Three Sisters

[Eva Libre]

Three Sisters
by  David Sparenberg
2019-05-05 08:46:25

Once there was a country couple. They had one cow, no sons, but three daughters. The girls were a bit of a blessings to their parents, while yet a bit more of a curse.

Throughout the county it was talked openly that one of the sisters had the shadow of the banshee on her face. Another was as plain as plain could be; enough so that the family cow could not envy her any more than the curlew with its nest in the eaves of the weather-beaten cowshed out against the house. The third of the girls was peculiar.

Here are the names of the siblings and you can understand how and why each had the name that she did. One of the sisters was named One Eye, another Two Eyes and the other member of the trio Three Eyes.

I will tell you now how these children came into the world, although not in the order of their coming, for One Eye was the youngest, Three Eyes the eldest and Two Eyes, who was closest to being humanly normal, was the sister in between.

The night before One Eye was conceived the country wife dreamed of a hulking giant possessed of but a single eye, set like a dark wheel in the middle of his single browed forehead. The big man demanded that the mother open wide her lauder and feed him until he shouted “Enough!” And the giant’s favorite eating was roses.

The following evening One Eye was conceived.

The night before the conception of Three Eyes the wife dreamed of a hot man covered with ashes tumbling down through the cottage chimney. The mother was convinced that the hot man was a sort of angel, but no doubt a fallen one. His wings were singed off and the fiery fellow was possessed of three burning eyes red as coals, flickering when he blinked, and hissing should he shed a tear.

The following evening Three Eyes was conceived. From the day the girl entered the world never once did any two of her odd numbered eyes work it out to look in the same direction.

The night before Two Eyes was conceived the misses did not dream at all. When the middle sister was born, the village folk agreed she was normal enough to pass for any man’s daughter. As Two Eyes grew and took to working in the fields she was nicknamed “Functional.” The calling was accurate but unkind.

Now while all three sisters were buxom country maidens only one was beautiful, and this was peculiar. For the Beauty of the trio was One Eye, who was youngest and possessed of a blemish, if it was a blemish and not a beauty mark after all. So otherwise perfect was this daughter’s beauty that only a poet might approach it with a gifted tongue. All others, seeing her in the doorway, in a village shop or along the crooked country roads, were simply rapt.

One Eye had a cyclopean orb, like a bright turning wheel of many hues, set in the middle of her fair forehead. Over the eye was a single, soft brow resembling a cloud and of all the colors of a rainbow.

Life surely is strange. But never so strange that anyone you meet in passing should be treated as a stranger. Isn’t it the working of the soul to be curious and through warmth to render curiosity familiar? Nor should any be judged so utterly plain as to be merely functional. Every mother’s child of us has something at odds with the world. Yet no one born of woman is without an aspect of beauty. That’s the truth!

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