A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

A literary project from Maria – She asked us to write a medically-related story, 1000 words or less in any genre, referring to the picture below. Here’s my submission. Thanks, Maria, for inviting me to participate.

The woman moved quickly through the crowd, weaving expertly between the carts and stalls of the marketplace, the sleeping child held close beneath her robes. She hoped to go unrecognized for just a few more precious hours before giving her child to the fate into which she had been born.

Had it not been for the Bronwin midwives she would surely have died giving birth to the infant. For 2 days and nights she had labored, the child pressed against her ribs with no sign of descent. They had broken her waters to no avail, and pressed her with herbal infusions, but the child would not come.

When the morning of the second day dawned, the elder midwife had been summoned. Wondera did not remember her face, only the smell of the burning weed she had passed over her swollen abdomen. The aroma was silken and light, and as the smoke entered Wondera’s nostrils, she felt it enter her forehead, flowing straight to the small pit which drove her labor. In that same instant, her lower womb relaxed and the upper womb embraced the breech, urging it into the birth canal as the mouth of her womb softened and spread wide to deliver the infant from between her legs into the arms of the second midwife. Then the elder midwife had pulled the weed away, and as the cold air of the room hit Wondera’s nostrils, her womb closed tight, the pain ascending and then withdrawing for a final time.

Afterwards, Wondera shook violently, unable to control the chattering of her teeth and the trembling of her limbs. They had washed her with warm water infused with chamomile, and she fell into a deep sleep from which she did not awaken until sunset. Only then did she ask to see her daughter.

As foretold, the child bore a mark gracing her right eye and cheek, passing over the bridge of her nose to tease the left eye at its inner corner. Even now, Wondera reached beneath her robes to brush the mark with her lips.

The mark was, she knew, the exact mirror of the one which graced the face of a male child born five years ago to a Mechabian woman. It was said that a male child born with a mark that crossed onto the other side of his face would grow to be the leader of the two tribes. But instead of rejoicing when the child had been born, the Bronwins had risen in jealousy against their Mechabian brethren, with the rallying cry. “No Mechabian shall lead us!” And so the Great War had begun, a war in which half the men of both tribes lost their lives, including Wondera’s husband.

In the fifth year of the War, the seers foretold that a girl child would be born at the next harvest, a girl child bearing a mark exactly mirroring that of the Mechabian prince. From these two children so marked would arise a nation of princes born of both tribes, who would bring peace, prosperity and unity for generations to come.

For the first time in five years, there was peace, as men came home from the battlefield to their wives, in hopes of fathering the child. And for the first time in history, families prayed for a female child. Mothers scanned their child’s face almost hourly, rejoicing with every new nevus, praying that it would spread in the right direction. Wondura had heard tale, true or not, of women who had taken burning charcoal to their infant’s cheeks, branding them. More likely, they had only rubbed the charcoal into their infant’s skin day after day, hoping that the pigment would stay and mark their child as the one.

When Wondera’s daughter had been born bearing the mark, the midwives feared that the child would be taken from her and so they had kept her hidden among them. This had been easy, since they lived in a small commune outside the village, and were rarely visited. For six months, Wondera and her child lived peacefully and happily in the commune. Wondera cooked and kept house for the midwives, who were called upon constantly to witness the many births that had been conceived among the Bronwin people.

But as the months passed and the prophesy remained unfulfilled, the men began talking again of returning to war. Wondera knew that the time had come to return to civilization and her daughter’s fate.

And so she made her way now through the marketplace to her family’s lodges. She had been away so long that she did not realize what day it was – the day of the harvest celebration. The village center was teeming with carts and people, the children running from stall to stall while young men and women danced through the square to the harvest songs.

Wondera strode quickly through the crowd, moving softly so as not to wake the child. But the child heard the music, and began to struggle in her arms to see its source. She grabbed at Wondera’s robes, pulling them apart and revealing her face to the light.

A murmur arose from the crowd.
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Four other bloggers also took Maria’s challenge. There’s some great writing in this bunch below…
– Intueri
– poeMD
– All Sounds to Silence Come
– Emergiblog