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bardiphoukaPrompt:A bag of root vegetables
Written for:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
brigits_flame
Word Count 567
genre:history
The sack is taken out daily during the season, the burlap an oddly commonplace shroud for something so special. It is used to collect food for the table, barter for ale and a bit of a jig listened to, even turned to coin. It has provided the fabric for confirmation dresses and a second best suit for burial.
But now the bag is brought back in as it was taken out-empty. As is the larder and the purse and the stomachs of all that live there, and their neighbours as well. The small patches of land that were meant for tomorrows are just muddy, black rot. The coarse limpness resembles the dreams and hopes of the people in the valley.
It is said there is relief available, and that thing, having been spoken, runs across the valley and the cliffs. Families and friends gather at Louisburg, only to be told that they need to present themselves tomorrow at Delphi Lodge on the other side of Doolough Pass.
12 miles is an odd thing. You would not think it much. A lover will walk it on a pleasant spring evening for a kiss. The Greeks ran it and more for news under the Aegean sun. There are some who just run it for the sheer pleasure of the movement, muscles tightening and relaxing, oxygen filling the body and draining it again and again.
12 miles, on the other hand, can be an angry thing for others. When you have had little or naught to eat for weeks and your legs are shorter than Liam's calves. Or when your hair has grown as white as the ground next to the path and you have grown used to doing your traveling in dreams and memories. Or if your legs have grown heavy with having to carry you and the new life that stirs in demand, regardless of miles needed because of empty burlap bags. For these people and more, 12 miles can stretch longer than a nightmare, and its ending as unlikely as a mirage. And in the winter? There is no spring love or laugh when ice laces the kiss of the wind.
Not all made it from Louisburg, although how many fell is still unsure. And when they got to Delphi Lodge, the Board of Guardians that determined relief was having lunch and could not be disturbed. Could the 500 people outside the door hear the claret being poured? Could they remember that the smell that wafted from the building was beef?
Finally the Board finished their meal, went out, and told the gathered people to go back to Louisburg. No explanation, no answers to their questions. Just to go home.
On the way back the weather turned to gale and hail. Some fell along the pass, some were swept in the river, and others were swept by the storm-force winds from cliff to lake. How many? Nobody knew, nor would they ever find out. For the Receiving Officer at Louisburg sent out crews to bury the dead where they fell. And where there were too many to do that with convenience they were buried in shallow, mass graves.
The cattle, meanwhile, boarded the ships for England. And an empty bag flaps in the wind of an empty cottage by a field gone black and bitter as hearts that could not make the 12 miles there or back.
a/n The Doolough Tragedy was just one incident in the Great Hunger. But they deserve to be remembered none the less.
Written for:
brigits_flameWord Count 567
genre:history
The sack is taken out daily during the season, the burlap an oddly commonplace shroud for something so special. It is used to collect food for the table, barter for ale and a bit of a jig listened to, even turned to coin. It has provided the fabric for confirmation dresses and a second best suit for burial.
But now the bag is brought back in as it was taken out-empty. As is the larder and the purse and the stomachs of all that live there, and their neighbours as well. The small patches of land that were meant for tomorrows are just muddy, black rot. The coarse limpness resembles the dreams and hopes of the people in the valley.
It is said there is relief available, and that thing, having been spoken, runs across the valley and the cliffs. Families and friends gather at Louisburg, only to be told that they need to present themselves tomorrow at Delphi Lodge on the other side of Doolough Pass.
12 miles is an odd thing. You would not think it much. A lover will walk it on a pleasant spring evening for a kiss. The Greeks ran it and more for news under the Aegean sun. There are some who just run it for the sheer pleasure of the movement, muscles tightening and relaxing, oxygen filling the body and draining it again and again.
12 miles, on the other hand, can be an angry thing for others. When you have had little or naught to eat for weeks and your legs are shorter than Liam's calves. Or when your hair has grown as white as the ground next to the path and you have grown used to doing your traveling in dreams and memories. Or if your legs have grown heavy with having to carry you and the new life that stirs in demand, regardless of miles needed because of empty burlap bags. For these people and more, 12 miles can stretch longer than a nightmare, and its ending as unlikely as a mirage. And in the winter? There is no spring love or laugh when ice laces the kiss of the wind.
Not all made it from Louisburg, although how many fell is still unsure. And when they got to Delphi Lodge, the Board of Guardians that determined relief was having lunch and could not be disturbed. Could the 500 people outside the door hear the claret being poured? Could they remember that the smell that wafted from the building was beef?
Finally the Board finished their meal, went out, and told the gathered people to go back to Louisburg. No explanation, no answers to their questions. Just to go home.
On the way back the weather turned to gale and hail. Some fell along the pass, some were swept in the river, and others were swept by the storm-force winds from cliff to lake. How many? Nobody knew, nor would they ever find out. For the Receiving Officer at Louisburg sent out crews to bury the dead where they fell. And where there were too many to do that with convenience they were buried in shallow, mass graves.
The cattle, meanwhile, boarded the ships for England. And an empty bag flaps in the wind of an empty cottage by a field gone black and bitter as hearts that could not make the 12 miles there or back.
a/n The Doolough Tragedy was just one incident in the Great Hunger. But they deserve to be remembered none the less.
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Date: 2012-05-07 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 12:35 am (UTC)