“There is not enough room,” the people were crying. “There is not enough room.” It was true. The plants of the plain grew so high and thick and close that no hook or knife was able to clear a path through them. Thick hedges of weed and bramble threatened to choke the trees that towered over them and locked them in an eternal shade of leaves. Food was scarce for there were few places to grow it. But that was only a part of the problem. A far greater threat hung over the people. Death had never yet visited the world. So everything lived and multiplied, growing bigger and bigger, never growing old, threatening to crush the earth itself under the weight of all that teeming life.
The cries of the people grew louder and louder. “There’s not enough room. We need more room,” they pleaded. High on her mountain-top, Kali, the goddess of death, sensed the cries of the people and stirred in her sleep. The pleading was insistent and demanded a response. It wakened Kali, angered that she had been disturbed. She rushed from her bed, throwing a robe around her shoulders, and flung open the bedroom window. The sight that met her eyes softened even her hard heart and soothed away her anger. Piled below her were crowds of people, their arms a forest reaching out to the sky. They were hemmed in by a thick avenue of trees, so tall that they blotted out the sky. Birds filled their branches, singing shrilly. Animals of every kind threaded their way warily through the throng. The stench of sweat and the shrill, panicky pleading were everywhere.
Kali gazed at the misery, pondering what to do. Then she turned from the window and called urgently for her servant Time. “The conditions below must not continue for a day longer. Bring me my cloak,” she ordered. “Then harness the horses and hitch up the chariot. You and I are going on a long journey.”
So Kali wrapped herself in the long, red garment, bright as the colour of blood, and round her neck she fastened the symbol of her power, a necklace of sightless skulls. Then with long fingers she eased the key of her treasure chest into its lock and, when the lid was opened, pulled parcel after parcel from its dark interior until the whole of the room, from floor to ceiling, was piled high with them, each gleaming in the gold wrapping that covered them. When Time brought the chariot to the door, Kali ordered that he fill it with her gifts. All the time, her seven black stallions pawed the ground, nervous, excited, eager to away. At last, all was ready and Kali mounted the chariot where Time was waiting. He handed her the reins. A single crack of the whip and the horses raced across the face of the sky, carrying them ever downwards to the earth and all its misery. There was no spot that missed the gaze of Kali. She visited every house, every town and village. At each stop she ordered Time from the carriage, his arms full of gifts for all who lived or grew there. Eagerly, the gold wrapping was torn apart to reveal Kali’s gifts. But there was no excited response. For them, Kali brought decay, mould, dust, rust, dry, withered shells, wrinkles, coldness, ageing. For the first time that day, leaves changed their colour and began to fall. The stems of plants grew dry and cracked and turned back downwards to the earth. On that day too, the people knew first the mark of wrinkles on faces, a stiffness of limbs and joints and eyes that no longer saw clearly. Soon, too, they discovered death and its pain of loss, at first amongst the animals and then amongst the people themselves. The elders were leaving, moving aside to make space for the children.
Kali returned from earth, exhausted from her long journey. Since then, she returns often to greet each one who moves aside to make space for others. But now she sends Time ahead of her to warn that Kali is on her way and present his own special gift. For Time brings the gift of white hair and he covers it in the golden wrapping of wisdom.
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