Ruth: Reimagined

Sacrifices

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Sacrifices
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Death was unbelievable to Ruth. Especially, since it was close,  it hit home, a striking thunder that none of them saw coming.

She had never been blinded or even sheltered from the fact of death because death was ingrained into the culture of the Moabites. It was inevitable.

The Moabites sacrificed people, their enemies, their children, their husbands or wives, any life that Chemosh desired, they gave to him.

Ruth grew up with the stories about the women who lived in the village next to hers who  sacrificed  their children  to escape poverty and the effects of old age. She grew up with stories of the King of Moab, who sacrificed servants for the betterment of the country and his palace.

She grew up hearing stories of  men who sacrificed their wives or concubines in the fire to show their devotion to Chemosh and win war against the Israelites or Ammonites.

It was her grandmother, who once told her as she braided her brown dreads with beautiful flowers, that, “It is nothing to cry about my darling Ruth, to die in the name of Chemosh. It is a great honour. A privilege that not many are destined to have.”

“Will I have that privilege one day?” Little Ruth asked, fearful.

“I don't see it in the stars.” Her grandmother answered.

Everytime her grandmother spoke of future and destiny, she would quote that phrase, telling Ruth if she saw it in the stars or not.

“Have you ever sacrificed someone for Chemosh?” Ruth's youthful curiosity held back no question. She felt her grandmother stiffen, the hands on her head having frozen.

“Grandmother?”

It was a while before the old woman answered but when she did, there was this calm, this ease to the melody of her voice. “They knew that  they were privileged. They knew that after death they would be rewarded by Chemosh. They knew that it was destiny.”

That was all that her grandmother said and Ruth knew that was her gentle way of saying, yes, she has sacrificed someone unto Chemosh.

On the day her grandmother was buried, Ruth dressed in all white again. No trace of jewellery on her body, no colour on her cheeks or eyes. Her brown dreads, the glory of her hair was held up, wrapped  in a tight bun. They buried her grandmother, deep in one of Moab's fields, by the oldest vineyard. It was a tradition.

Thousands of people showed up to the funeral, all of them dressed in white. Her grandmother was a prominent woman in the country of Moab, respected even by the King. A few of them cried, the tears trailing down their cheeks, landing on the ground of Moab and watering it with grief. 

Many of them simply stood, their faces stoic. The death of relatives,  neighbours and of strangers having hardened their compassion and their prospect of death.

Joel arrived as well, he was the priest who conducted the ceremony. His eyes told a story of grief, the fatigue was heard in his voice, felt through his soul.

He was the man who woke up before dawn with Ruth, throughout the three months. He was the man who witnessed her desperate broken prayers. He was the man that prayed along with her. The man that saw her cut herself open, cut her soul open and carried that hungry bowl, pouring it out before Chemosh, hoping he'd be satisfied.

Ruth's father held both Ruth and his wife, Adira in his arms. He was their pillar of strength, the one who couldn't shed a tear because that would break them even more. He was what Ruth held onto throughout the ceremony but she didn't cry. All her tears, the salty hot tears were stolen, taken away in all her prayers to her god.