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finished niffty working on alastor

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@spiritspodcast

The Burning of The Dolls

TW: You know what, just blanket trigger warning, the following is an story set in Ancient Greece so just all the warnings: Rape, Incest, Child-brideing, Murder, Violence Against An Infant, Violence Against Women, Suicide, pretty much anything bad or triggering that you can think of it’s probably in this story.

I first bled just before my thirteenth birthday. I will never forget the way I felt as I stared down at the bright red spot on my bed sheets. The inside of my thighs were sticky. I knew it would happen, one day, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon.

I wanted to run.

I wanted to laugh.

I wanted to scream at the gods in anger.

I wanted to shout with pride in the streets.

I was a woman.

For all that that meant, for good or for bad, I was a woman. This was the proof, bright and wet on my bed sheets. I was no longer a girl. My childhood was over.

The next few hours passed like days, those first few days passed like years. The way things do when a life totally and irrevocably changes. My female servants whisked me off. I was bathed and dressed in a daze. Everyone was talking quickly about the arrangements that needed to be made, the people who needed to be alerted. I was to be married to Laius, he would one day be king. My wedding had been arranged since I was three years old. I still wonder how it was arranged. Had my father sold me off to the highest bidder, or had there been a political motive that I didn’t understand. Had the gods decreed it? Did an Oracle foresee it in the stars? Had the Goddess Hera told the Fates to weave the marriage into my tapestry? I will never know. I am not to be concerned about such things. The point was I was going to be married to Laius, and I was going to produce lots and lots of little heirs, and I was going to be very, very happy.

I didn’t have a choice.

During the past ten years I had wondered many times what Laius was like. No one had bothered to introduce us. Would he be kind? Would he be gentle? Would I love him?

The night before our wedding, my father made me burn my dolls, as was proper for a girl to do before her wedding. They were my friends: my confidants. They had been with me through thick and thin. They had kept me company during lessons on how to be the queen. They had been the best playmates who were never too busy for me. They had accompanied me on picnics and endured being forgotten in the garden (never overnight, only until they could be tracked down right before bedtime by a cranky nursemaid who just wanted me to stop screaming). They had hidden under the bedsheet with me long into the night as I whispered my secrets to them. They had listened patiently to every fear, every hope, every dream, or wish, or secret I had ever had. They loved me unconditionally. I loved them even more.

I watched their beautiful painted faces crack and blacken in their tiny funeral pyres.

“Stop crying! They’re only toys. Soon you will have a real child.”

It was true.

The wedding passed. For all the anticipation, it was over before I knew it. I can’t even remember the ceremony, the memory was blotted out by the memory of the wedding night. I will not share that memory, but know this. Laius was not kind. He was not gentle. And I certainly did not love him.

Luckily, it didn’t take long for my womb to quicken. As soon as it was clear that it had, I was granted reprieve from my marital duty.

I was excited. This was it. I was a woman, and this is what it meant. I had a life growing inside me. I wouldn’t need dolls. Not anymore. I wasn’t alone. It would be me and my child.

“We’re in this together, little one.” I would whisper every night as I went to sleep. Much like the way I used to share my hopes and fears with my dolls, I began to tell my swollen belly. Everyday I felt them grow inside me. Soon, I could feel them start to move inside me. My baby.

I couldn’t wait until the day that I could hold them in my arms, but even as I counted down the days, I felt dread clawing at my heart. Something would go wrong. I didn’t know what, but I knew with cold certainty that something was going to go wrong.

“All mothers feel that way.” Everyone assured me.

“Everything will be fine.”

I knew they were wrong. I knew that my baby could never come. I needed to keep them safe, and they were safe right where they were. They were safe. They were warm. They were loved. They needed to stay put.

They didn’t.

He didn’t.

He was perfect.

Everything about him, from his perfect shrill cry, to his perfect wrinkled skin. He was shriveled and red. A lot more skeletal than I expected, but that didn’t matter. He was beautiful in all of his newborn ugliness. When I had him in my arms, I knew I had never truly understood love until this moment.

He was so small, so warm. I smelled his hair, he even smelled like love. I couldn’t explain it then, and I can’t explain it now but somehow I could smell his love like the sweetest perfume. He was mine. Those hours after his birth, those were the happiest I had ever felt. They are one bright, shining beacon in my memory.

Then he was gone.

Before I even knew what was going on. He was snatched from my arms. Ripped away from me with all the gentle tenderness of a rabid wolf.

I screamed as he was pulled away from me.

I screamed as before my eyes one of Laius’s men pinned his perfect feet together.

I screamed and he screamed.

He screamed for me. He screamed for his mother. I had grown him inside of me. I had kept him safe. He had slept soundly in my arms for the entirety of his tiny life. He knew nothing and no one other than me. He was screaming for me to help him.

Three of Laius’s men had to hold me back. I tried to get to him. I tried. I kicked and screamed. I bit and bucked. I would have fought an entire army to get to him. I would have taken on Ares himself.

But I was too weak.

I was never even told why. I asked. I screamed. I begged. I pleaded.

Why? At least tell me why? Why had my child been taken from me? Why had Laius murdered him? No, not murdered. Exposed. It was an insult to the gods to murder a family member. My baby wasn’t even given the mercy of a quick death. Instead he was left in the mountains alone until nature took its course. How long had he laid there? How long had he been alone in the cold? Had he spent the whole time screaming for me? Had he wondered why I didn’t come? Did he think I abandoned him? Did he die hating me? Had animals gotten him, or had he simply frozen to death? I was not to be concerned about such things. I was not to be concerned with any of those things.

The years that followed were dark. Dark and lonely.  

I don’t even know how many passed. One…two…five…seventeen…

Everyone complimented me on how well I kept my youth and beauty. Even as I approached thirty, people told me I scarcely looked older than a teenager. The truth was I was dead.

I watched as the people around me got older. Their faces were molded and changed by their emotions. Lines would form around their lips as their mouths pushed their cheeks up in smiles. Wrinkles would form between and above their eyebrows as their faces creased in worry. Laughing caused crinkles around the corners of the eyes. Too much frowning caused lines to form by the chin, and too much crying caused the nose to crease. I observed people who had such emotions. I watched the wrinkles form and vanish, and form and vanish. Over time they would leave tiny traces, like echoes on the flesh.

My face never fell victim to these insidious signs of aging. I never smiled. I never frowned, I didn’t laugh or worry. I never even cried. I sat where I was supposed to sit. I slept where I was supposed to sleep. I ate when food was given to me. But I did little else. My servants would dress me in the best fashion. They would do my hair and paint my face. Laius would occasionally parade me around when it suited him and people would compliment him on how beautiful I was, how docile, how obedient. “The perfect wife” they would say. “The ideal woman” they would tell Laius.

I wasn’t.

I wasn’t a wife, after my pregnancy Laius never brought me to bed again.

I wasn’t a woman. Women were meant to be mothers, that is what I had been told my entire life.

I wasn’t a mother. I had been for a few glorious hours, but I was not anymore and never would be again.

I was a doll, no more alive than the precious friends I had once given to the pyre.

Then Laius died.

Once more the world shifted. The clouds had passed. For the first time in seventeen years, I saw the sun.

If I live a thousand years, I will never forget the moment I got the news.

“Your Majesty, I regret that I carry the most grievous news. Your glorious husband was murdered. It happened on a road right outside of Thebes…”

It was as if I finally emerged from a sea that I hadn’t known I was drowning in. I collapsed when I heard the news. My servants were quick to catch me. I began to weep. My servants fanned me, trying to calm and console me. I didn’t tell them that I was weeping in joy. I wept and I wept. Seventeen years worth of feelings that I had buried suddenly exploded out of me in tears. I wept until my chest ached. I wept until my throat was sore. I wept until my eyes were raw. And then, I wept some more. I was bed ridden for two days weeping and a third day laughing.

When I finally emerged from my room, it was a different world. A world full of color and light. A world of hope and emotions. I didn’t know what my fate would be now, I had heard stories of what happened to queens without heirs once their husbands died. Very few of those tales turned out well. I didn’t care. Laius was dead. I was free.

Thebes was free.

The Sphinx had held the city of Thebes captive for so long, I hadn’t even paid it any thought. I knew about the Sphinx, all Thebens did, but she had been there my entire life. I never knew a world where she was not there, so her presence had never really bothered me. Yet she cut Thebes off from the rest of the world, making us all prisoners.

During my mourning period, a young prince from Corinth had defeated her. I was still too disoriented to fully understand what that meant, but the city was celebrating. The hero had apparently been brought to the palace with much fanfare, which the servants were still talking about.

As soon as it was considered appropriate, I was presented to him.

During my absence it was decided that the hand of the recently widowed queen would be a fine prize for defeating the monster. I assumed I was not to be concerned with who decided this. Probably my father, was my father still alive? I should probably figure that out.

The prince was young, younger than me by a decade at least. He was nothing special to look at; a gawky little thing, bowlegged, horrible skin. His face seemed to be trying very hard to grow a beard, but only a few scraggly whiskers managed to make their way through.

He smiled at me and stammered as he introduced himself. He was clearly more enamored by me than I was by him, but I didn’t need to be enamored. He smiled at me with a genuine, honest smile. There was no ambition in his eyes. He didn’t see me as his pretty little plaything. He saw the face of his bride and smiled in joy.

He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

He was so awkward on our wedding night. I found myself nervous too. In a way, I was just as much a virgin as he was. I had performed my wifely duties with Laius, but I had never actually made love. Neither of us knew what to do. We were awkward, then we were laughing, then we were making love, then we were talking, and then we were asleep in each other’s arms.

He was more than kind. He was clever. We would talk for hours with each other. Once more I had someone to talk to, to tell my secret, my hopes, my fears, and for the first time ever that someone could talk back.

And we talked. We talked about everything. We told stories, discussed ideas, made jokes, pondered mysteries. We talked about the state of the city and the business that we had to get to. He not only thought I should be concerned with things, he asked for my opinions and valued my input. We talked about our pasts. He had run away from his parents after receiving an ill prophecy from the oracle. I told him of my father and admitted I didn’t mourn when I learned of his death.

He helped me heal.

Soon we had four beautiful children; two sons and two daughters. The oldest was a boy, colicky from day one. He was spoiled beyond belief from the moment I discovered I was pregnant with him.

Then his brother came. He was breech, I would have died giving birth had the gods not blessed me with an excellent midwife. He was quieter than his brother and seemed more docile, though as he grew he proved to be as cunning as a fox.

Our first daughter had her father wrapped around her finger from the moment he saw her. She was every bit as clever as he was and liked people knowing it. By two she had mastered the art of kicking him off his own throne.

The youngest was sweet and sensitive. She cried at just about everything and was convinced that monsters were going to eat her toes if she accidentally let them hang off the side of her bed.

They were perfect. They were ours. My husband and I raised them with love. Our household was happy. Our city was thriving.

Then the plague came.

Sickness spread throughout the streets, swift and brutal. It started as a cough and a low fever. Next it would be hard to breathe. Soon it would become difficult to smell or taste anything. Then came the chills and the headaches. Death wasn’t a certainty, but it was the most likely outcome.

Citizens were terrified.

I was terrified.

I clung to my children, just as helpless to protect them from this threat as I was when Laius snatched away my first born.

This was clearly an act of the gods.

Soon we discovered its cause. Apollo was angry: Thebes was harboring an abomination and only once the murderer of Laius atones for his crimes would the plague be lifted. My husband vowed to find Laius’s murderer. I would just as soon give Laius’s murderer a reward as punish him, but Apollo had to be appeased.

I gave my husband all the information I had, though I didn’t have much. I was told Laius was attacked at a place where three roads met, but I knew nothing beyond that.

My husband discovered there was a single witness to the murder and called for him. There was little we could do but wait. Time dragged as days crept by, everyday more died in the city around us. The sickness was coming closer and closer, encroaching on the palace walls which would be useless in defending my beautiful children.

Then word came that my father-in-law had died. I had never met him, but I was devastated on my husband’s behalf. He had cared deeply for his father, and because of that I was shocked to see the relief in his face.

Finally, he elaborated on the prophecy that caused him to leave home. The Oracle told him he was destined to commit the ultimate act of blasphemy when he killed his own father and lay with his mother. If his father was dead, the prophecy could never be fulfilled.

Then the messenger spoke once more.

He told us that my husband’s father had not been King Polybus like he had believed. My husband’s mother Queen Merope had never successfully bore a living child. So when a shepherd found a child abandoned on the mountain, he had brought that child to them to be their prince.

As the messenger told the story my heart sped up faster and faster as pieces started to fall into place in my head. The shepherd had found a child abandoned on the mountain. His feet were swollen from a nail pinning them together. The child had been abandoned by a servant of Laius.

Suddenly I was thirteen years old again. Screaming as my son was mutilated in front of me. I had never told my husband about my firstborn. That was the one secret buried too deep to bear.

My mouth went dry. I begged my husband not to pursue this any further.

My husband….

My son…

My Oedipus…

He didn’t listen. He couldn’t see the truth yet. He didn’t have the same pieces I had.

I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t be there when he found out. I couldn’t bear it. I turned my back on him, and I ran.

I went to my bedroom, our bedroom. As I slipped a noose around my throat, I inexplicably thought of my dolls, burning in the fire.

#spiritspodcast #jocasta #Oedipus #Greek Mythology

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@spiritspodcast

Merciful Mother Persephone, hear my prayer and judge me true.

My name is Antigone.

I still have my name. I have lost more than I ever thought I could lose, but I still have my name. He cannot take that from me.

Dread Goddess Persephone, hear my story and avenge me well.

My uncle has tried to silence me, but he will not take my voice.

He locked me in this cell, but far too late. The people of Thebes have heard my words. They will rise up against my uncle’s tyranny and repeat my message. My words will echo throughout the city long after I meet you in the Underworld. I shall be there soon.

Judge me on my own merits, not by the sins of my father and grandfather. Though their story is forever entangled with mine, it is their curse that led me here.

The curse which lay dormant all through our joyous childhood.

We spent many summers basking in the sun. My brothers, my sister, and I; how happy we were. We would play discus in the courtyard and explore the caves outside the city together.

We were happy.

We were blessed.

We were fools.

How were we to know just how fast our world could fall apart? How were we to predict the plague? The vile sickness spread throughout Thebes, covering our people with festering sores and filling their lungs with blood. The stench of death and human waste settled over the city like a black cloud.

Apollo must have cursed us. It was the only explanation. My father vowed to discover the reason why, so he could rectify the slight and save us all.

He should have let the plague take us. Then the world would have never known our family’s story; the story of my mother’s first son, the story of my father, the story of Oedipus.

Everything fell away after that. We were not blessed, The Gods were mocking us. Nursing us with honey so our first taste of ash would be all the more bitter.

Father couldn’t handle the truth. He gouged out his own eyes and left Thebes.

My brothers were left to take up his role as king, but they couldn’t decide on who was the rightful heir. My brothers were left to do what they did best; compete. We were no longer children. It was no longer a matter of who could throw the discus farthest or who could shove the most grapes in their mouth without choking. Now they had armies at their backs. Now they could use other men’s lives as a part of their game.

Mother and I begged them both to stop. We watched as they met each other’s blade. Their blood ran down the street, adding to the great red river that flowed past garbage and other corpses. Somehow I thought my brothers’ blood would be different from that of a common soldier: gold from our royal birth or black from the abomination of our parents’ incest.

Eteocles’s death came swiftly, but Polynices struggled against Thanatos’s embrace. Mother and I ran to him. Mother cradled his head like he was still a babe. I held his entails inside him. His intestines were warm and slick under my hands. I was his older sister. I was supposed to keep him safe, but I couldn’t force the blood back inside. He whimpered in Mother’s arms, blood bubbled out of his lips. He met my eyes, I could feel his fear in the core of my soul. With his last disjointed breath he asked me to give him funeral rites, to allow him to rest in the tomb of our forefathers. I vowed that I would. Then he shuddered in Mother’s arms and grew still.

Polynices. Eteocles.

They were my brothers.

My little brothers.

They loved each other, they really did. It was the curse that drove them mad.

My mother couldn’t handle it. The moment Polynices’s eyes glazed over she pulled a dagger from his belt and plunged it into her own chest.

Mother…

Dear Goddess, please show her pity. The love of your own mother is legendary. Even now I can feel her sorrow for you in the late winter chill. My mother’s life had not been easy. I fear she will only be judged on her marriage. She is so much more than that. She was a gentle mother and a respected Queen. She was the strongest woman I knew, but how much could a single woman lose? I didn’t even attempt to stop her.

With both my brothers dead, my mother’s brother took the throne of Thebes. When I told him of Polynices’s final plea, he scoffed at me. The way he saw it, Polynices was the usurper. His rebellion caused so much bloodshed in Thebes. My uncle declared that while Mother and Eteocles would receive full funeral rites and laid to rest in the family tomb, Polynices corpse was to be left for animals to feast upon.

I raged against his ruling. Polynices may have been a fool for rebelling, but he was still the prince of Thebes. He was still a part of this family.

My uncle berated me for speaking out of term. I was a woman, I was not to speak out against the king.

Damn his rules. Damn propriety. I have no more patience for the men in this family. My grandfather, my father, my brothers, my uncle: all of them suffer from the madness of the Curse. I would bury Polynices, even if I had to do it alone.

He caught me, but he couldn’t execute me. The people of Thebes were on my side. Even if Polynices raised an army against the city, leaving him to rot in the streets would surely anger the Gods even more. So he imprisoned me deep within the castle. Perhaps he thinks if he keeps me isolated for long enough I will change my stance. Perhaps he thinks the people of Thebes will forget about me. He is a fool.

I will die on my terms, I will not live on his.

So I call out to you, Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, to accept me into your embrace as I slip a coin under my tongue and a rope around my throat.

My name is Antigone, and I will meet you soon.

#Antigone #spirits #spiritspodcast #Greek Mythology

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Writing Prompt: Prophet in the Wilderness

The bog can devour you.

That’s the first thing I learned as a child. That’s the first thing any child living in Waskish learns. It’s the same reason so many Irish fairy tales warn you against straying off the path. Because the bog is ancient and vengeful. It was around long before us, and it will be around long after us. And if you don’t treat the bog with the caution and respect it deserves, it will swallow you whole and no one will ever find your body.

It takes a certain type of person to survive in the bog. The winters temperature averages to a brutal -20 degrees and the summers are so humid it feels like you're swimming through the air. Mosquitoes can grow as big as bumblebees, they form huge black clouds when they swarm. The ground will open up at one wrong step and the weeds are so thick that if you fall through you will forever be trapped in the stale, stagnant water beneath. Humans do not belong there. The ones who choose to make their home in the bog are stubborn, spiteful people who have more in common with bears than they do with people.

The bog is my happy place. It was the first home I ever remember. The gnarled trees and twisted roots were a playground for my sister and I. Just as they had once been for my parents, and their parents before that. All the terrible creatures like wolves and wild cats, things with teeth and claws that could pierce skin and crack bone were nothing more than cranky neighbors that we learned to avoid. The hungry ground that could suck a person into oblivion in the blink of an eye was a barrier between us and the modern world that threatened to encroach on our way of life. Even after we moved to town, the bog remained a refuge, a familiar place that stood untouched by time.

I wouldn't call myself a prophet, but I know the bog. I can understand the stories it tells. I can hear the voices in the plants and the water. I know the songs of the wind in the trees. I can see all the unseen things that live in the liminal space. I know with absolute certainty that I am safest in this place full of hidden danger.

#sadie writes stuff #sadie writes shit #childhood #bog #nonfiction #personal essay #waskish #minnesota

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#midnight ramblings of a narcoleptic insomniac #narcolepsy #narcoleptic #insomnia #new years

[sadiessoapbox]

It was March

Life was normal

Until it wasn’t

The world halted to stop

It’s like slamming the breaks at 70 mile an hour on ice

The intention might have been to stop

But instead you fishtailed

Suddenly you’re spinning

Trying to regain traction even though you can’t see the road

Then the car is rolling

Everything whirls around you

Blood rushes in your ears

Hot-sharp-loud

Then it stops as suddenly as it started

You sit there

Upside down

Everything is on the ceiling

Scattered and broken

Your seatbelt holding you up,

Cutting into your chest as it tries to hold up your body weight

You can't breathe

What now?

The scary part is over

The worst case happened and you survived

You shouldn’t have

You should have died

So many others did

Hundreds of thousands of lives that were not yours ended

Yet you pulled through

Against all odds

Against all logic

You survived

You were one of the lucky ones

Right?

Now what?

How do you pick up the pieces?

How do you rebuild a house with missing bricks

On a foundation that was never sound to begin with?

Death is not the scary part

Surviving is

#sadie writes shit #sadie writes stuff #sadie writes poetry #poetry #poem #covid #covid 19 #car crash

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#the midnight ravings of a Narcoleptic Insomniac #the midnight ramblings of a narcoleptic insomniac #midnight ramblings of a narcoleptic insomniac #narcolepsy

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Midnight Ramblings of a Narcoleptic Insomniac: Snow day, Christmas Carol...

#youtube #midnight ramblings #night blogging #midnight ramblings of a narcoleptic insomniac #narcoleptic #narcolepsy

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Behind the Mask

Frozen smiles and concealed faces 

Clowns and Jesters

Masquerades and Opera Ghosts

Masks hide us from the world

They conceal us

We fear masks

We fear the unknown

The painted faces hiding secrets beneath

Masks of celebration

Brightly colored masks at Mardi Gras

Sporting grins so wide it would be impossible to achieve

Inhuman happiness fixed on every face

As if wearing a smile was enough to make the emotion real

To make us forget everything else 

Forget everything that wasn’t insane joy

If we fake the smile long enough maybe it will become real

Masks of concealment 

Like phantoms in an opera house

Covering our imperfections

A barrier between ourselves and the rest of the world

Afraid that if we show our true selves

We will be cast out as monsters

Better to live beneath our porcelain skins

Than risk rejection

Masks of evil

Black hoods concealing robbers

White hoods in front of flaming crosses

Only hate filled eyes glaring out from slits of blank fabric

Gunpowder plots and internet crimes

Heinous crimes covered veiled in anonymity

People hiding in the shadows like adders

Waiting to strike down the innocent and unsuspecting

Masks of protection

Gas masks saving us from the poison

Black void eyes and harsh wheezing

Turning the familiar sinister

Scarier still in their necessity

The knowledge that something has poisoned our air

Stolen our breath

Made us vulnerable

We put on our masks to protect our loved ones

Like plague doctors we pack them with flowers

Trying to force some fragrance into a world rot with disease

We try to control the contagions

To stop the sickness from spreading

We put on our masks to survive

Everyone wears masks

We can deny it but we can’t avoid them

Some are so good that it’s almost impossible see

A second skin of latex that blends in perfectly leaving no hint of their existence

Others are bulky and suffocating

We try to pretend they aren’t there, hoping others won’t notice them

Day in and day out we wear our masks

They rub at our faces, protecting and suffocating the raw skin underneath

When we finally dare to take them off

Do we even recognize ourselves?

[sadiessoapbox]

Behind the Mask

Frozen smiles and concealed faces 

Clowns and Jesters

Masquerades and Opera Ghosts

Masks hide us from the world

They conceal us

We fear masks

We fear the unknown

The painted faces hiding secrets beneath

Masks of celebration

Brightly colored masks at Mardi Gras

Sporting grins so wide it would be impossible to achieve

Inhuman happiness fixed on every face

As if wearing a smile was enough to make the emotion real

To make us forget everything else 

Forget everything that wasn't insane joy

If we fake the smile long enough maybe it will become real

Masks of concealment 

Like phantoms in an opera house

Covering our imperfections

A barrier between ourselves and the rest of the world

Afraid that if we show our true selves

We will be cast out as monsters

Better to live beneath our porcelain skins

Than risk rejection

Masks of evil

Black hoods concealing robbers

White hoods in front of flaming crosses

Only hate filled eyes glaring out from slits of blank fabric

Gunpowder plots and internet crimes

Heinous crimes covered veiled in anonymity

People hiding in the shadows like adders

Waiting to strike down the innocent and unsuspecting

Masks of protection

Gas masks saving us from the poison

Black void eyes and harsh wheezing

Turning the familiar sinister

Scarier still in their necessity

The knowledge that something has poisoned our air

Stolen our breath

Made us vulnerable

We put on our masks to protect our loved ones

Like plague doctors we pack them with flowers

Trying to force some fragrance into a world rot with disease

We try to control the contagions

To stop the sickness from spreading

We put on our masks to survive

Everyone wears masks

We can deny it but we can't avoid them

Some are so good that it's almost impossible see

A second skin of latex that blends in perfectly leaving no hint of their existence

Others are bulky and suffocating

We try to pretend they aren't there, hoping others won't notice them

Day in and day out we wear our masks

They rub at our faces, protecting and suffocating the raw skin underneath

When we finally dare to take them off

Do we even recognize ourselves?

#I wrote this in 2018 #man it hits differently now #sadie writes shit #poetry #masks #wearing masks #covid #phantom of the opera #marti gras #plague

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The Midnight Ravings of a Narcoleptic Insomniac : Morning Sleep Attack, ...

#youtube #the midnight ravings of a Narcoleptic Insomniac #chronic pain #chronic illness #narcolepsy #also flaming fire balls #yeah #the flaming fire balls was a weird day

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The Burning of The Dolls

TW: You know what, just blanket trigger warning, the following is an story set in Ancient Greece so just all the warnings: Rape, Incest, Child-brideing, Murder, Violence Against An Infant, Violence Against Women, Suicide, pretty much anything bad or triggering that you can think of it’s probably in this story.

I first bled just before my thirteenth birthday. I will never forget the way I felt as I stared down at the bright red spot on my bed sheets. The inside of my thighs were sticky. I knew it would happen, one day, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon.

I wanted to run.

I wanted to laugh.

I wanted to scream at the gods in anger.

I wanted to shout with pride in the streets.

I was a woman.

For all that that meant, for good or for bad, I was a woman. This was the proof, bright and wet on my bed sheets. I was no longer a girl. My childhood was over.

The next few hours passed like days, those first few days passed like years. The way things do when a life totally and irrevocably changes. My female servants whisked me off. I was bathed and dressed in a daze. Everyone was talking quickly about the arrangements that needed to be made, the people who needed to be alerted. I was to be married to Laius, he would one day be king. My wedding had been arranged since I was three years old. I still wonder how it was arranged. Had my father sold me off to the highest bidder, or had there been a political motive that I didn’t understand. Had the gods decreed it? Did an Oracle foresee it in the stars? Had the Goddess Hera told the Fates to weave the marriage into my tapestry? I will never know. I am not to be concerned about such things. The point was I was going to be married to Laius, and I was going to produce lots and lots of little heirs, and I was going to be very, very happy.

I didn’t have a choice.

During the past ten years I had wondered many times what Laius was like. No one had bothered to introduce us. Would he be kind? Would he be gentle? Would I love him?

The night before our wedding, my father made me burn my dolls, as was proper for a girl to do before her wedding. They were my friends: my confidants. They had been with me through thick and thin. They had kept me company during lessons on how to be the queen. They had been the best playmates who were never too busy for me. They had accompanied me on picnics and endured being forgotten in the garden (never overnight, only until they could be tracked down right before bedtime by a cranky nursemaid who just wanted me to stop screaming). They had hidden under the bedsheet with me long into the night as I whispered my secrets to them. They had listened patiently to every fear, every hope, every dream, or wish, or secret I had ever had. They loved me unconditionally. I loved them even more.

I watched their beautiful painted faces crack and blacken in their tiny funeral pyres.

“Stop crying! They’re only toys. Soon you will have a real child.”

It was true.

The wedding passed. For all the anticipation, it was over before I knew it. I can’t even remember the ceremony, the memory was blotted out by the memory of the wedding night. I will not share that memory, but know this. Laius was not kind. He was not gentle. And I certainly did not love him.

Luckily, it didn’t take long for my womb to quicken. As soon as it was clear that it had, I was granted reprieve from my marital duty.

I was excited. This was it. I was a woman, and this is what it meant. I had a life growing inside me. I wouldn’t need dolls. Not anymore. I wasn’t alone. It would be me and my child.

“We’re in this together, little one.” I would whisper every night as I went to sleep. Much like the way I used to share my hopes and fears with my dolls, I began to tell my swollen belly. Everyday I felt them grow inside me. Soon, I could feel them start to move inside me. My baby.

I couldn’t wait until the day that I could hold them in my arms, but even as I counted down the days, I felt dread clawing at my heart. Something would go wrong. I didn’t know what, but I knew with cold certainty that something was going to go wrong.

“All mothers feel that way.” Everyone assured me.

“Everything will be fine.”

I knew they were wrong. I knew that my baby could never come. I needed to keep them safe, and they were safe right where they were. They were safe. They were warm. They were loved. They needed to stay put.

They didn’t.

He didn’t.

He was perfect.

Everything about him, from his perfect shrill cry, to his perfect wrinkled skin. He was shriveled and red. A lot more skeletal than I expected, but that didn’t matter. He was beautiful in all of his newborn ugliness. When I had him in my arms, I knew I had never truly understood love until this moment.

He was so small, so warm. I smelled his hair, he even smelled like love. I couldn’t explain it then, and I can’t explain it now but somehow I could smell his love like the sweetest perfume. He was mine. Those hours after his birth, those were the happiest I had ever felt. They are one bright, shining beacon in my memory.

Then he was gone.

Before I even knew what was going on. He was snatched from my arms. Ripped away from me with all the gentle tenderness of a rabid wolf.

I screamed as he was pulled away from me.

I screamed as before my eyes one of Laius’s men pinned his perfect feet together.

I screamed and he screamed.

He screamed for me. He screamed for his mother. I had grown him inside of me. I had kept him safe. He had slept soundly in my arms for the entirety of his tiny life. He knew nothing and no one other than me. He was screaming for me to help him.

Three of Laius’s men had to hold me back. I tried to get to him. I tried. I kicked and screamed. I bit and bucked. I would have fought an entire army to get to him. I would have taken on Ares himself.

But I was too weak.

I was never even told why. I asked. I screamed. I begged. I pleaded.

Why? At least tell me why? Why had my child been taken from me? Why had Laius murdered him? No, not murdered. Exposed. It was an insult to the gods to murder a family member. My baby wasn’t even given the mercy of a quick death. Instead he was left in the mountains alone until nature took its course. How long had he laid there? How long had he been alone in the cold? Had he spent the whole time screaming for me? Had he wondered why I didn’t come? Did he think I abandoned him? Did he die hating me? Had animals gotten him, or had he simply frozen to death? I was not to be concerned about such things. I was not to be concerned with any of those things.

The years that followed were dark. Dark and lonely.  

I don’t even know how many passed. One...two...five...seventeen…

Everyone complimented me on how well I kept my youth and beauty. Even as I approached thirty, people told me I scarcely looked older than a teenager. The truth was I was dead.

I watched as the people around me got older. Their faces were molded and changed by their emotions. Lines would form around their lips as their mouths pushed their cheeks up in smiles. Wrinkles would form between and above their eyebrows as their faces creased in worry. Laughing caused crinkles around the corners of the eyes. Too much frowning caused lines to form by the chin, and too much crying caused the nose to crease. I observed people who had such emotions. I watched the wrinkles form and vanish, and form and vanish. Over time they would leave tiny traces, like echoes on the flesh.

My face never fell victim to these insidious signs of aging. I never smiled. I never frowned, I didn’t laugh or worry. I never even cried. I sat where I was supposed to sit. I slept where I was supposed to sleep. I ate when food was given to me. But I did little else. My servants would dress me in the best fashion. They would do my hair and paint my face. Laius would occasionally parade me around when it suited him and people would compliment him on how beautiful I was, how docile, how obedient. “The perfect wife” they would say. “The ideal woman” they would tell Laius.

I wasn’t.

I wasn’t a wife, after my pregnancy Laius never brought me to bed again.

I wasn’t a woman. Women were meant to be mothers, that is what I had been told my entire life.

I wasn’t a mother. I had been for a few glorious hours, but I was not anymore and never would be again.

I was a doll, no more alive than the precious friends I had once given to the pyre.

Then Laius died.

Once more the world shifted. The clouds had passed. For the first time in seventeen years, I saw the sun.

If I live a thousand years, I will never forget the moment I got the news.

“Your Majesty, I regret that I carry the most grievous news. Your glorious husband was murdered. It happened on a road right outside of Thebes…”

It was as if I finally emerged from a sea that I hadn’t known I was drowning in. I collapsed when I heard the news. My servants were quick to catch me. I began to weep. My servants fanned me, trying to calm and console me. I didn’t tell them that I was weeping in joy. I wept and I wept. Seventeen years worth of feelings that I had buried suddenly exploded out of me in tears. I wept until my chest ached. I wept until my throat was sore. I wept until my eyes were raw. And then, I wept some more. I was bed ridden for two days weeping and a third day laughing.

When I finally emerged from my room, it was a different world. A world full of color and light. A world of hope and emotions. I didn’t know what my fate would be now, I had heard stories of what happened to queens without heirs once their husbands died. Very few of those tales turned out well. I didn’t care. Laius was dead. I was free.

Thebes was free.

The Sphinx had held the city of Thebes captive for so long, I hadn’t even paid it any thought. I knew about the Sphinx, all Thebens did, but she had been there my entire life. I never knew a world where she was not there, so her presence had never really bothered me. Yet she cut Thebes off from the rest of the world, making us all prisoners.

During my mourning period, a young prince from Corinth had defeated her. I was still too disoriented to fully understand what that meant, but the city was celebrating. The hero had apparently been brought to the palace with much fanfare, which the servants were still talking about.

As soon as it was considered appropriate, I was presented to him.

During my absence it was decided that the hand of the recently widowed queen would be a fine prize for defeating the monster. I assumed I was not to be concerned with who decided this. Probably my father, was my father still alive? I should probably figure that out.

The prince was young, younger than me by a decade at least. He was nothing special to look at; a gawky little thing, bowlegged, horrible skin. His face seemed to be trying very hard to grow a beard, but only a few scraggly whiskers managed to make their way through.

He smiled at me and stammered as he introduced himself. He was clearly more enamored by me than I was by him, but I didn’t need to be enamored. He smiled at me with a genuine, honest smile. There was no ambition in his eyes. He didn’t see me as his pretty little plaything. He saw the face of his bride and smiled in joy.

He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

He was so awkward on our wedding night. I found myself nervous too. In a way, I was just as much a virgin as he was. I had performed my wifely duties with Laius, but I had never actually made love. Neither of us knew what to do. We were awkward, then we were laughing, then we were making love, then we were talking, and then we were asleep in each other’s arms.

He was more than kind. He was clever. We would talk for hours with each other. Once more I had someone to talk to, to tell my secret, my hopes, my fears, and for the first time ever that someone could talk back.

And we talked. We talked about everything. We told stories, discussed ideas, made jokes, pondered mysteries. We talked about the state of the city and the business that we had to get to. He not only thought I should be concerned with things, he asked for my opinions and valued my input. We talked about our pasts. He had run away from his parents after receiving an ill prophecy from the oracle. I told him of my father and admitted I didn’t mourn when I learned of his death.

He helped me heal.

Soon we had four beautiful children; two sons and two daughters. The oldest was a boy, colicky from day one. He was spoiled beyond belief from the moment I discovered I was pregnant with him.

Then his brother came. He was breech, I would have died giving birth had the gods not blessed me with an excellent midwife. He was quieter than his brother and seemed more docile, though as he grew he proved to be as cunning as a fox.

Our first daughter had her father wrapped around her finger from the moment he saw her. She was every bit as clever as he was and liked people knowing it. By two she had mastered the art of kicking him off his own throne.

The youngest was sweet and sensitive. She cried at just about everything and was convinced that monsters were going to eat her toes if she accidentally let them hang off the side of her bed.

They were perfect. They were ours. My husband and I raised them with love. Our household was happy. Our city was thriving.

Then the plague came.

Sickness spread throughout the streets, swift and brutal. It started as a cough and a low fever. Next it would be hard to breathe. Soon it would become difficult to smell or taste anything. Then came the chills and the headaches. Death wasn’t a certainty, but it was the most likely outcome.

Citizens were terrified.

I was terrified.

I clung to my children, just as helpless to protect them from this threat as I was when Laius snatched away my first born.

This was clearly an act of the gods.

Soon we discovered its cause. Apollo was angry: Thebes was harboring an abomination and only once the murderer of Laius atones for his crimes would the plague be lifted. My husband vowed to find Laius’s murderer. I would just as soon give Laius’s murderer a reward as punish him, but Apollo had to be appeased.

I gave my husband all the information I had, though I didn’t have much. I was told Laius was attacked at a place where three roads met, but I knew nothing beyond that.

My husband discovered there was a single witness to the murder and called for him. There was little we could do but wait. Time dragged as days crept by, everyday more died in the city around us. The sickness was coming closer and closer, encroaching on the palace walls which would be useless in defending my beautiful children.

Then word came that my father-in-law had died. I had never met him, but I was devastated on my husband’s behalf. He had cared deeply for his father, and because of that I was shocked to see the relief in his face.

Finally, he elaborated on the prophecy that caused him to leave home. The Oracle told him he was destined to commit the ultimate act of blasphemy when he killed his own father and lay with his mother. If his father was dead, the prophecy could never be fulfilled.

Then the messenger spoke once more.

He told us that my husband's father had not been King Polybus like he had believed. My husband’s mother Queen Merope had never successfully bore a living child. So when a shepherd found a child abandoned on the mountain, he had brought that child to them to be their prince.

As the messenger told the story my heart sped up faster and faster as pieces started to fall into place in my head. The shepherd had found a child abandoned on the mountain. His feet were swollen from a nail pinning them together. The child had been abandoned by a servant of Laius.

Suddenly I was thirteen years old again. Screaming as my son was mutilated in front of me. I had never told my husband about my firstborn. That was the one secret buried too deep to bear.

My mouth went dry. I begged my husband not to pursue this any further.

My husband....

My son…

My Oedipus…

He didn’t listen. He couldn’t see the truth yet. He didn’t have the same pieces I had.

I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t be there when he found out. I couldn’t bear it. I turned my back on him, and I ran.

I went to my bedroom, our bedroom. As I slipped a noose around my throat, I inexplicably thought of my dolls, burning in the fire.

#Greek mythology #greek myth #ancient greek theater #ancient greek tragedy #oedipus #oedipus rex #jocasta #the burning of the dolls #sadie writes shit #sadie’s soapbox #triggering themes #trigger warning #tw #tw: rape #tw: incest #tw: suicide #tw: pedophilia #tw: violence

[sadiessoapbox]

Merciful Mother Persephone, hear my prayer and judge me true.

My name is Antigone.

I still have my name. I have lost more than I ever thought I could lose, but I still have my name. He cannot take that from me.

Dread Goddess Persephone, hear my story and avenge me well.

My uncle has tried to silence me, but he will not take my voice.

He locked me in this cell, but far too late. The people of Thebes have heard my words. They will rise up against my uncle's tyranny and repeat my message. My words will echo throughout the city long after I meet you in the Underworld. I shall be there soon.

Judge me on my own merits, not by the sins of my father and grandfather. Though their story is forever entangled with mine, it is their curse that led me here.

The curse which lay dormant all through our joyous childhood.

We spent many summers basking in the sun. My brothers, my sister, and I; how happy we were. We would play discus in the courtyard and explore the caves outside the city together.

We were happy.

We were blessed.

We were fools.

How were we to know just how fast our world could fall apart? How were we to predict the plague? The vile sickness spread throughout Thebes, covering our people with festering sores and filling their lungs with blood. The stench of death and human waste settled over the city like a black cloud.

Apollo must have cursed us. It was the only explanation. My father vowed to discover the reason why, so he could rectify the slight and save us all.

He should have let the plague take us. Then the world would have never known our family's story; the story of my mother's first son, the story of my father, the story of Oedipus.

Everything fell away after that. We were not blessed, The Gods were mocking us. Nursing us with honey so our first taste of ash would be all the more bitter.

Father couldn't handle the truth. He gouged out his own eyes and left Thebes.

My brothers were left to take up his role as king, but they couldn't decide on who was the rightful heir. My brothers were left to do what they did best; compete. We were no longer children. It was no longer a matter of who could throw the discus farthest or who could shove the most grapes in their mouth without choking. Now they had armies at their backs. Now they could use other men's lives as a part of their game.

Mother and I begged them both to stop. We watched as they met each other's blade. Their blood ran down the street, adding to the great red river that flowed past garbage and other corpses. Somehow I thought my brothers' blood would be different from that of a common soldier: gold from our royal birth or black from the abomination of our parents’ incest.

Eteocles’s death came swiftly, but Polynices struggled against Thanatos's embrace. Mother and I ran to him. Mother cradled his head like he was still a babe. I held his entails inside him. His intestines were warm and slick under my hands. I was his older sister. I was supposed to keep him safe, but I couldn’t force the blood back inside. He whimpered in Mother’s arms, blood bubbled out of his lips. He met my eyes, I could feel his fear in the core of my soul. With his last disjointed breath he asked me to give him funeral rites, to allow him to rest in the tomb of our forefathers. I vowed that I would. Then he shuddered in Mother’s arms and grew still.

Polynices. Eteocles.

They were my brothers.

My little brothers.

They loved each other, they really did. It was the curse that drove them mad.

My mother couldn’t handle it. The moment Polynices’s eyes glazed over she pulled a dagger from his belt and plunged it into her own chest.

Mother…

Dear Goddess, please show her pity. The love of your own mother is legendary. Even now I can feel her sorrow for you in the late winter chill. My mother’s life had not been easy. I fear she will only be judged on her marriage. She is so much more than that. She was a gentle mother and a respected Queen. She was the strongest woman I knew, but how much could a single woman lose? I didn’t even attempt to stop her.

With both my brothers dead, my mother’s brother took the throne of Thebes. When I told him of Polynices’s final plea, he scoffed at me. The way he saw it, Polynices was the usurper. His rebellion caused so much bloodshed in Thebes. My uncle declared that while Mother and Eteocles would receive full funeral rites and laid to rest in the family tomb, Polynices corpse was to be left for animals to feast upon.

I raged against his ruling. Polynices may have been a fool for rebelling, but he was still the prince of Thebes. He was still a part of this family.

My uncle berated me for speaking out of term. I was a woman, I was not to speak out against the king.

Damn his rules. Damn propriety. I have no more patience for the men in this family. My grandfather, my father, my brothers, my uncle: all of them suffer from the madness of the Curse. I would bury Polynices, even if I had to do it alone.

He caught me, but he couldn’t execute me. The people of Thebes were on my side. Even if Polynices raised an army against the city, leaving him to rot in the streets would surely anger the Gods even more. So he imprisoned me deep within the castle. Perhaps he thinks if he keeps me isolated for long enough I will change my stance. Perhaps he thinks the people of Thebes will forget about me. He is a fool.

I will die on my terms, I will not live on his.

So I call out to you, Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, to accept me into your embrace as I slip a coin under my tongue and a rope around my throat.

My name is Antigone, and I will meet you soon.

#sadie writes shit #sadie’s soapbox #greek myth #greek mythology #antigone #seven against thebes #oedipus

[sadiessoapbox]

Is it okay if I get up onto my soap box? Because I’m gonna get up on my soapbox.

This is more than just Eurocentric, (I mean, it is definitely Eurocentric, don’t get me wrong) but it’s also leans towards this completely false narrative that ancient civilizations are somehow less advanced than we are now and that is absolutely not true. Humanity has been around for 200,000 years and countless civilizations have risen and fallen, the oldest civilization we know of is Mesopotamia which is dated around 5,000 BCE but it’s frankly naive to think that that means humans were sitting around twiddling their thumbs for 193,000. Just think of how good humans are at destroying ancient shit, it only took one Victorian Era to turn most of Egypts’ mummies into paint and firewood. It’s really impossible to tell what we’ve been able to destroy in the past 7,000 years between Mesopotamia and now. It’s very unlikely that Mesopotamia was the first civilization to ever exist, its simply the oldest that we have evidence of.

Egypt, which I know a lot of the Ancient Aliens love to focus on, was not a fleeting civilization. The first Dynasty that united the North and South Egypt into one political faction was around 3,100 BCE or 5100 years ago. It was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE or about 2350 years ago. That means, what we consider “Ancient Egypt” spans a greater length of time from start to finish, than the length of time between it’s conquest and now. And yeah, it had it’s highs and lows over that time, golden ages and dark ages, but a lot of the cultural knowledge would have been kept and built upon. The pyramids were built around 2,500 BCE, after Egypt had been a functioning empire for over 600 years. (For reference, America is only about 300 years old). That is in no way primitive. The technology they had was different that we have today, but different does not mean inferior. There are structures from 4,000 years ago that are still standing today, where as my house that was built in 1973 has a roof that’s caving in. Who’s technology is inferior really?

Technology develops as civilizations develop and get lost when those civilizations fall. Ancient Rome had central heating and cooling, 2,000 year old batteries have been found in Baghdad, China had anesthesia 1,800 years before Europe. Just because it took us a few thousand years to rediscover a technology, doesn’t mean we were the first to ever figure it out.

 To think that this is the most advanced we’ve ever been is arrogant as all hell, but also really dangerous. It puts us in this mindset of present superiority, as if we are the smartest and the best and every past culture were somehow primitive because they don’t know what we know now. But that’s not true, technology’s boom, civilizations boom, and empires fall, knowledge backslides, and we have to re-invent the wheel over and over again. This cycle has happened over and over again and it can and will eventually happen to us. The more we try to pretend we are free from this cycle, the faster we will succumb to it.

#History #history rant #soapbox #sadie’s soapbox

[sadiessoapbox]

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. To this day no one understands the motivation behind this, though many have asked. Books have been written on the subject, songs have been sung about it. People have spent years talking about the events that followed, but no one ever focused on that question of why. But perhaps it wasn't intentional. Perhaps the woman was eating and a fly landed on her food, her eyes weren't what they used to be, so she didn't notice until it was too late. Perhaps she was laughing and something flew into her mouth, instinctively she swallowed to avoid inhaling. Perhaps she was a victim of circumstance, as we all are at one point or another. After she swallowed the fly she panicked, wouldn't you? Logic works differently in an irrational mind. She knew that spiders killed flies, so she swallowed that next, not realizing she was setting off the chain of events that would eventually lead to her death. The spider was worse than the fly. She could feel all eight of its legs wiggling around in her belly. Her solution had backfired, so she swallowed a bird. The bird ate the spider, but now it was angry and flapping around in her guts. She should have stopped at the spider, but she couldn't stop now, she was hysterical. She saw her cat curled up by the fireplace. She loved that cat. It kept her company through many lonely days, but the agony in her belly was too much to bear as the bird began pecking at her stomach lining. So the cat went next. It caught the bird, but cats do not like suddenly being shoved into small spaces, so the cat panicked and the old lady howled in pain as claws raked her from the inside. Desperate for something, anything to stop the torn sharp claws, she looked at the loyal old collie dog who had seen its owner's pain and came to help in whatever way a dog could. Delirious now, the old lady swallowed the dog. The dog did not eat the cat, why would it? They had lived together for years. By now the woman was delirious, pain consumed her, blinded her. She stumbled to the barn, unaware of where she was going. She bumped into the cow. Her jaw unhinged like a snake to devour it. At this point there was no ounce of logic left, no hope of relief, just a primal instinct to feed. Her stomach distended beyond the realm of possibility. No human stomach should be able to hold so much. But she was no longer human, she was something else. A being born from agony and desperation. She came across the horse next. Without pause she swallowed it too. The horse was stronger than any of the previous victims of her insanity. It reared and kicked and burst from the woman, ripping her to shreds in its pursuit of freedom. She died of course.

#Sadie writes shit #flash fiction #there was an old lady who swallowed a fly #writing #nightvale