To Matter Not

It was like being wrapped in a cocoon of dark purple, everything was muffled, sounds, smells, taste. Everything but the pains. When they came, everything changed and became and an angry, blood red with bright lines of yellow in it like lightning on the plains. Then there were times when it was just void, no color, no smell, no noise, no taste, just a whisper of a feeling of floating in nothingness. In a way, these times were almost peaceful, calm and she floated there only to be jerked back to either the deep purple or the angry red that awaited her. A part of her yearned for the peace of the void.


At times she was aware of what her brain told her were "the others". Kaeli of the gentle, cool hands and the calm, reassuring voice, urging sips of the bitter draught from the blue bottle between her lips. Her girl kasra with cool damp cloths which dribbled water between her lips that had somehow become parched and dry. The feeling of Tarra sending her strength and support, perhaps not physically but in another way. Then there was the presence in the dark shadows of the wagon, the one that seemed to be waiting for something or someone. Waiting for her.


When she was a child there had been nightmares, dreams of ghostly figures that walked the pains. Somewhere in a little girls mind, there came the idea that safety was found in laying very still, trying not to breathe. If you breathed, your breath would betray you, let the darkness know that you were here for the taking. During this long, lonely night, that little girl floated closer to the surface, whispering to her……lie very still, do not breathe and he cannot find you.


The one person that she waited and longed for never came. The one person that could give her security from the night, the fear and the pain, did not come. She was alone. This knowledge that brought a strangling sadness to her. A painful sense of loss pervaded her very being, a sense of abandonment and detachment. And somewhere from the darkness that surrounded her came a mantra, a chant………You do not matter……..You do not matter……you do not matter……..you do not matter.

The pain in her body finally subsided, leaving only the pain in her heart. When her eyes opened with the early hours of the dawn, the first thing she saw was that the figure in the shadows was gone, the next was kasra, wringing out a rag in a basin, then leaning to wipe her face. A hand moves to her stomach, and she gives a sigh of relief to find the baby was still there, and hopefully calm and not ready to make its' entrance. Her eyes closed and she lay for a moment savoring the feel of the damp cloth moving gently over her face. Opening her eyes, she looked at the girl that had been with her for so long, and uttered one word.............Ba'atar.

That sweet slave averted her gaze, unable to look at the woman she loved so much and simply whispered...........He is not here. When asked had he been, the girls head shakes, but she still will not look the woman in the eyes. Closing her eyes, she felt the hot tears begin to seep from the corners and she whispers.

It does not matter.

And that echo began again somewhere in the dark recesses of her brain. You do not matter........you do not matter..........you do not matter............