Crone Killer

Yesterday I did something new - and scary, which was very on theme. I went to my college's creative writing club. The girl who invited me warned that October was devoted to spooky writing, and I was incredibly sure that was not a genre for me, but went anyway. As I thought about it throughout the day, I kept coming back to the scariest thing I could imagine: waking up as a teenager again.

Not because my teenager years were terrible, though... yeah, but because I cannot imagine trading the wisdom, perspective, and freedom I've gained through living for the body I inhabited at seventeen.

Our club assignment was to create something out of clay and then write a story about it. Folklore. A fable. I made a snake. Primarily because the clay was tough and rolling it out was easier than shaping it into other forms. And from that little clay serpent emerged the Crone Killer.

What begin as a playful writing exercise became something of social commentary on our obsession with youth and the ways we are continually distracted from the deeper experience of living. We spend so much time trying to preserve what we were that we often miss the beauty of who we are becoming. And I don't live outside of this narrative.

The serpent in the story doesn't sell a lie. His fountain actually works. The wrinkles disappear. The gray hair returns to the former color. But the effects fade, and women must return again and again.

Sound familiar?

The horror isn't in wanting to look beautiful or enjoying the rituals that help us feel good in our bodies. It's in a society that has taught us to fear the evidence of living - and in the possibility that our endless pursuit of restoration distracts us from incredible transformation.

And I suppose the most frightening part is that the serpent doesn't have to keep convincing us. Eventually, we do his work for him.

So here is my little spooky story, born from a lump of clay and a question that lingers - What happens to a society that becomes so obsessed with preserving youth that it forgets the value of growing wise?

The Crone Killer

The Serpent of Youth

In a society that circles, repeating its mistakes over and over - new conflicts, new wars, new problems, yet rarely any new solutions - there lives a snake. He was once known as the Serpent of Youth, but now is known only as the Crone Killer.

The Crone Killer is a talking snake who possesses the peculiar ability to convince people to consume something. What is it with these talking snakes? But unlike that other serpent of folklore, who supposedly convinced a woman to eat from a tree of knowledge, this serpent persuades women to drink from the Fountain of Youth.

He is smooth, slimy, slippery as oil - the used-car salesman of the forest. He winds through women's hair, gently pointing out the grays. He slithers along their arms, drawing attention to the softness of their skin. He studies their faces, noticing the fine lines left by years of laughter, worry, and wonder.

He never calls these things ugly. That would be too obvious. Instead, he sighs sympathetically.

"Such a shame," he wispers tenderly. "You were once so beautiful."

He tells them how much more they could be. How much better they could look. How easily they could return to the glory of their youth. And always, just beyond the trees, the fountain waits.

The women drink readily. Some take only a sip, hoping to soften a few lines. Others drink deeply, desperate to recover the bodies they once inhabited. A few return every morning, terrified that yesterday's sip might be wearing off.

The serpent never tells them how much to drink. He simply ensures they are never quite satisfied. And so the women spend their days studying their reflections, searching for imperfections, comparing themselves to the women who have drunk more and those who have drunk less.

They become experts in the appearance of living while growing increasingly unfamiliar with life itself. But the serpent's true accomplishment is not the preservation of youth. It is the prevention of the crone.

Long ago, before the fountain became the center of the village, the crones held an unusual place in society. They were not always pleasant women. Some were impatient. Some were stubborn. Some had terrible memories and even worse tempers. They argued with one another and occasionally gave dreadful advice.

But they had lived.

They remembered the wars fought long before the current wars. They recognized promises that had been made before, dressed in different language and delivered by different mouths. They had watched generations mistake ambition for purpose, accumulation for abundance, and obedience for peace.

They knew a beautiful thing was not necessarily a good thing, that a frightening thing was not necessarily a dangerous thing, and that a familiar thing was not necessarily a true thing. Most importantly, they had learned to ask questions that made other people uncomfortable. And that was terribly inconvenient.

The serpent discovered that a woman preoccupied with her reflection rarely questioned the world reflected behind her. A woman afraid of losing her beauty could be persuaded to spend her time preserving it. A woman convinced that her greatest value lay in what others saw had little reason to investigate what she herself could see. And a society filled with such women had fewer voices reminding it of what it had already learned.

Of course, the serpent did not accomplish this alone. The village quickly discovered the advantages of the fountain. Merchants began selling polished mirrors, special drinking vessels, and elaborate instructions for obtaining the greatest benefit from the water. Artists painted youthful faces, poets praised unblemished skin. Physicians developed intricate methods of measuring the distance between a woman and her former beauty.

The village council even established an annual Festival of Renewal, celebrating the extraordinary good fortune of living in a place where nobody had to look old. In the early years, the serpent attended as an honored guest but in time he didn't bother. His work was being done for him.

Mothers brought their daughters to the fountain before the serpent had a chance to speak to them. Young girls learned to study their reflections before they had accumulated enough years to recognize themselves.

Women complimented one another on how little they had changed. "Why, you haven't aged a day!" was considered the highest praise. To tell a woman she looked wise would have been a peculiar and stinging insult.

And the crones? There were fewer and fewer of them. Not because women had stopped living long enough to become old, but because they had become so occupied with resisting the evidence of their years that they rarely paused to consider what those years contained.

Some grew old while insisting they were still young. Others grew bitter at the passing of time, treating each birthday as another small defeat. And some, having spent their entire lives gazing into the fountain, could no longer remember what they once hoped to find beyond it.

Meanwhile, the village continued to circle.

Each generation announced that it had discovered a new way to solve the problems of the last. New leaders rose with familiar promises. New wars began with familiar justifications. New fortunes were made, new enemies identified, new solutions celebrated. And when those solutions failed, the villagers were astonished.

How could this have happened? Haven't they learned?

There were records, of course. Libraries filled with accounts of previous mistakes. Monuments dedicated to those who had fought, those who had suffered. Songs about lessons that must never be forgotten.

But remembering an event and possessing the wisdom to recognize its return are not quite the same thing. The village had become very good at preserving history. It had become considerably less skilled at learning from it.

Occasionally, someone suggested that the fountain might be part of the problem. Such suggestions were generally met with confusion. Afterall, the fountain was a gift. It brought happiness. It created prosperity. It offered women choices their ancestors could scarcely have imagined. Besides, nobody was forced to drink.

And this was true. The serpent had never dragged a single woman to the water. He had only helped create a world in which refusing to drink seemed foolish. By then, the merchants depended on the fountain. The artists depended on the fountain. The physicians, the council, and even the women who had grown wealthy teaching other women how to drink depended on the fountain.

The serpent's success had rendered him unnecessary. He could disappear into the forest for months, and the village would continue his work without interuption. Sometimes he wondered whether the villagers remembered him at all. Sometimes he wondered whether they had ever needed him. But these were passing thoughts and the serpent was not interested in philosophy. He was a business man. And business was very good.

The village continued to grow. Its buildings rose higher, its mirrors became clearer, and its methods of preserving youth grew increasingly sophisticated. Each generation believed itself more advanced than the last. And each generation returned to the same conflicts, the same fears, the same mistakes.

Around and around the village went.

Beyond the trees, the fountain continued to flow. No one could remember who had built it. No one thought to ask what fed its waters.

And no one noticed that the serpent had grown very, very old.