Antipatheia

Steel-gray, the morning sky, done with night’s temper tantrum, spent, resigned itself to quiet weeping. Joy, sapped of strength and spirit, lay lifeless on a disheveled bed, clothed in crimson. “Why are they still here?” Anger seethed, and gnashed his teeth, unable to look at his son and daughter. He tossed a bag of coins at the midwife’s feet as she swaddled the mewling twins, Angst and Anhedonia, in silence. “Take them to the Mount of Sorrows,” he growled.

The weary midwife nodded, squatting to scoop up and pocket her payment. The shuttered doors blew open as Anger’s sister, Grief, swept the house and hung the mourning curtains, blocking out all but the pale, guttering flame of a black candle. This was no place for newborns. The midwife put the twins into a basket and left before Anger could turn his attention on them. Grief and Anger could bury Joy without her help.

As the midwife climbed the Mount of Sorrows, the weight of the night began to fall from her shoulders, replaced by the enormous burden of the twins. A veil of mist gave way to dawn’s weak light. Hungry at last, the twins began to stir. Their cries, at first half-hearted, became more lusty as the morning wore on. With a sigh, the midwife shook her head and began to descend from the Mount of Sorrows. She took the babes into her own home, where she nursed them on goat’s milk, brought by her own sister, Comfort.