There existed somewhere in time – because you can’t really escape time even if you had the Time-Turner itself – three sisters of unique nature. No, they were not the Fates or the Furies, not quite that complicated.
They were Hysteria, Witchery, and Madness.
They had a a happy childhood (or as happy as can be considering their nature and their namesake) under their parents, Reason and the East Wind. After they had grown up to their adulthood and went separate ways, every year they met to catch up on their lives and see how the others were doing.
Our story starts on one such meeting.
The three sisters were sitting on a hilltop, chattering away. They didn’t look sinister like the three witches, no, they looked rather ordinary three girls, in their dresses and hats, sitting down to gossip.
After some time, Hysteria said aloud, “Well, all of us have been pretty successful in our lives. I’m happy for us.” She beamed.
Madness frowned a little and said, “Yes, but I wonder sometimes….”
“What?” asked Hysteria
“I wonder, which of us is most powerful.”
Hysteria laughed, her laughter reaching the stars, “It would be me, I’m the oldest.”
Madness protested, “But I have driven people to their deaths! You have only made them laugh and cry. I think it should be me.”
Witchery interjected then, “Hey, let’s not fight. We are all powerful….”
Hysteria snorted, “Look who’s talking. It’s baby sister.”
Witchery’s eyes turned to flint as she stared her down, “Fine, then let’s have a contest. Whoever wins is the most powerful and the other two have to accept that.”
“Done!” said Madness excitedly, “What contest?”
“Very well.” said Hysteria, a smile still on her lips, “Let’s hear it.”
Witchery said, “Let us each take a centuries’ time. From anytime. In those years, whoever has influenced the most people, has taken over the minds and hearts of most people, wins. Only condition is, the years should be successive.”
The other two fell silent for a while and then Madness said, “Don’t be too hard on yourself dear. Among us three this would be the toughest for you.”
“And it is my choice. What, are you afraid M?” Witchery teased
“Of course not.” Madness bristled, “Let’s do it. Hissy?”
Hysteria spoke, “Yes alright. But we have to inform the other of which timeline we are choosing and then begin.”
“Done”
And it was set.
Hysteria, determined to prove she was the most powerful, chose the time of disease and sickness and war, when she could spread panic all over: she chose the time beginning with the Plague.
Madness, who was sure of her victory, was confident of winning whichever timeline she chose. She chose to root herself in the past, in the mind of a child born in some inconsequential part of the world, somewhere in the lapse of time.
“Choose well, sister, for it is hardest for you.”
The sisters had told Witchery, waiting to hear her choice. Witchery thought long and hard and finally came to a decision. On hearing her choice, the other two laughed manically, even more so than their names; they were sure she was doomed to come last.
Finally, they wished each other luck and their recipients unluck, and departed.
And so it began.
Hysteria roamed the world free and skipped along her way, head held high, passing by every street and corner, sending everyone in shaking splutter with her electric touch. People turned paranoid and hysteric and the Plague claimed more lives than it could ever have done alone. At the turn of the millenium, Hysteria looked back on her tally with a lopsided grin, happy with her work and pretty sure of her victory.
Madness worked stealthily, rooted in the minds of the children, waiting for the right moment when she could come out of the closet of their minds, some heartbreak, some unacceptable horror, some act which twisted the knob of her door, and she sprung out infiltrating the mind to its very seams until no one knew where she began and the mind ended. There was not a person in that decade who escaped her frenzied touch, because everyone had locked her inside in their very past. Parents and children, young and old, none were exempt. Some went on killing sprees, some scratched the walls, some curled up in a corner, some raved, but they all were locked up in their own minds. After a century, Madness clapped her hands in glee at the number she had touched for it was far greater than that of Hysteria.
And then it was Witchery’s turn. Well, we are all curious to know where she went, yes?
Witchery went and hid in a corner of the mind of a person, long time ago, and nudged around. The person felt stirrings of strange nature and a queer itch. Unable to be at peace, he sat down to write his itch away. And he wrote a poem. It felt so good, he wrote more and kept on writing.
His poetry came to be known far and wide and people were inspired and thrilled, Witchery went in search of another. She touched their minds, their deepest recesses and dreams until they moved to pick up a brush or a pen or a stone to mold to their brain. The artworks of these witchery-driven men touched lives of people known and unknown, even brought them to rebel through their pen. She nudged and poked in their depths until the boxes inside their mind opened up to ask “Why?”
Hundred years passed.
And to the surprise of Madness and Hysteria, people were still influenced and touched by those creations of the people of Witchery. Madmen and Hysterics ebbed and flowed, but these people never died. They lived on and touched lives throughout ages in cumulation, either by their creations or by their rebellions.
She had won.
And in this way, were artists born. Poets, painters, sculptors and inventors; because some witchery had sparked their brain and created a ripple-like effect in the universe.
Hysteria and Madness tried and captured a few of Witchery’s people for their own, but ultimately, Witchery’s influence went beyond a millenia, seeping into the very fabric of time. Some way or the other, through her touch or the works inspired by her touch, she touched the lives of every human being ever to have been born or will be born.
A few words, a whiff of music, some dash of colour. It all weaves magic. Witchery.
The very fact that this is being written and that you are reading this, proves that you and I are already under her spell.
This is the story of how rebels were born. Rebels of the mind.
Don’t be afraid, you are one too now.
Leave a comment