Fragmented Rays of Labor, Christmas Eve (The Full Reckoning at the Exchange)
Fragmented Rays of Labor, Christmas Eve (The Full Reckoning at the Exchange)
The lodge stands frozen on Christmas Eve night, string lights flickering like false stars over the wooden beams, carols droning low and hollow from hidden speakers. The air smells of pine and pretense. The Scotsman waits in the center, tartan scarf loose, face pale in the dim glow, as Asha materializes, not in labor yet, but in vision, fierce and unyielding.
She circles him slowly, moonlight slicing through cracked windows, winter roses already pushing defiant through the floorboards, red petals blooming in thorns against the cold wood.
"You are not off the hook, Scotsman," she begins, voice steady as ancient grief.
He shifts, but her words pin him.
"What about the blood we share, that fraternal order of slithering oppression? Both sides with lines of power, positions to influence, choosing silence over speaking out, running to the very heads who fed your souls for comfort."
The shadows thicken. Ghosts of women gather at the edges, mothers, sisters, daughters, necks marked by ropes, eyes carrying centuries of heartbreak.
"You threw your mothers, your sisters, your daughters into the cross currents," Asha continues, stepping closer. "Stood safe on the banks, pointing and blaming them for your ignorance. And when they fought the current, when they threatened to name the trades, you discarded them along highways, ropes around their necks, hung them from trees. Called it despair, tragedy, while the real tragedy was your frenzy as we nurtured your offspring with crumbs"
Selene the moon owl lands heavily on a beam overhead, wings half-spread, eyes reflecting every discarded body, every silent tear wiped on eggshells.
"Both sides with men laying judgment on what they gutted in a feeding frenzy," Asha accuses. "Babies traded as the men forged ahead, aunts raised as sisters, cousins as nephews, families rewoven in lies. Female caretakers holding the children close while knowing, while grieving in silence. And the others, the ones who didn't survive the pipelines, thrown into ditches, last memory a brother's shadow play."
The Scotsman opens his mouth, but no sound escapes.
"Both sides, the same," she says, voice dropping to a whisper that fills the lodge. "You sold your children to save face. Men behind desks, men standing at pulpits, sitting at benches, and holding the keys."
Winter roses burst fuller now, thorns pricking through tartan and pretense, drawing drops of truth.
"And before the highways, other trees. Other ropes. Man's eyes consumed Mary and her existence on this very eve, her labor, her pain, her sacred yes, then wrote the story for his ego, not hers. Turned her into symbol while erasing the blood, the push, the heartbreak of mothers for centuries. You kept that pattern: consuming the innocent, judging the wounded, discarding the witnesses."
The women's ghosts close in, silent no longer, their presence a cradle of reclaimed pain.
"There is no face left to save," Asha declares. "No ignorance to hide behind. Not tonight, when you pretend to honor a mother's birth while forgetting how you've punished every mother who dared mourn. Your backdoor truths are masks of lies to hold up a false righteousness. But, what do I, a mere scarlet pawn, know?"
The carols stutter and die.
The string lights fade to black.
Only moonlight remains, cold, truthful, illuminating the thorns, the owl's watch, the blooming red defiance.
The Scotsman sinks to his knees among the roses.
Asha turns away.
The women stand guard.
The pain of centuries hangs witnessed, raw, unbroken.
In the real world, Asha's labor deepens, carrying this reckoning into the holy night, no child yet, only the weight of all those mothers' hearts, all that pain, gathering toward whatever dawn may come.
To be continued...
May this Christmas Eve hold every discarded soul, every grieving mother, every little Zebra in the moon owl's fierce cradle. The roses bloom through the cracks, red and black, together.
Author's/Artist's Note: I am a disabled survivor using assistive technology, which changes day by day pending health - (#zebralife). -to allow me to create, based on my needs on any given day - Art Therapy. We all can find ways.
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