Storytelling Week 3: Hagar's Plight

In the desert of Beer-Sheba, wonders a woman torn from the comfort of her tent out of jealous strife and sent into infertile lands with little but an old wine-skin and stale bread as compensation. Poor woe-begone Hagar, left to traverse the desolate sands with her young child clinging to the hems of her tattered skirts. Barley a day had passed before the sun had alight upon her skin, searing her to the bones, branding her, no longer as a woman but a waif. The sand tore into her, seeping into to the blisters and cracks in her flesh, chafing what little skin was spared from the sun, and making her all the more miserable for it. The wind stole the breath from her chest as it gabbed the sand to make punishing whips across her body. Her cloak long given to the child for its protection from the punishing element, forsaking her own in the process.

What despair she felt as the last drop fell from the wine-skin, it was as if the gods themselves had poured all their lamentations into her body. Agonizing, all-consuming, such a soul wrenching desolation. The desperate crystalline understanding that the inevitable was upon her was like searing hell-fire upon her soul. She had no tears give, all the water in her had left long before that earth shattering moment, but the agony was wrote plain across her face. Desperately, she plucked the child from the sands, frightened that he would turn into a mirage and be lost to her forever. Already, the child was but a memory of his former self, now wisp of a boy, barely clinging to the desperate call of all men, to live. It was as if he was fading before her very eyes, like he was being ground into dust by the torrid desert winds.

But wretched Hagar struggled onwards, desperate for some glimmer of hope. Over dunes of forsaken sands, where not even the bravest of caravans traverse. Across the sea of burning rocks she wondered. She saw no beauty there. Not in the ember lit sunset upon the sands. To her, it was a sea of promised blood, a reminder of the trickling blood from her sores. Nor did she the exquisite star captured sea of ice reflecting the stars and moon in the night. The night only held the promise of inescapable sleep to her. Then she stumbled across a mockery of an oasis, the promise of water was shown in the shrubbery, but not a drop was in the rocks around her feet. Suddenly, she shattered, all hope left her, snatched away by the forlorn sight before her. There, she decided the child would die, at least some shade could cover his fevered head. She, herself, would travel onwards, grasping a thin stand of possibility that she could live on, and the child through her.

As she turned away from that shadow of a child, laid under a palm tree, she felt an even greater agony then before. Her whole self was tearing itself apart, trying to wrench itself from her body. All her previous woes where but a nick in her finger compared to this new anguish. Still, she continued to depart holding her agony within her beaten body, but as she took her next step her foot went into the earth. Pushing past the crust of the world to its depths. As she lifted her foot, she heard the sound of water rushing underneath the craggy surface from the cavity. Desperately she seized a nearby stone and brought it down upon the ground, fracturing it and revealing the stream hidden beneath its facade. To her this was more than water, it was life. It was more valuable then ambrosia, then any precious gem. It was the promise of life, of the future, for joyful Hagar now had the blood of the world in her hands.

Wadi Shab Oasis in Oman
Wikimedia Commons

Authors Note- I took inspiration from the story of Hagar in the Bible. There she is a slave girl, who got pregnant on behalf of Sara, Abraham’s wife. But then Sara got jealous of Hagar and Ishmael, the child, and asked Abraham to send her away. Abraham did so, giving Hagar only water and bread for her journey. Hagar then wondered the dessert before giving up. She did indeed set Ishmael under some brush to die as she wondered off, but in that story God interfered and showed her water. Hagar is often overlooked in the bible, she is almost shunted aside in preference of Sara and Isaac. Even in other traditions the focus is more on Ishmael then Hagar. I really wanted to write about how strong Hagar was despite of her miserable circumstances, to demonstrate just how much she suffered and overcame. She is probably one of the most powerful women in the bible, because there was no man for her to rely on, she did it by herself. When I was writing this I listened to Fever Ray’s “Keep the Street Empty for Me” for inspiration on how Hagar must have felt, wondering all alone in the desert and to help set the general atmosphere for the story.

Bibliography-- Kings James Bible- Specifics Compiled by Laura Gibbs, Online Source