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He was clueless, that boy. He walked around, cutting every stalk of wheat he could, waiting until the last moment to eat, plucking at random things with his sharp stone and not knowing what to do with the product. It was painfully obvious that the boy had no idea what he was doing.

“Zubin, stop that,” they’d all say to the clueless boy.

“Sorry sir/ma’am,” he’d respond.

I wanted to teach him, and help him, and love him. He was always scorned for his misdeeds, yet he didn’t know they were wrong. He would stumble around the village, day after day, obviously new but not asking for help. He feared for his life, as do many newbies. But I didn’t care about his state, I loved him all the same.

“Zubin,” I began as I approached him, he was struggling to make stew.

“Yeah,” he asked as he cowered, preparing to be scorned for doing something he didn’t know wasn’t allowed.

“Will you marry me?” I asked him. He stood there for a long moment, probably in shock. I waited nervously for his response.

“Ew,” he proclaimed and ran away, leaving me more determined than before.

I went back to my work, and every time he passed by, I felt the same rush of butterflies I had since day one. Why didn’t he love me? I would give him the world. Why was I just “ew” to him? I didn’t know what to do. I would do anything to earn his love.

“Why don’t you love me, Zubin?” I asked in a teasing manner. He completely ignored me as he struggled to make stew, still on square one as he was the year I proposed to him, those many years ago. His hair had begun to recede, rendering him partially bald. His youth was fading fast, but I didn’t care. I loved his wrinkles as much as I loved his former young glory. He was beautiful to me, but I was hideous to him. And my age only made it worse.

I continued to follow him around until he spoke to me. “Get me food,” he demanded.

Why should I? A small voice in the back of my mind asked me. He’s been nothing but rude to me. He’s rejected my love. He doesn’t deserve food from you.

But a second voice convinced me otherwise. Even if he doesn’t love you, you can convince him your love isn’t a joke by giving him food, it said. And so you fed him corn as he continued to work absentmindedly.

“Okay,” he said after that. “I will marry you.”

“Yay!” I was filled with utmost glee. It had paid off. All my years of waiting in vain had given way to a mutual bond. I loved him so very much.

I ran off to get him some clothing as a wedding gift. I barely heard him mutter “still gross though...” but ignored it. I grabbed a sheep cloak that I had hidden behind a tree for him many years ago and delivered it to him. “Thanks,” he said as he pulled it on.

My hair grew grey and I realized that I hadn’t had a single child. We had married too late. The other lady in the village hadn’t much luck either, having had only one boy recently. She wasn’t too far behind me in years, and so I began to worry.

“We should have a town meeting,” my love proclaimed. “It will discuss the lack of kids.”

“Okay,” I began to say. I warned him of the other woman’s increasing age. He was worried too.

Then she appeared. She was young and beautiful, she was a vision. Her long, golden hair couldn’t compare to my sewer brown, uncontrollably curly afro. It was no wonder Zubin ran to her when she said she needed a man. I tried to stop him. I didn’t want to let him go. But I wanted him to be happy.

Yet he didn’t say anything as he stood in front of her. They just stared at one another, perhaps with love in their eyes, or perhaps not. I worked hard to ignore my heartbreak. It wasn’t fair. The other woman had gotten his love served to her on a platter, without having done anything. Did she love him as deeply as me? No, she couldn’t. It wasn’t possible to love Zubin more than I did.

Zubin asked me to help him make stew. I didn’t know whether he loved her back or not. I had been away, working, during their conversation. I agreed with a watery smile and helped him, step-by-step, create stew.

“We need a ritual,” the other woman’s son suggested. “We need to sacrifice someone to have a girl.”

I had nothing to lose. So I volunteered to be the sacrifice. We all gathered around the dwindling fire as the woman withdrew her knife from her backpack. Zubin stood around the fire with us, wearing the wolf hat and sheep skin I’d given him silently, waiting for me to be gone.

The woman crept slowly over to me, in almost a taunting manner. I prepared for my end. For a sharp pain in my abdomen, then nothing. But before the knife could plunge into my chest, it happened.

Menopause. The sacrifice would be for nought. The other woman’s blonde hair turned grey seconds before my demise. And she stuffed the knife back in her decaying backpack in exasperation. I was saved, but at what cost? The village certainly wasn’t.

It was just us. The other woman, her son, and Zubin.

“I don’t want to be sacrificed,” Zubin said defiantly. “I want to die naturally of old age.”

“I’ll follow you then,” I told him. “I will die with you so you aren’t lonely.” But that wasn’t the only reason. I began to say, “but also because I love you...”

But I couldn’t say it. For he said something first, something that dove a dagger through my heart.

“We were never married,” he told me angrily. “I don’t want to die with you. I never loved you.”

I had so many things to say to him. I wanted to let him know how broken I was that our whole marriage had been a lie. But I couldn’t muster the courage to yell at him. His aging face, after all, was the same face I’d fallen for all those years ago.

So all I could say was, “I’m ready to be sacrificed.”

But the other woman wouldn’t kill me. She ignored me as she baked pies for the future generations which wouldn’t exist. I pleaded her to end me. A life without Zubin wasn’t a life worth living. Zubin watched me from a distance, not caring if I’d be gone. Why? Why wouldn’t he care? All I’d done was love him. I’d dedicated my life to making him love me. But he returned none of it. Instead, he treated me loyalty and love for him as a joke... a joke that blew up in my face.

Then the woman’s son emerged. In his right hand, he held a skewer. But not just a skewer. The skewer was tied, with a flint tip and fletching. And in his left hand, he held a bow.

He told me he’d end my life, for his mother wouldn’t do it. He’d put me out of my misery. And then he and his mother made a deal, he’d take me away, and she’d take Zubin away.

“You’ll die together,” he reassured me when I expressed my uncertainties. “You’ll be happy, together, forever.”

The thought seemed too good to be true. So, selfishly, I agreed. I would let him take my life, and her take Zubin’s. We’d die together, clutching each other’s hands, and proclaiming our love to each other, right? He’d realize what he’d be losing, right?

Wrong. I knew it as soon as the arrow pierced my heart, and the knife pierced his.

“No!” He cried, in a panic. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to! Please, help me!”

“I’m sorry Zubin,” I said, overcome by guilt and grief. I wanted to heal him. But I was too weak to do so. I slumped to the ground with my dying words.

“Even if you don’t love me, I’ll never stop loving you, even in the afterlife,” I confessed with my dying breath. “I will always love you and will never forget you, even if you didn’t love me.”

Before I died, I could have sworn I heard a faint “I love you too” from his dying form. But maybe it was me. Because in the meantime, everything faded to black.

LILY: http://lineage.onehouronelife.com/serve … &id=628166
ZUBIN: http://lineage.onehouronelife.com/serve … &id=628168
LYLA (other woman): http://lineage.onehouronelife.com/serve … _id=628166
SON: http://lineage.onehouronelife.com/serve … _id=628166

oof

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