The voice of an old woman, angry and scared,
“Cenya! Cenya! . . . Cenya I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe! . . . Cenya.
My chest hurts. Cenya! Cenya! Help me. Help me. Help mmmeeeeeeeee!” Cenya looked up and rolled her eyes a bit and sighed. “Coming, mother. Just relax. Breathe slowly.”
“What the hell do you think I’m doin’! It’s not working! It hurts, it hurts. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!”
“You can breathe, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to talk . . . or yell. You’re having ‘difficulty’ breathing.”
“You a healer?! What the hell do you know?! Do you think I’m lyin’? You think this is a joke!”
“No, mother. I believe you. You just always get so . . .”
“Well whattaya just standin’ there for like a statue!”
“ . . . excited.”
“I can’t breathe, how ‘m I supposed ta be calm?”
“If you calm down you’ll be able to breathe easier.”
“Easier for you. Help me. Help meeee, Cenya!!!”
“How?”
“I’m scared.”
“What are you scared of?”
“Everything.”
“We’re safe here mother. No one will hurt you.”
“Cenya, please help. Help me!” And for the next half hour Cenya tried to calm her mother down and reassure the old woman that she could in fact breathe and that this was the same as it always was, and as always to no avail. And so as always Cenya returned to her chores as her mother continued to yell for help, sometimes cursing Cenya out.
If it wasn’t difficulty breathing and chest pains it was a burning sensation her mother felt in her stomach, and chest, and then all over her body. If it wasn’t the burning sensation it was leg and back pain. If it wasn’t the arthritis it was a sour stomach or headache. If it wasn’t any of this it was simply being tired. ‘Tired? How? How is she tired? All she does is lie in bed all day. I’m the one that has to do everything. I’m tired’. Cenya’s mother did have legitimate health concerns, and her mother had legitimately allowed herself to become an invalid. Cenya’s mother stopped and seemingly refused to do anything except eat, use her chamber pot, and sleep. She didn’t even wash her hands after relieving herself. Cenya felt like she was dealing with what was ‘left’ of her mother. Cenya’s mother had once been an active and very conscientious person. She had been strong and strong-willed, fearless, and a happy, sociable person. But not anymore, not for some time. A string of bad fortune and time seemed, in Cenya’s mind, to have whittled her mother down and hollowed her out. The old woman’s husband of forty plus years had died over two years ago; she suffered from constant bouts of anxiety, fear and the chest pains; had a tired, aged heart; relentless burning in her stomach and elsewhere; fragile bones; some amount of melancholy; and now memory lapses and sometimes not knowing where she was or what she was doing. The old woman couldn’t walk that well because she stopped walking. She couldn’t pick up a pitcher of water anymore because she stopped picking up the pitcher of water. She had lost her strength and endurance because she had stopped doing things almost entirely. But the old woman either couldn’t understand that, or she did not want to admit it. Cenya, trying to be the dutiful daughter, slowly and steadily began to do more and more for her mother to the point her mother expected this treatment, even when she could do things on her own. They both knew this and it was something of a dance they did, a painful dance for Cenya.
“But I asked you to do this. I asked you nicely.”
“So. You can get up and do it yourself, it’s right over there.”
“But I asked you nicely.”
“That doesn’t matter, you’ve let yourself become lazy.”
“What the hell do I need you for, you don’t treat me right. I’m going to live somewhere else.”
“Fine, go. That’s not a threat.”
“Alright. I’m going.”
“So go ahead.”
“Just pack my bags and get the cart ready.”
“No. If you want to go you can pack your own bags and get the cart ready yourself.”
“The hell do I need you for?!”
“Go ahead. Any time.”
“You know I’m not going anywhere.” How many times over the past two years had they said that . . . and so many other conversations that Cenya didn’t want to speak or hear again. Like the one where after the healer came to the home and said everything seemed fine with the old woman, she just needed to get up and move around to get her strength and wind back. Cenya’s mother promised she would do things around the home again and do things for herself like she use to. Then an hour later, “Cenya! Cenya! I need you. I need your help. Help me. Help meeeeeeeeee!” Cenya, ‘Well that didn’t take long.’
Cenya was the only child and only family for the old woman. Cenya was constantly being called on all day and all night. Besides the work she had to do around the home and small farmstead she had to, was expected by the old woman, to wait on her mother’s every need. And every time the old woman was in any kind of distress, distress that she in part had put herself in, Cenya was expected to act just as strongly and concerned about it as the old woman, less the old woman tell Cenya that Cenya didn’t believe her and that Cenya didn’t care about her mother. Cenya was tired of it all. Not just her mother but the farm, the house, where they lived. She felt as though she was being ground down under a mountain. Cenya washed her mother, brushed her hair, helped her relieve herself and cleaned her after, cooked for her, fed her, gave her mother her medicine, dressed her, got her up, and tried to put her to sleep. All day long, “Cenya. Cenya! Cenya. Cenya! Help mmmeeee. Help mmeeeeeeeeee!” Insistent and constant and the same things over and over and over. Her mother was inconsolable, could not soothe herself, and would ask Cenya for impossible things, like taking her mother’s pain away.
It was worse at night. Tired from her long day Cenya just wanted a little peace. A little time to rest, finally finishing everything late into the night. But there was no peace because taking care of a decrepit, elderly person is much like taking care of a baby, except the baby can’t tell you to go to fuck yourself. “Cenya! Cennnnyyyaaa! Help me! Help meeeeeeeeeee!!!! Cenya, I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep.” That last one was Cenya’s favorite. “You can’t sleep at night because you sleep all day long.”
“Well I’m tired . . . And I worked hard all my life. It’s my prerogative to sleep all day if I want to.”
“Then don’t expect to be tired to sleep at night then.”
“Whatta you know?”
“This is pretty simple knowledge.”
“You think this is funny, you think this is a joke!”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Fine, you go to bed. Leave me here to suffer!”
“You did this to yourself.”
“Go, to, Hell!”
“I’m already there.”
It wasn’t a particularly trying day for Cenya. She wasn’t more tired than usual. She wasn’t mad. She was just done. Cenya was lying in bed, finally. Had just gotten herself in and comfortable when her mother started calling again with the moaning and the whining and the whimpering. If they had neighbors someone would have thought that Cenya was torturing the old lady. “Cenya! Cenya! Cenya I need you. Cenya! Cenyaaaaaaaaa!” Cenya just couldn’t take it. She had had enough.
Some versions of the story say Cenya took two knitting needles out of her drawer and drove them thru her eardrums. Another version of the story said she cut off her ears. Another version she cut off her ears and then drove the knitting needles thru her eardrums, another the other way around. One said she took hot candle wax and poured it into both ears and then took a scarf and wrapped it around her ears, over her head and under her chin. One version said she had done all of the above. And all of the above had crossed her mind more than a few times over the past two years. Lots of things had crossed Cenya’s mind over the past two years. She was in so much emotional distress that sometimes, more than she cared to admit, she thought about smothering the old woman and then going into the barn and hanging herself from one of the rafters, then both their pains would end. Cenya had hoped on more than one occasion, as of late on a daily basis, that the old woman would just die. That one day Cenya would wake up and her mother would be cold, still, and a bit stiff. Then Cenya would be free. She hoped a lightning bolt would come thru the window and strike the old woman dead. She hoped the roof would collapse and crush the old woman quickly. She even, oddly so, hoped that giant boulders would fall out of the ceiling and crush her mother – one for the head and upper body, one for the stomach and middle, and one for the legs. Cenya didn’t want these things all the time, just when she was tired of going around and around and around and around with her mother and the constant calling. Cenya had gotten to the point she did not want to hear anyone ever say her name again because the only time it seemed she heard it uttered was attached to something painful, and Cenya had had enough pain.
Cenya had prayed to their god for help. But none came. No ray of light. No voice. No divine agent. No dream. No signs. No nothing. Cenya’s prayers of late, after two years of pain, had changed. Outside, a ways from the house, “My god, I beseech you, please deliver from this place. Please take it from me. I never asked for this, nor do I want it. Take it all. I will start over with nothing, not even the clothes on my back, somewhere, anywhere else. She’s grinding me down. There’s not much left. There’s not much of me left. I feel so spent. Kill one of us, I don’t care which one. Kill us both. This can’t go on. It can’t. It has to end. I need it to end. There is no good left in this place. Please, I beg you, make it end. She’s just lingering, she’s not living. She’s just here. She just lies in bed all day. Why is she here? Why is she still here? She’s in distress and nothing will end it. There’s no good left. I’m in a hell and a prison, and I cannot escape.”
Cenya felt alone and as though there was no way out of this situation until either she or her mother died, and she wasn’t sure who would die first. Over the past few weeks as her mother had become more insistent throughout the night Cenya had gotten less and less sleep and it had taken its toll. Cenya tried to explain to her mother, pleaded with her mother, that at least one of them needed to sleep to get everything done, but her mother didn’t seem to care. She would just respond, “Well nobody told you to do everything.”
‘Bitch.’
Cenya got up out of her bed, “At least one of us should get some sleep so things can get done.” She went to her drawer with the knitting things and took out her shears and a roll of red, woolen yarn. She cut herself a length of yarn, set the shears down, looked off to her mother’s room where she could hear the woman now yelling for her, looked at the yarn, balled it up, and carefully stuffed it in her right ear. She took the shears up again, cut herself another short length of the red yarn, balled the yarn up, and carefully stuffed that in her left ear. Then Cenya was still and waited. She could only about half hear her mother’s cries for help. Cenya smiled a bit. She went back to her chest of drawers and pulled out a heavy, knitted, wool hat and put it on, making sure it covered her ears. She was still again and waited. She heard her mother a little less. Cenya went back to that drawer she pulled the hat out of and took out a heavy, woolen scarf and wrapped it around the top of her head, ears, and under her chin and back atop her head and tied it up. Cenya was still and waited. She could barely hear the old woman. A large smile grew across Cenya’s face. A smile she hadn’t smiled in a long time. She quickly got back under the covers and smiled with closed eyes, quickly drifting off to sleep.
The rays of morning shown thru her window, waking Cenya. She felt more rested than she had in a long time, so long she could not remember. Cenya was still for a moment and listened . . . nothing. She slowly peeled the scarf and hat off. Listened. Still nothing. She took the yarn out of her ears. Still nothing. That wasn’t so unusual, but Cenya was a bit surprised. “Did it finally happen?” Cenya walked to her mother’s bedroom door and knocked, “Mother? Mother?” Nothing. Cenya opened the door.
Her mother lie in the bed, quiet and still. Cenya, “Mother?” as she walked thru the doorway and stood at the foot of the bed.
“You were not here to help your mother.” Cenya turned to the right corner behind the door. On the chair sat a matronly, honey-haired woman dressed in dark brown.
“Who are you?”
“An agent of your god.”
“Now you come? It’s a bit late, don’t you think?”
“It is not what I think, but what our god thinks.”
“I asked our god for help for years and none came. Why are you here now?”
“It was your responsibility to take care of your mother when she could no longer take care of herself, just as she had taken care of you when you were young and could not take care of yourself.”
“I took care of her, and everything.”
“Not last night.”
“I needed to sleep and I was being driven mad.”
“You needed to be at her side. She was scared and alone. Your mother died calling out for you.”
“Was not our god with her, or you?”
“You were supposed to be with her. You shirked your responsibility.”
“Where were you and our god when we needed you?”
“A mortal’s life bears many burdens. How one bears those burdens determines how one will be judged.”
“I could bear those burdens no longer.”
“And you have been judged accordingly. As you could not be bothered to hear your mother cries for you, no one or thing will ever again hear your cries for help, or any other sound you make – not your voice, not your footfalls, not even the rustling of your clothes. You will be cursed to forever walk the mortal world this way so that you may appreciate the pain your selfish act caused the woman that bore you into this world and cared for you when you could not care for yourself.”
Cenya has walked the mortal world (and Demi Plane) silently now for centuries. She has suffered great and enumerable physical pains from many injuries and accidents, and foul violence that has been done to her. She has died many times and risen the next day, sometimes only to be killed or tortured to death, or die from exposure to the elements, or die from starvation or thirst, again that very day. She has witnessed many horrible accidents of others and atrocities done to others and never can anyone hear her pleas for those others or herself. Because she has no voice some think her stupid and treat her as such. Others have noticed that she makes no sound at all and fear she may be cursed, or wicked in some way, and thus drive her from them. Cenya’s curse has forced her thus to be alone, much of the time, but not all of the time. If Cenya’s god thought all this pain would make Cenya contrite and beg forgiveness that god was wrong. Cenya, whom at one time felt as though she was breaking down to nothing, has a will that has become stronger than steel. Soon after being, in her mind, unjustly punished, Cenya came to fully accept an idea that she had fleetingly thought during the hard times with her mother but never fully adopted out of fear – a god that does not answer one’s prayers when you need them answered most, when you are at your lowest, is not a god worth worshiping. And with that in mind Cenya has spent these painful centuries slowly piecing together a way to end her former god’s tenure in the heavens. Although without her voice, without a sound, Cenya has made many contacts and learned many things, such as how to hide from the very god that has cursed her. Perhaps Cenya yet will have the last laugh – even if it is a silent one.
