Looking Up by Lyra

Looking Up

She spends more time in the past than in the present, these days. It is not nostalgia; her mind simply works better when she turns it towards things past. It is a great effort to focus on the present: her bones are heavy, her joints are swollen, her eyesight has all but faded, and new things are hard to understand and harder to remember; but the past is vivid and alive before her mind's eye, and she does not mind spending most of the day reminiscing.

It is a day like any other. She woke as the hall filled with the business of morning and the smells of breakfast. She ate her gruel, spoon by spoon. Her hands shake and she only has her molars left, so she takes longer than any of the others, but it does not matter. She has time. She does not have to work in the fields, or forage in the woods. She does not have to wash clothing by the river, or to herd the animals, or to chop firewood. Before her fingers grew too stiff to turn a spindle, she used her time for spinning, but those days are past. Now, she helps Beleth's daughters to clean the dishes, and after that, she passes the time until the evening meal. It is a warm and dry day, so one of the children has led her to the bench outside the house, where she can feel the sun on her face and hear the noises of the animals and the voices of the people and the wind in the trees. Sometimes, the children tell her about their adventures, real or imaginary, it does not matter to her. Sometimes, she will tell them stories from the past. Sometimes, she will dispense wisdom to those who ask for it. Often, she is alone, and then she follows the paths of memory inward and backward.

She remembers a conversation she once had. She was told that death was a mercy, sparing Men the endless burden of memory placed upon the Eldar. Now, as her body fails and the foreshadowing of death shrouds her vision in a dark fog, Andreth feels that she too has been reduced to memory. But she does not mind. The memories are not unpleasant. The hurts of the past have, for the most part, ceased to sting. There were good times, and they are good to remember. Even the bad times are gilded now by the fact that at least she was young and strong then, or by the knowledge that she survived them and that they are of the past, not the present. She can look back at the many episodes that make up her life and smile at youthful follies, applaud herself for making good decisions, imagine what could have been if things had been otherwise than they were. She can now think of solutions to problems that stumped her when she was younger, and follow the might-have-beens to their happy or unhappy ends.

That is why young people still come to ask for her advice: she may forget their names half-way through the conversation, but she picks up on details that remind her of her own experiences, and based on them, she can fathom whether they should do as she did then, or do as she wishes she would have done. They keep on coming and they keep on asking, paying her in gifts and services, so she assumes that they are happy enough with her counsel. She is happy enough, living in memory. Sometimes, when she thinks back on love lost and wisdom won, she wonders whether the memory of the Eldar works otherwise – forcing them to forever dwell on the bad, perhaps, or to forever regret what is lost; making it impossible to rejoice that the present is different from the past – or whether the lord Finrod was speaking, once more, of things that he did not understand.

She still thinks that she and Aegnor should have wedded. The fates of their peoples are one thing, and personal fate is another. Aegnor has been dead for many years now, and would not have seen her strength fail, even if he had not run away. They could have wedded, and she would have born him children and they would have given her grandchildren. He would still have gone into battle, and there he still would have been slain, but she would have had a family of her own. Instead, she lives with her brother's granddaughter and her folk. They are kindly people, but it is not the same thing. It was her fate to grow old among Men, and his fate to die young. They could have shared each others' lives for a while. There was no point in wasting good years in anticipation of bad years that, for Aegnor, never came. Fate does not care for our plans, and our best intentions cannot change it, Andreth thinks, and this is what she keeps telling the people who seek her counsel. Do not believe that you can make plans for everything. Life is forever uncertain, and fate is inexorable: you cannot provide for every chance and hardship of the world. You cannot avoid taking risks. Being alive is always a risk. Those who hope for the best are disappointed no more frequently than those who fear the worst. This is what Andreth the Wise says to the lovers and farmers, builders and warriors who ask her for advice.

She wishes she could say it to Aegnor. If Finrod was right, if anything that he said was true, then they may meet again when everything has come full turn. She will tell him then, Andreth has decided. She will tell him that it was stupid to run away from happiness out of fear that it would end. Things always end. Or maybe they no longer will, in that world after this world. Either way, all you can do is try to make the best of what you've got. If she will be the lady, and he the guest, then she will tell him that the differences matter naught. In the secrecy of her mind, she envisions their meeting, imagining a world in which life lasts forever, in which her body will never grow old and decay, in which there are no battles where people are slain. She does not know whether it is true, whether it ever will be true. She no longer cares. It is a pleasant idea, and that is enough.

Andreth knows that the end is coming. It will happen today, or tomorrow, or some other day; but it will never be the right day. She wants to cling to her aching bones. She does not want to discard her body, leaving it to be burned, the ashes enshrined and venerated but bereft of life. But if something good lies beyond the gate of death, then she can still pass it with courage. She can quieten her fears and look up to whatever lies ahead. She can sleep however long she must, if at some point she may awaken to a new world in which all wrongs are redressed. In the approaching darkness of death, it is a spark of hope, and that is the name she has chosen for the imaginary children that she dreams of having: a boy named Estel, a girl named Amdir.

Andreth almost thinks she can hear them, cheering and calling out as they chase each other through the fields and towards the house. But no; it is Beleth's children, returning for supper. There are the voices of grown-ups, too, bidding her a good evening. Wafts of sweat and dirt and smoke drift past as they walk through the courtyard. She can hear the splashing of water as they clean themselves by the well. The sun no longer warms her skin, and the birdsong has grown more quiet. She can smell the hearty smell of pottage reheating. Soon, somebody will take her hand and lead her back into the hall.

She remembers the afternoons of her childhood, when their work was done and she and the other children would roam the fields and woods to play. She remembers how quick and nimble her feet used to be, how her heart beat strong inside her chest as she climbed on trees and jumped off rocks and waded through the river. She remembers her father returning from a day's hunt, his bow unstrung, a deer carcass slung over his shoulder, grinning at their exuberant games and telling them not to miss supper. The memory is so intense that she sees the sunlight playing in the high trees and hears his voice in her ears, Andreth, child, it is time to come home!
She knows that it is no more than a memory, but it feels so real that she calls out in reply, „Yes, Father! I am coming!“

And the day ends.