A Ruin of Runes
The end was no longer the beginning; no longer the tunnel to the light.
She understood that her loss was tantamount to disaster.
Yet, still, she sat in the golden glow of morning with the runes scattered between her nut-brown toes. The soft light told no story; definition failed to conjure.
Nothingness.
Her voluminous muslin skirt blew wildly. She smoothed it with the backs of her age-scarred hands, but the fabric took no heed of her ministrations, ballooning and billowing, deflecting her efforts of concentration.
Nothing…
Rust-hued dust drifted in eddies over the sacred tokens, but no aura rose to meet her with its sharp portent of a future.
"Is there no future, then? Or is there simply no future for me?" Nobody heard her cry.
Nobody!
One mistake! Mischance in the shape of a life draining so rapidly from the child’s lungs. “How could you expect me to ignore a mother’s hope, a mother’s pain?" she fell in a crumpled heap over her useless tokens.
No answer allayed her pleas.
Her mind was a vicious ache; all the learning, all the rules, all the blessings, rituals, traditions, and curses particular to her kind swirled in a spiral vortex, creasing her brain painfully.
Eventually, her sobs dried, becoming as brittle as the dust that covered her in its fine veneer.
Hours passed.
Her mind began playing tricks on her, those tricks reserved for the mad.
She saw the mother’s face and the child’s. They floated and mixed. A bittersweet memory of her insane stupidity
Mocking, mocking…
"How could I have let them bear witness? How could I have been so negligent?" a feeble whimper escaped.
"The breath of the spirits has left me barren. Famine, pestilence…will visit this world without warning. There is no possibility of deflection."
The realization did not take her focus immediately; it took time.
At first, it was just the warmth of the runes; they seemed to vibrate, shift, and sing sweetly beneath her. Then she realized that the image of the child’s face had not left her.
It had not...
Slowly, she lifted her tear-streaked face. She felt the sun, saw it sparkle on the dust-exposed edges of her runes. a dazzling glitter, almost rainbow-hued.
Nobody heard her cackle, nobody heard her.
The tunnel was a void, but she saw the light.
Image is a collage of my own drawing and a Pixabay image