck to my new formula and my formula didn't cater to this special need. Or did it? I thought a lot. And after much contemplation I thought. No. There's no point in asking Him to help me pass, or anything like that. It's not that I don't believe in His power. Or that I believe in destiny, such that everything is already prescribed and I am merely a puppet acting out a script. I didn't say all those lines in prayer simply because they weren't enough. They weren't going to help me in any meaningful way. Whatever happens, happens and whatever will be, will be. I would face whatever life had in store for me. I would need help to face it though. The tools I had are rusty and ill-used. This is where I would ask Him to help me. I would ask Him to give me a little bit of patience and a little bit of gratitude and what not. And it would be gucci. Besides, if duas really could change the tide of events, I wouldn't have gotten that A in IGCSE. The logic doesn't work. I kid. I think.

Now, as I head into the future. The weird theological/philosophical experiment of today being completed in a rather pleasant eventual outcome. I just hope that as I continue trying to do my best and trying to make my way through the world, and as I continue, hopefully being blessed (cue in DJ Khaled 'God is Greatest') that I remember the virtues I take away from all my success and most importantly my failures.

I hope I can always be humble and grateful. Or at least try to be.

Eulogy

The half moon glowers puckered face in the twilight on New Year’s Eve      

Somehow alone; I have nothing to say, nothing to write, on New Year’s Eve      

         

The wind ran amok, passions more so, I wasn’t alone though      

Suspiciously unafraid, last year I revelled in delight on New Year’s Eve      

         

Honey bee’s pollinating assorted flowers; I wasn’t sure where I was going

Two years ago, I was living too cautiously like life wasn’t finite, on New Year’s Eve       

       

Aching joints, cold hands, getting blood pumped from a frigid heart

Three years ago, thanks to me, our love got frostbite on New Year’s Eve

Out from the crystal lake into the greasy pond with reedy outgrowths

Four years ago existence felt like a burden, a leech—a parasite on New Year’s Eve     

         

Naivety, joy and haughtiness have unsurprisingly good synergy

Half a decade ago, the cocoon was bursting for my first flight on New Year’s Eve        

             

And all these years I’ve back pedalled to, pale in comparison to 2013

When maybe I should have preemptively dug a burial site on New Year’s Eve        

Rats

Sameera didn’t like their new house.

It was in a bad neighbourhood. It was very cramped in there. The walls had streaks of termite colonies and half of them weren’t even painted, just exposed bricks. The floor was bare cement and ugly. There was no direct water or gas supply and there was frequent load shedding. This meant that she spent most of her time yelling about how hot it was or helping her mother and father with small things. And there was nothing wrong with helping them, but it reduced the time she spent studying. She was 12 but she knew that her father had lost his job and they were going to have to adjust to harsher conditions. So she complained to her father about everything in the house, the only thing about which she liked was the pink paint which was lathered on the exterior. But never so much to bother him too much. She also knew that she had to study. Being her parents only child, she knew that she was their only hope to a kinder and softer old age. This was one of the reasons why she didn’t like the new shoddy house. It prevented her from maximising her study time, or let her enjoy her playtime.

Another reason, Sameera didn’t push much about the miserable condition of her room and her house was her mother. Their sudden financial and social plunge had devastated her mother more than her father, who was somehow coping. She was always on the end of her wits. She would lie on the mattress in the room that was hers (although calling it a room was an embarrassment to all rooms since it was more of a small partition of her parents bedroom.) and listen to her parents and quarrelling. Her father would try to placate her mother but her tone and aggressiveness would rise through the hours of night like notes in an orchestra and reach a crescendo near dawn, when she would start sobbing, and would cry herself to sleep. 

One of the biggest arguments, her mother made was about the house and its previous occupant. 

The local people weren’t very friendly but they were forthcoming enough to tell them that the house was previously owned by a healer of sorts. She used all kinds of herbs and ointments, oils and spices to treat divergent ailments including but not limited to cancer, infertility, depression, body aches and flu and everything between these. Needless to say many people considered her a quake, however she was the closest thing to a doctor that the people in that area knew. 

As a result of her profession, the healer kept all sorts of bottles containing all sorts of things in her house. And before dying (nobody knew if she even had, she had just vanished one night) she had forgotten to take down her vials. These were the primary harbinger of annoyance for her mother. They consistently found colourful bottles, which upon opening would effuse pungent odours in the small interior. Sameera’s mother had thrown out heaps and heaps of those bottles and suspicious looking paper bags containing plants and other gooey materials. She didn’t want to know what they were. Or what they did. Their unnaturally bright colors and pervasive smell were enough to have them discarded. One particular bottle, which had faint red smudges inside, indicating that it had previously been filled with something crimson-red, was the worst. Sameera found it first. She didn’t even have to open it. She was searching for something deep inside the cupboard when her hand touched it. She recoiled and pulled it back, repulsed by the slimy cold exterior. When she brought her fingers close to her mouth to get a whiff, her body reacted by making her puke. That was when her mother had decided to unhesitatingly dispose off all previous furniture too, even at their own discomfort. 

But it still wasn’t enough. Sameera found this out one night. She was sleeping on the mattress, just a few centimetres off the floor, when she felt something brush her feet. That didn’t wake her up though. When the light stroking got insistent she thought it was just another annoying fly. Suddenly, she realised no fly would be this stubbornly affixed with her feet. She woke up; jerked her feet away and stood up to turn on the lights. There was nothing there. She might’ve yelped or screamed without realising because her parents had rushed to her room too. She was hyperventilating; unsure whether of fear or disgust or apprehension. She told her mother what she had felt, not failing to mention that she had felt something hard scratching against the sole of her feet. Her mother had deduced the culprit instantly. Rats. They had gnawed on Sameera with their grotesque teeth. 

It was a pity they couldn’t afford an exterminator or even efficient poisons. Her mother had bought a few rat traps in vain. Sameera knew too well that she would just have to get used to of getting nibbled at in the night. So time passed as it always does, the rats no longer limited themselves to any one part of her body while Sameera continued excelling in school at everything she did, while bearing all domestic difficulties. In fact if anything Sameera had gotten used to of the adverse living conditions. She found herself completely revitalised in the mornings just by sleeping after a tiring day, that had left her body full of aches. 

All normalcy in her life however changed one day. Sameera like all girls of her age, had her first period. 

Her body ached in ways she found hard to describe. Her mother soothed her as much as she could and explained to Sameera that the bleeding, the pain, all of it was natural. She shouldn’t worry. She squirmed and curled up into a fetus on her mattress. All day, her legs and thighs hurt like they had never before. It was the kind of visceral pain she didn’t even knew was possible. Perhaps somewhere amidst all the pain she was also worried about the fact that she was no longer a child. People were now going to expect her to be even mature. All these agonies plagued her that day and when night finally came, she found herself sinking into sleep out of sheer exhaustion.

Sometime in the night, she abruptly woke up. Moon light was cascading on her face through the window. She realised she felt no pain. It was as if the last day hadn’t occurred. And all of the pangs were all nothing more than a nightmare. It was then that she realised something was wrong. Very wrong.

Someone was touching her. Massaging her. And it wasn’t her mother. No. The presence of her mother would never make her heart beat this fast, it wouldn’t have made the hair on her arms stand up. She wouldn’t smell as terrible as this. Sameera was afraid. She couldn’t dare to turn her head and gaze into eyes of whoever or whatever was around her. She was aware that the effect of this ‘therapy’ was profound as she felt completely fine. However, all of this was completely undermined by the fact that this was an unknown stranger doing this to her. Sameera would’ve lied like that, feigning sleep and indifference, maybe even thinking it was all a conjecture of her mind, when her mind picked up on a faint stimulus. She hadn’t known it then, when it had first happened, but she knew it now. The scratching on her feet by a hard surface. It wasn’t a rat. Or it’s teeth. It was a nail. It was someone’s nail rubbing against her skin. 

Her heart skipped a beat and without a second thought she swivelled on her side to look at her ominous benefactor.

And Sameera screamed.

The woman who had been caressing her, and massaging her had long white hair all around her sickly long face. There was a mole on her left cheek: an obscenely large one, and her teeth were discoloured and broken. Her lips were thin and dry, and when Sameera had looked at her, she had been grinning. The grin had made her loose skin tighten at odd places and sag at others while showing off her broken teeth. It was her eyes that were the worst. They were unnaturally small and almost completely full of whites except the white was more yellow than white. The red streaks in her eyes were too contrasting and her black pupil was a little bead. She was wearing a black clothe and had a belt of sorts slung across her waist.

When Sameera had screamed and scurried backward on all fours, the woman had raised her pale white hands. She had long fingers and even longer nails. They were razor sharp; completely misshapen and full of filth. She had given Sameera a crazy look and then hissed. That had showed her forked crimson tongue. A tongue the color of congealed blood. A tongue more red than pink. That had done it for Sameera. 

She screamed and screamed, ducking and hiding herself away in a corner. Her parents had come running to her room and turned on the lights. They saw nothing. Neither did the neighbours who had all woken up and arrived one by one. All of them saw nothing, except a little girl sobbing in a corner with her face all covered up.

She laid down the rest of the night on her parents bed. Laid, because she couldn’t sleep. For many days and nights, she felt sleep hard to come by and she would sleep on the floor in her parents room, hoping that would keep her safe. 

Nobody had really believed her. It was partially her own fault. She hadn’t been able to properly describe what she had seen. The red stains on her sheets had only discredited her narrative, especially when her mother had chimed in with the bit about her feeling ill in the day too. All of them attributed it to weariness or burden of studies. Nobody took it serious. 

And maybe neither did Sameera. Because like many of us, Sameera forgot her childhood gradually as she blossomed into a woman. All memories turned hazy and it was hard to say whether any supernatural or extraordinary events had been just dreams or reality.

When she was 35, a successful woman and the CEO of her own company, she felt like she had almost everything that she had ever wanted. Her husband and she had tried many times over the years for kids, but had failed. Her gynaecologist had recommended several treatments for both of them and none had worked. 

Sometimes late at night, Sameera would find herself wondering if somewhere along the way, something was stolen from her.

—————————————————————

In a world and dimension not quite ours, and not quite far away from ours. A certain demonic witch sucked her pale fingers dry and chuckled. Her forked tongue slithered in her mouth, taking in all of the red juice that was dripping from her hand. Greedily, she pushed her hand again deeper into the bottle, which was filled to brim with something slimy and red. It also contained little dark jellies inside, that weren’t quite shapeless. In fact they looked like they had a head, and a tail, and eyes. And hearts. Little baby hearts, that were at times beating.

The Witch’s Curse

The caravan decided to make camp on the bottom of the hill slope. The caravan carried gold from the Dranik Empire, that Kramer the Great had managed to earn after ridding the region of its many horrific monsters. 

Kramer had lived a very eventful life, and had earned a reputation for himself. All of the Poliksh continent knew that if some monster turned into a real pestilence, you sent for Kramer. Kramer had a beautiful wife, and like the prized possession she was, Kramer took her everywhere he went. People even speculated that she was his lucky charm. Sometimes in hushed whispers they would discuss whether she was an actual enchantress, who gave Kramer his skills. His wife was pregnant now, with a baby. The druids said the baby was going to be a healthy boy who would live a very remarkable life. Kramer couldn’t wait to teach all that he had learnt from life to his first born. 

As the tents for the night were being put up and the fire was being lit, an old witch cane into light.

“Oh how wonderful, I was just seeking shelter for night, and I saw this quaint settlement.”

A few men near her shifted uneasily, some hesitantly opened their mouths.

“What? I don’t bite!” She cackled.

“Not without reason anyway.” Her rotten teeth nearly seemed to fall out of her mouth. The black robe around her glimmered with the embers of flame dancing around the fire. Women were now pushing their children inside the safety of tents, a handful of men were about to unsheathe their swords when Kramer came out of his tent, unaware of the boiling ruckus outside.

“I am about to have a baby! Call the midwife!”

The midwife hurried into the tent. She had been made a part of this journey just to cater for such an eventuality. She scuttled in and Kramer was about to follow in too when one of the men hearkened him.

“What is it?”

“There’s a witch demanding shelter”

“Well tell her to bugger off.” He said this and went in.

The witch quietly smiled and sat down away from the camp. Her face was still illuminated partially by the camp fire. She muttered under her breath:

“Oh I think he’s going to need me anyways”

This was followed by a period of unease, as multiple loud cries of anguish and pain came out of the tent. Kramer’s wife seemed to be having trouble delivering the baby. The men and women outside sat solemnly now. They felt this delay in the birth ominous and the presence of the witch, giggling in the corner, foreboding. 

“I don’t care! Save them both! I’ll strangle you with my own hands!”

The uproarious command by Kramer startled everyone outside, except the witch. She calmly stood up, and stretched her back to an unnatural extent. The popping of her joints was sickening, as she ambled across the camp. Nobody stopped her. Nobody dared to.

“I can save them”

She lucidly said this standing barely outside the tent. Somehow despite all the cries from his wife, Kramer heard the witch and stormed out.

“Don’t lie, old hag!”

The witch threw her hands up in helplessness and started walking backwards.

Kramer took a step backwards and then swallowed, his ego quite possibly, and spoke:

“How can you save them?”

The witch plastered an ugly smile on her face, swivelled and started walking back toward the tent. She bent down outside, plucked the grass from outside and sniffed it.

“Listen you big bearded fool, I cannot promise you your wife’s life. I will try but the thread has gone too thin. However I will save your son. In return, all I ask for is passage with your caravan.”

“Granted, but my wife-“

She patted him on the shoulder and walked in.

“Just stay out.”

Kramer collapsed down against a rock outside the tent. He had given in to his emotions in a moment of weakening resolve. He hoped he wouldn’t regret it. He sat, stroking his beard, which still had some crusts of monster blood stuck in them. 

Nobody quite knew how much time passed because Kramer’s wife didn’t stop screaming. Her cries became more and more shrill. She didn’t seem to tire out. Nobody slept that night. Nevertheless before the first crack of dawn, her voice lost the verve. It seemed to shallow out, and just before it completely gave out, a new cry took its place. The cry of a baby. 

The midwife came out holding the baby. Kramer’s son. Kramer managed to stand up and hold his son in his arms. Tears welled up in his eyes and streaked his cheeks. They burned his sleep deprived eyes.

“My wife....?”

“Dead.” The witch emerged from the tent, rubbing her hands together. 

Kramer handed his son to the midwife, and stop quietly for a second; his head hung low. Then in a deep reverberating voice he said:

“You were supposed to save her.”

The witch scowled as she started moving towards her stash at the edge of the encampment.

“I said I would try. You should be glad the son lived, took all of my skills to get him out alive.”

The witch started putting her things in order, her vials clinked in her robe.

Kramer who had been standing motionless still, abruptly made his way across to the witch. With a single swift motion, he had struck the witch and landed her frail figure meters way.

“Get out.”

The witch who had been caught unawares by the blow, now stood up evenly, in a manner unexpected given her apparent age. 

“Don’t make a mistake, you bearded fool.”

“I. SAID-“ and with this he was on her again. This time he held her by her throat, and nearly strangled her. The witch managed to read some incantation and slightly singe his hands. Kramer still flung her afar. 

“Leave you filthy hag, and if I ever see your face again, I will make sure all of Poliksh knows of the torture I put you through.”

The witch lingered for a moment. Then she closed her eyes; spat on the ground; made gestures with her hand; and maliciously screamed:

“Listen then. Listen for I am cursing your son, Kramer of Ginia. I am cursing your son, to a fight he will not be able to win. A fight that will kill him eventually. He will fight a Hydra in his life, and as he slays one head of the Hydra, two more will come to take the place of the slain one, and so it will go on. Till your son will drop dead of exhaustion.”

Having said this, the witch ran away maniacally clicking her heels.

Kramer paid no heed to her words. 

Yet, for some reason they stuck with him. For he trained his son, Remi to become the best fighter of the entire Northern Continent. Kramer himself somehow fell through the cracks of the world like an old forgotten legendary tale. He was no longer as effective at fighting after his wife’s death. This seemed to accredit the soothsayers theory that his wife was the source of his magical skills. Withal, Kramer didn’t mind what the people around him spoke. He had lived his life and he had wanted to retire anyway. The only job he felt he owed was to tell his son of the conditions in which he was born in and so he did.

Remi was initially dumbfounded. His father had never really talked about his mother, let alone about the circumstances of her death. He felt relieved and confident. He felt like he was finally ready to take on the real world. This felt like becoming a man.

And so little Remi, left the sanctity of his birth town to find what fate had in store for him. He wasn’t sure if the curse was even real, at the same time though, it didn’t hurt to be careful. He made friends; some of them good, some not so good. When fighting monsters didn’t pay well, he decided to become a fisherman in a port city. He met a sailor’s charming daughter there one night and before he could explain what about her attracted him so much he was married and had settled down. In the second year of their marriage they had a cute little baby boy who became the apple of every townsfolk’s eyes. He had started to believe that he was one of the few lucky people in the world who pull the long straws from destiny’s store. He had completely forgotten about his legendary but now dead dad and the tale of the witch’s curse. 

Then the series of unfortunate events began.

His son died of a mysterious illness, and had showed no previous symptoms. They had a daughter next who was born still. Struck by grief and despair, for a couple springs Remi didn’t go to bed with his wife. Her wife of course blamed herself for not being able to produce him a healthy offspring. Their marriage seemed to be falling apart slowly. By some divine luck, they had twins later. When the twins came to be of two years old and showed no sign of any disease, only then did Remi breathed a sigh of relief. Elated he threw a feast to the entire town. Everybody joined in, in their celebration. The joy was preemptory though, for the very next day, the twins contracted food poisoning. This also proved to be the means to their end. 

This put the final nail on their marriage’s coffin. They separated and many a fathers offered their daughters hand in marriage to Remi, since he was still a mighty man who pulled in more fishes than many men could even boast of. Remi refused them all. Perhaps maybe a part of him did suspect his wife of being the faulty half, because unknown to common knowledge, he had a baby with a street harlot. The baby died in womb.

Convinced of his rotten luck and having embraced the fact that he was the last of his lineage, he sold all that he owned; paid all his debts; cleared all his accounts and bought a cottage near the shore, where he spent out the rest of his life in complete loneliness. 

The towns people notoriously secretly called him Remi the Childless One. One day a witch who happened to be passing by the town heard someone relating the tale of Remi the Childless One to a rapt audience in a bar. Her ears perked up and she stealthily inquired:

“Was this Remi you speak of, the son of Kramer of Ginia?”

“What? Who’s that?” the storyteller felt perturbed at being interrupted and he immediately continued his anecdote.

The witch paused for a moment and then took a big swig of the bitter gin from the mug. 

Close observers could see her smiling nastily into the mug.