Turn Back, O Time

Chapter One: The Quest

Love should not be trusted. The old folks –even the long-married ones—will tell you this. Nor should one trust one's own will. Because Love is a deceitful thing that clouds the mind and the sweeter it is, the brighter it shines, the softer it is to rest in...the darker and more resentful the grief it may bring. As for the human will --it is married to the human past and to human ignorance and knows little of what passes in the mind of the Universe. I do not say that sweet, bright, soft love will always cause grief. Only. Only that the grief it brings will be deeper, more enslaving. Nor do I say that willfulness is a bad thing. Some of our great ones have been willful. I say only that having one's own way and willfully fighting for one's rights often results in regret or in one's own destruction.

So then...there was a girl in our village who fell in love with a boy from the western village. She met him on the night of the love festival and immediately loved him for his good heart. However, he was not fated for her and the Lord of Light warned her against this love. But she did not listen.

This girl's name was Pumpkin, and some months before the marriage, when young girls are given dreams concerning their Beloved, Pumpkin was duly warned in a dream by the Lord of Light Himself—that she should not marry Maru, her chosen one.

The Good Lord of Light did not tell her what she should encounter. Only. Only that she should not marry the boy. Perhaps she would have listened but the boy's family were so against the match – because Pumpkin's color, caste, and beliefs were unlike theirs—that Pumpkin began to think, "However much grief this marriage causes me, and whatever the Lord of Light sees, it is no matter to me. I will not let this clan triumph over me."

And, as I have said, she loved the boy.

As often happens in marriage, as soon as the fatal marital vows were spoken and the ring placed on her finger, there fell from her eyes as it were scales and she suddenly saw her husband's flaws –the flaws of one brought up in wealth and privilege-- clearly. He was inept, stubborn, unaffectionate, selfish, silent, sullen, lazy, defensive, self-pitying, disdainful of friendships, and prone to taking his responsibilities entirely too lightly. Worse, the boy –who passed much of his time in reading religious tomes instead of providing an adequate living for his family-- was apt to consider himself a "good" man elieving himself loving when in actuality he was deluded and full of self-pity thinking himself some great sufferer.

And yet for all this, he loved her deeply. And because of his love for her, Pumpkin could not divorce him. So they grew poorer, and more and more Pumpkin ached to be lovingly touched. This too: because the battle to win her beloved away from his family had been a hard-fought one, and because she could not allow his family to triumph over her by being proven right, she endured the marriage that was impoverished and impoverishing in so many ways.

Time passed and they gave birth to a child, but because the ketaks knew a weak man lived inside who had no will or skill to fight, they attacked the child. The child's life was a continual torment. At seventeen, she had been married for three years and Pumpkin began to think that although she had destroyed her life, it was not right that she destroy the life of her child. At last, Pumpkin began to consider that she should make a journey to the temple of the Lord of Light. When she arrived, she would ask the Good Lord to turn time back. Thus, she would be unmarried and her child's suffering would cease to exist; the sad long days of regret would be gone, and she would no longer live continually in regret.

A night came when the sky was velvet dark and a warm wind blew across the village, Pumpkin tip-toed to the side of the room where her three year old son lay in his basket, and whispered, "Rise up, my son, it is time for us to journey to the temple of the Lord of Light."

Tying a khanga across her lower torso, she placed her son inside it. Her husband's hatchet lay on the family table. She grasped it tightly with her right hand and walked into the dark night.