insomnia [✔]

scene. vi

Madeleine was sitting on a small stool carved from the trunk of a small tree. The foliage of the Flame Tree protected her from the sun, while she nibbled from time to time, a small piece of fritter with cassava flour and plantain bananas, all obviously seasoned with spices. The fritters were stacked in a basket of dried, woven creepers, the bottom of which had been lined with banana leaves. The young woman listened to the story of her less ordinary host. The gray-haired woman now had a name: Maya.

And it was the story of her own youth that Maya told Madeleine. Moons ago, the village of Maya lived peacefully on the mountainside for generations. People prospered by the good of the exchange of good practices, a service or advice for tools or simply to eat and vice versa. Maya was then an alert, curious and friendly young girl, who immediately conveyed good humor. She lived with her parents and her grandmother. She also had little brothers who she loved to prank.

In addition, Maya used to go away from the village, alone because her grandmother, learned, often asked her to recover this or that flower or this or that root, being unable to move herself because of her old bones (the age of the grandmother was around 110). One day just like the others, when the young Maya was venturing far from her house, she saw, while she was climbing on a tree, armed men. Apart from the color of their skin, they looked nothing like the men of his village. They seemed, moreover, dressed to conduct a hostile exchange, armed with clubs, knives and spears.

Maya took fright and remained petrified in front of this vision. Since her early childhood, she had never experienced a time of war, unlike her grandmother, perhaps. She didn't even think of hiding, totally paralyzed between the branches. Two warriors eventually find her and, amused by her dazed state, attempt to rape her. Fortunately, other of their compatriots surprised them and informed their kind of general, who having recognized Maya's necklaces which designated her as a "scholarly" apprentice (or shaman, depending on the culture) ordered that she be released without being told. the slightest wrong, at the risk of being cursed.

The two culprits were severely punished, and Maya, still in shock, returned to the village without worrying about the others who followed her more faithfully than dogs. Dissolution was also part of the procession because, strong in their effect of surprise, the enemies did not take long to ravage this village of pacifists. Few people were spared, except a few women and children destined to be prisoners, and perhaps later, slaves. Maya was forcibly taken away, as she cried over the dead bodies of her parents. They deported her to a village where she knew no one, there she was a stranger, a vanquished. However, the general asked his boss for permission to marry this weak, depressed girl. And he got it.

So he applied himself to taking care of his young wife as best he could, who never smiled and probably had no affection for him. Despite that, he didn't hold it against her, took her for walks, gave her presents, cuddled her thinking he could console her like this, but all these efforts came to nothing. If depression was an unknown disease at the time, Maya was no less affected. She no longer had a taste for anything and had tried several times to end her life.

Her husband had also prevented her on several occasions from throwing waterfalls. Each time, when she stood at the very top, he spoke softly to her, hugged her tightly and led her home. The years went on like this. Until one day in spring, when the general returned from a military campaign, he dreamed of a bag full of leaves, roots and flowers picked up during his expedition, because they had reminded him of his wife. He showed them with childlike enthusiasm to Maya and the girl reacted. Her eyes widened: she was feeling and remembering.

These plants, she knew most of them. These roots would allow him to make the remedies that his grandmother had taught him. The general watched happily, the effect his finds had on this wife. Maya had indeed regained color and was now invested with new energy. She was enjoying life again. She got busy and her husband was keen to provide her with everything she needed to work.

In the following days, Maya, with her husband's approval, set out to leave the village in search of medicinal plants. And the general, passionate about his wife in whom he had full confidence, was not afraid that she would run away and never come back. She always came back and each time, he was grateful to her. Because, even if Maya was not in love with the general, she had all developed a form of loyalty towards him. A bond of trust was gradually established between them, to such an extent that the general, sure of his wife's talents, recommended her as successor to their late doctor, he did not fail to argue that a village without healer was nothing, even with a powerful leader.

And as if his words were prophetic, the following year there was an epidemic. The dead numbered in the hundreds. So Maya was allowed to heal. She looked for various remedies, and each time, these prolonged the reprieve of the patients, without however curing them since they ended up not dying. This illness consisted of a delirious fever, which offered no respite to the patient, day or night. Vomiting was also one of the symptoms to be deplored.

Maya searched tirelessly, until illness knocked on the door of her own home and overtook her and her husband. The young woman then isolated herself in a cave in the coolness and humidity seemed to annihilate the grip of the fever. She therefore lodged there, the time to create a new remedy. And she succeeded. The mixture had given a curious powder of purple color, like the wings of a butterfly, and like the twilight. Since there weren't many, she hurried to the village to bring some to as many people as possible, including the general.

All the patients reacted in the same way: dilated pupils, purple irises, an illusion of being calm. Unfortunately, failing to heal, they died peacefully. Maya didn't want to believe her cure had failed and cried, for the first time in years. Her dying husband tried one last time to reassure her. He kissed her on the forehead, and passed away with a sigh: "Don't hate me"

The population of the village continued to fall until it reached the figure of one person. Maya, wandered dazed in a village now ghosts. In her bewilderment, she set fire to the village and took refuge in her cave. There, she ingested as much of the remedy as possible, hoping to pass away, too. She no longer had anyone in the world, and knew that even if she returned to her native village, she would only find ruins.

So she lay down, convinced that she wouldn't wake up the next day. But, the large quantity of remedy that she had absorbed, proceeded to a mutation of a gene that she had inherited from her grandmother. When she woke up, a different sun had risen, because she was different. She didn't want to die anymore, and found the strength to move on.

A new village was built to the east of the position of the ruins of the old one. Maya thus discovered new people, and made new choices. She fell in love with a kind and caring man. They promised to stay together and then they did. Maya became a woman respected for her knowledge and clairvoyance, but she had another secret: she could read minds, and help people fall asleep by curing insomnia desease. These skills were repeated in some of her descendants over the centuries until Madeleine in turn benefited from them. Such was the story.