Dead Story: Weaver

You thought you had it all figured out. That was, until the weaver died.

Here you were, about to get married, dealing with your crazy mother who hated your fiancé, your crazy would-be in-laws who hated you, and your crazy neighbors who like talking about people who hated each other, telling yourself, well, it wasn’t all that bad, all things considered. You had your man, and while his family wasn’t exactly welcoming you with open arms, they weren’t planning your assassination either. Of course, they still made the not so occasional snide remark about your mother’s not so pristine past, but those were just words and they couldn’t hurt you. Not truly hurt you, anyway. Because you’ve grown up, you’ve matured, you’ve survived and everything else could pretty much go to hell and back (your mother and his family included), and the wedding would still have taken place.

But then, the weaver died.

Technically, it shouldn’t complicate things. Much. But almost immediately after the village bells rang, Big Tom came knocking down your door declaring to your over-stressed mother that you’re the sole heir (or would that be heiress?) to the weaver’s family fortune of looms, cloth, needles and thread. You would hear later that your mother threw a fit – after all, she waited 22 years for some man to acknowledge his part of the tango of creating you, only to gain the much coveted recognition some two decades and odd years later with the man doing the recognizing pretty much dead and beyond murdering.

For your part, just a minute before the village bells rang to begin the mourning period, you woke up in tears, feeling as if something tenuous broke, a loss you could not verbalize. And so you didn’t hear the knock and you didn’t hear your mother’s wail and you barely even heard the village bells, ringing as loud as they did. Because all you heard was the rain of grief falling on dead dreams you didn’t know you had.

You thought they’ve gone insane.

Of course you wouldn’t speak during the funeral. Of course you wouldn’t attend the reading of the will. And you definitely wouldn’t want anything, not the looms, the cloth, the needles nor the thread, anything! from the weaver.

You don’t care if Wise Sally believes it would be best for the village if you actually let go of your grievances; you don’t care if Pastor Frank thinks that the spirit of the dead weaver will not rest peacefully without your forgiveness; you don’t care about Watchful Jack’s opinion that certain things have gone askew and it falls on you to do the fixing by actually accepting your inheritance. You. Don’t. Care.

In fact, the only reason why you’re even in the funeral march was because Big Tom came to get you, and when he comes to get lost things (or lost daughters as the case may be), you can’t say no. Mainly because he doesn’t even ask, just stands there by the door, and you get the feeling that he can out wait God. And so you went. But it doesn’t mean you’ll do anything else but march. Big Tom and the rest of them can just wait it out as long as they want, but there were things you just wouldn’t do. Period.

It was your fiancé who finally takes you aside. For a brief moment, you were relieved. At last, someone who didn’t have an agenda, who didn’t have some stupid (hypocritical!) righteous (hypocritical!) speech. Just someone who actually cared about what you felt.

But he surprised you. He started talking to you about new beginnings and how old hurts could ruin it. He continued by saying something so trite, and so stupid, as how love could heal all wounds, and that he was offering all of his to make up for what your father could not give. If only you would let go. If only you would forgive.

You walked out on him. You walked out on them. You feel betrayed, angry, betrayed, tired, and mostly, betrayed. You walk back to your house and instead of crying, you allowed yourself to scream.