Amidst the Crowd (Part 1)

Talia sat on her pallet in the small room and looked at the bare walls including her meagre belongings, though she didn’t need much to live on these days, she thought with deep sadness. She never thought her life would result to this—four bare walls.

Once married, she enjoyed the company of her children, and managed a large house with servants. She had decided what the household ate and what she wanted to eat. She used to have the privilege of choosing what to wear more than once a day. She loved wearing clothes with vivid colours and adorning herself with articles of gold, silver, and precious stones. She had taken pride in her looks. Especially when she and her husband were entertaining guests, or they were invited to parties and social gatherings.

She missed the aroma of food being cooked, fresh vegetables and spices. The busyness of the kitchen, the sound of grinding, pounding, stirring and clattering of pots, pans and plates. Not that she did anything in the kitchen, mostly she just visited to do a brief inspection but immensely enjoyed seeing the servants at work. She had loved the busy household, the laughter and chatter.

She also used to own a business of her own, selling some of the most exquisite materials in town. The rich and famous sought after her wares. She had always looked forward to market days—people visiting from nearby villages and towns, hearing the different languages and dialects. People advertising their goods, with the haggling, banter, laughter and anger which sometimes led to fights, but these were all the excitements of the market day. How had her life been reduced to a small bare room?

Talia had not seen her husband and children in ages. She didn’t want to think of her husband, Omer. But her sons—Zebulun and Matthias, were important to her. She didn’t want them growing up to be like their father—heartless and ruthless. Everyone in his life had to be useful and immediately that ceased to happen, the person was discarded like a broken vessel. That’s exactly what he had done to her. Initially, she thought she meant more to him. Unfortunately, she was wrong.

It all started after she gave birth to her youngest son, Matthias. The first couple of months had felt normal since she had just given birth, however, after six months the situation hadn’t improved. Initially, the physicians said her body was struggling to adjust after the birth of her child and suggested she give her body time to heal. By the second year, various physicians had visited prescribing various concoctions to drink and herbs to eat or include in her meals. Now and again the situation seemed to improve then suddenly gets worse.

As the physicians struggled to find a diagnosis, Omer started getting restless and impatient. She remembered him constantly barking at everyone—the physicians, the servants and even the children. By now, his visits to her part of the house had reduced drastically and most of her friends had stopped visiting also. They seemed afraid of catching whatever was ailing her.

That was when she realised her life was slowly coming to a halt, like a donkey on its last legs. As the years got longer without a diagnosis or cure, her life started to feel like a prison sentence.

(To be continued.)

Stay blessed,

Laralex