Across the emptiness in space, which housed the stars and the celestial bodies with their moons, another realm not known to humans existed. It was the dwelling for four beings who would meddle with human lives.
The eldest of them was known as “The old man.” He lived on the moon. He stood as tall as two rulers, one on top of the other. His thick grey beard cascaded the diameter of his moon. His narrow eyes made him look like squinting against the blinding light of the sun in the pitch-black cosmos.
In the beginning, he lived alone, enjoying the view of the Earth from his home—Yue. But as soon as the interstellar activities gave birth to him, one action led to the other.
As he was sitting on the surface of his home, holding his cane made of an unending spool of red string while caressing his long facial hair, asteroids collided and exploded silently—no matter how loud the flare-up there was, it was inaudible to humans’ sense of hearing.
The scent of brimstone and metallic gunpowder lingered for a while, following the blast. Moments later, three obscure smoke figures came into sight. It took several minutes for the outlines to take their ultimate forms. Then, three hags stretched their arms as if waking up from a deep slumber.
One of them was a lanky and pale-purple being. Her eyes were bulging out of the sockets—ready to fall out any moment. She was known as “The Allotter”. She had a rod that she would use to measure the thread of a human’s life, deciding how long one should live. She wore a casual black robe.
The next one was plumpy and orange like a pumpkin. Her hand was equipped with a spindle, one that she would use to weave the string measured by her sister; thus, she was known as “The Spinner.” She had an eye at the center of her forehead— the ancestor of Cyclops, her siblings would say. She had the same clothing style as the first one.
The last figure was the most decent of them, fully clad with the finest of silk that matched her charming and beguiling features. Her skin, though wrinkled like her sisters’, was radish white. She held a pair of scissors in her left hand. She was a cuddy wifter. She was known as “The Inevitable,” as sinister as Death. She was assigned to decide when to cut the life of a person.
“It’s about time, my lovely siblings,” The Old Man said. His eyes filled with vitality. He jumped on his tiny feet several times, like a baby eager for candy. His voice came out shrill and high-pitched.
The Allotter and The Spinner giggled.
“Ow, isn’t our brother a cutie?” the latter pinched the tiny man’s cheeks with her chubby little fingers. He stood just below her knees, making him easy to tease.
He slapped her hands off his face and grimaced, “I’m not a baby.” He paused, rubbed his temple with his free hand, “Speaking of which—”
“Babies!” exclaimed The Allotter. Her voice boomed, but enough for them to hear it, not to shake the people on Earth. “Oh! Oh! I’m excited. Who’s with me?”
Two hands rose on the vast space—one stout and one short—while the other paid no attention. Instead, she checked her scissors out and glared at her siblings, one at a time.
“Should I try this on your tongues?” she pronounced each word with an emphasis dangerously but sweetly manner. “Shouldn’t we wait for three days? We just came, but you’re all pumped up.” She floated with finesse, her nose high in the airless atmosphere. “Is that burnt steak I smell?”
The other three sniffed.
“Well, it’s always like this here,” The Old Man said.
“I said so. Didn’t you hear it? You just agreed with me.”
No one responded. Instead, they bit their tongues, not wanting to have a further argument with the youngest sibling.
‘She wouldn’t like it if we talk back.’
The two old ladies nodded at the same time, agreeing with each other’s voices in their heads while sharing a knowing look.
“Not talking with your mouths, but screaming in your heads, are you?” The Inevitable’s eyes ignited like burning coals. She moved to her siblings one by one, thawing them with a deadly stare. Her eyes were scorching hot, but the three were shivering.
“How many fates do we need to mess with this time?” she asked, fires subsided in her eyes. She gave The Old Man an icy glare.
“Couples of thousands.”
“That’s quite a lot to handle. Let’s rest for now. We’ll start on the third day, shall we?”
The others shuddered but made sure The Inevitable didn’t notice, although they knew she was cognizant of everything.
“What a brat! She must’ve forgotten I’m the eldest here,” The Old Man mumbled to himself.
“I heard that,” responded The Inevitable.
“I know. I’m just reminding you.”
“Are you all ready?” The Old Man asked, “It’s the third night.”
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” The Spinner replied, tapping her spindle on her hand.
“So, what do the Earth and humans look like?” The Allotter nudged her brother while spinning her rod like a baton.
“The Earth looks fine. The humans are fine,” he replied. “Some are pretty and handsome. Others are unsightly. Some are grotesque. Some are just average. But their baby forms are cute. So cute, you wouldn’t want to see them age.”
“Now brother, remind me why we need to do this,” The Inevitable butted in.
“Because we have to? Because it’s our fate?”
“Ironic. It’s hilarious that we are assigned to those Earthlings’ fate, but we have our own too.”
“Agreed.”
“Anyway, I’ve wasted some good saliva there. Let’s get this over with.”
All four descended from the sky while half of the Earth slept. They hovered from one house to another, searching for babies and toddlers, tying them to their destined partners, and pre-determining the life would they live while they breathe.
“So, this is Earth,” The Spinner’s voice as deep as a well echoed loud as if she kept a huge speaker on her bouncing belly.
The grounds, smooth with grass tickled her bare feet. She enjoyed it for a short while, closed her eyes, and breathed in the cool fresh air. The scent stayed in her lungs as she absorbed more Earthly smell: the rusty mineral-rich soil and rocks; the minty blend of various fragrant leaves; the sweet and juicy hint of fresh flowers in their full bloom; the pungent smell of trash bins ransacked by rummaging animals; the smell of ingested grassy manure from cattle; and the rancid, rotten everything.
She choked on the last three scents. “Ew! That’s awful! Let’s get to work!”
The siblings did things in order and in unison.
They began their mission at the house where they stood, where a newborn baby was sleeping on her side with an empty milk bottle. The Old Man started by holding his cane out, pulling some string, and tying one end to a baby girl’s left pinky.
“Aren’t you adorable?” He played with her. She responded with a smile while she slept. He pulled another string and knotted it to the baby girl’s right pinky, absent-mindedly. “I’m done,” he said, excited to go to the next house.
Hearing his signal, The Allotter took her rod and thread, measuring her desired length of the baby’s life. “I want her to live long. She’s cute.” She then handed the metric thread to The Spinner who spun the thread into one of her spindles.
“Amanda,” she uttered the infant’s name under her breath. As she did that, a name imprinted itself on the meandered spool. “Here, I got her name. Note that, I don’t want to make any error.”
When she was done, she gave it to The Inevitable for her to keep. She only had the power to cut the thread when the right time would come. Her decisions were no turning point. She would cut the thread of life whenever she wanted to, regardless of the allotment of thread spun on the spindle.
“Did you secure the Destiny string?” The Inevitable asked The Old Man. He only lifted a thumb in the air. “Let’s move to the next house.”
Up they went to search for another newborn baby, but there were none nearby. What they found instead were two-year-old boys several miles away from the first house. They were twins.
“Aren’t they lovely?” The Allotter exclaimed. With trembling hands, she pinched the cheeks of both—careful not to wake the babies up. Her eyes focused on the one with the dinosaur pajamas with twinkling eyes as she measured the thread for him. “Lenard,” she muttered. She then turned to the second one, smiling and measuring. “Lander,” she muttered again before handing the thread to The Spinner.
“So, where would you tie Amanda’s string, brother?” The Spinner asked, eyeing the babies as if saying it was a hard choice.
The Old Man did his thing and took his sister’s hint. But he was too occupied by the cuteness of the boys. His mind went off the task. He knotted two red strings to each of the twins’ smallest fingers. But as he was pulling the cord opposite the end tied to Lenard’s readying it for the next baby, his face went from lively to colorless.
“Oh, snap! It can’t be,” he gasped. It was only then that he realized his mistake.
“What have you done?” The Inevitable roared, glaring at the red thread. Judging by her brother’s anxious face and her being all-knowing, she knew that both ends of the twins’ strings were tied to the baby girl’s pinkies. “Is this your first time tying Destiny?”
I pulled myself away from the binoculars. I just wanted to see the stars during the moonless night, but my mind had seen something else.