The Weaver

Mnemosyne has come here for the past nine nights to tell her stories to whoever stops to listen. Which wasn’t many at the start. Nobody tells stories like this, face to face. Crazy lady, everyone thinks. But I get it. There’s something about her tales. (I like that. Tales. Sounds bigger than stories). Or maybe it’s her honey-coloured eyes. Or the way she sounds as if she was right there, living the moment.

*

547 BC, Ionia. I raise my voice to the sky, so that the gods may hear. All around lay the lifeless bodies of my countrymen and women, remnants of the siege from the east. The metallic stench cuts me, but not as deeply as the bloodied faces of those I once knew and loved. So I raise my voice to the sky. I vow to remember them, to hold their memory to my breast, so that they may become eternal...

*

The numbers have grown each night. I clocked the woman, Mnemosyne, on the very first. Lucky I guess. Mum and Dad said I shouldn’t crowd them so much, that I should be out having fun, that when they were my age they were getting fitzed on Crash, or whatever they took back then. Who cares, right? But they’re telling the truth, I know. I’ve felt their disappointment in me. Smelt it. Seen myself in their eyes. Skulking around in my room, reading paper books, listening to old songs. What’s wrong with him?

So, fitz it! I did what I always do whenever they tell me off for not being enough of a teenager; I went for a walk ‘to see friends’.

*

Tenpyō 7, Kyushu. The village gets smaller the more I run. I’m so afraid. For myself, for my family. But the pox has arrived in the south-west, and okaa-san says I must flee. My lungs, they ache as I splash through the field. The moon’s reflection ripples in my wake...

*

I was on the second loop of the plaza when I noticed her. She was sitting on a stool, one of those magnetic ones that hover, and she was wrapped in one of those long scarves that cover your whole body – so long you couldn’t see her feet. She was talking to a small group, three or four people in their twenties or thirties or something. It’s difficult to tell ages from faces alone. Not the woman’s though. Mnemosyne. I mouth the name like new food, only to find it tastes familiar – Nem oh see nee.

The group was leaning in, catching every word like it was Credit, as if every sentence would make them rich. I stopped just near enough to hear. It was the story of the man in the killing fields. Caught in the Greco-Persian Wars, she said. I remembered reading about them once. Not in school, of course. We don’t need to go that far back, Teacher says. History sounds different when the woman talks about it. Like it’s happening now. I like that. Makes sense, I think. 

*

1611, Lyon. The madrigal haunts the domed ceilings of the cathedral. The choir wraps the congregation in melancholia. Far away, a new king sits on the throne. But here I stand, in my robes, in the shade of the antechamber, releasing long tears...

*

On the third night someone – a man with a stupid beard and looking all disbelieving – asked why she talks like this. She just smiled and said, Aren’t all memories just moments of ‘then’ caught in a forever ‘now’? That confused and quietened him. I enjoyed that.

There’ve been others like the bearded man every night. Little patience for her tales. Some suck their teeth and shake their heads, others walk away and laugh. But as the nights have gone on, and each new tale been told, the crowds have become more and more like that first night; hanging on every word. 

*

2032, Houston. The cake makes my heart sing. Warm and sweet. My favourite. But Tina, looking queasy, hasn’t touched hers. Before I can ask, my fork hits something hard. A diamond glints through the chocolate crumbles...

*

She holds us with her stories. Like babies in a cradle. 

On the fifth night shares a tale of a woman who died along with her unborn child in the late twenty-first century. Just one of the poisoned victims of the Second Cold War. 

On the sixth, we shared the moment when a young songwriter signed their first contract. Their debut song would become a hymn for the nation, the woman said, an anthem of the decade. 

On the seventh night, we revelled on the surface of the Red Planet, riding high on the tale of an old colonist who lived to see the very first Martian wedding. I swear I saw one person crying in the crowd.

Yesterday, the eight night, we laughed together so hard at the opening ceremony of the 2716 Games. Even the Nordanian floor manager who the woman told us about saw the funny side of the catastrophe!

Wonder, grief, hilarity, yearning. Good words. Even better feelings. We’ve experienced them all, completely swept up by the woman’s storytelling. Brought together by her words, the feeling growing stronger each night. I’ve come back earlier and earlier every evening to make sure I don’t miss it. Mama and Papa have never known my ‘social life’ to be so fitzing busy. 

I never stand at the front though. But tonight I can’t help myself. Somehow I’ve made my way to the second row just behind a woman whose big green coat gives just enough coverage for me. But I’m closer than I’ve ever been, near enough to see the cracks in Mnemosyne’s natural teeth.

This is her last night. Says it’s always nine nights, and then she needs to get back on the road. She kills me when she says stuff like that. She scans the crowd, commanding silence with her honey eyes. 

Then says: the ninth story is you. All of you.Go live, so that in time you may tell others of your adventures. Then says nothing more. We wait, but that’s all. Her final words split the crowd. Her spell is broken. Some nod, all solemn and silent. Some whisper in confusion, others say their thanks. One or two suck their teeth or shake their heads. One person laughs. But in the end, everyone leaves.

Except me. I’ve watched the woman pack away her seat, watched her say farewells to those brave enough to approach. My feet are stuck to the floor. My heart rate has gotten quicker as the audience disbands, my camouflage getting thinner with each person who leaves the plaza.

And now it’s just me and Mnemosyne. Her honey-coloured eyes meet mine. I can’t blink.

And there you are, she says. She smiles.

Why nine stories? My voice is cracked and dry.

Nine stories. One for each of the muses of Mnemosyne. The goddess of memory, she says closing the gap between us with small steps. I’ve borrowed her name, you see. To honour those like me who have come before. The Mnemosynes. We had a different name once. Long ago. You know it, don’t you?

Weavers, I say beneath my breath. But the Weavers died out long ago.

Almost true. But not quite, eh? She winks. And then she says, Go on. Ask it. Ask the question.

They were all true, weren’t they? Every tale. Well...not tales. Memories?

I think you know the answer.

I nod, because I do know.

Are you ready for the ninth story?

Somehow my hands have come to rest in hers. She closes her eyes. Instinctively I do the same.

At first it’s a spark in the middle of my mind. Then a crackle. And then an explosion. A million stars bursting into life, constellations filling the void of an old universe. Someone’s wonder, someone’s grief, someone’s hilarity, someone’s yearning. Centuries of memories.

My inheritance.

547 BC, Ionia. I raise my voice to the sky, so that the gods may hear. I vow to remember them, to hold their memory to my breast, so that they may become eternal...