We are the Watchers of Weight. We watch. We wait. We watch the Weight, and we watch for the Weight. We have been waiting for you for some time now. I am–
I am no longer as I hoped I would be, for the day when you came.
Had you come but a few years ago, you would have seen our city at the height of its flower, would have seen spires and parapets and minarets, pinnacles and campaniles striving together toward the sun, would have seen the gleaming lights of the guard-towers flame into watchfulness at dusk, would have seen the poet-priestesses strolling in the Rune Gardens in the cool of the evening. You would have seen me as I was when God breathed through my sword and all men feared me, when I was taller than anyone for ten miles in every direction, when I could chase a deer for a week without stopping to eat or drink, then bring its dressed and flayed carcass home, fresh as the dawn. When I made a pledge by the altar, it was as if what I had promised already came to pass. I could have given you fields and strong and lovely maidens to plow them. I could have given you storehouses filled to bursting with ripe and fragrant grains. I could have given you menservants and beasts of burden laden with wines and figs and bags sagging with gold coin. I would have lain down my post, and I would have buried myself in the foundations of the city, and I would have given myself up over to rest and to sleep.
Had you but come a few years sooner.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
You are here now, and that is enough. We are the watchers of weight. We watch the Weight. You saw it, I trust, as you rode past the gates of our village?
It is a village, now. Call it a city no more. The learned women are gone. The governors are gone, the judges have fled to the forests and the high places. The Mothers of the Hearth have gone to rest under the grass, and they watch no more. The Weight has not stirred in these seventy-and-seven years, but still it sits, just beyond the gates, and one day it will wake again.
When last the Weight was on the move, I was young. Now I am what you see before me. Those were days of blood and fire. We halted the Weight before it entered the city, but we could not end it. We could not bury it nor pierce it nor break it. We had been told by some of the elders that it could be stopped by yogurts, by breathing deeply, by talking walks in between meals. We tried it all.
Now we watch the Weight. We watch, and we dwindle, and many of us go to sleep under the long grass without seeing the city restored to her former glory. Perhaps that glory will never come again.
We do not know if ours is the only Weight. We do not know if others will arrive, if others are already on their way. The crushing, unbearable Weight that brings with it darkness, that splits skulls and sits heavy on our hearts until they burst and pop and ooze into senselessnes.
Those of us who lived began the Watch. We have never wavered. We remember those early days–remember watching the Spire of the Moon crash and tumble into the Evening Pool and heard the empress’ strangled screams, screams that were followed by close and hateful silence.
It has been silent here ever since. I have lost many…I have lost many good friends to the Weight. It does not now move, but still to go near to it is death. Only last spring, one of the younger girls wandered too close as she gathered the poppies…
Let us not speak of such things now. You will do well. You are young, and you are strong, and you are ready to take up the Watching of the Weight. You must watch it always. Never let your eyes or your mind wander from it. See its bulge above the line of the city gates? The Weight is watching us, too. It sleeps, but it never rests. It ripples and rumbles and watches us in the dark. It gathers strength to itself with cunning and with malice.
Sometimes at night, I think I hear strange murmurs and whispers coming from the Weight. I think–I think–there have been times when I could swear I heard it speak my name, like it knew me. Like it longed for me.
Forgive me. I am grown old, and very foolish, and it has been long since I have spoken of such things to one as young as you. It does this fond old heart good to see you. To know that you will watch the Weight when I am gone and can watch no more.
Swear this oath with me. Swear this oath, then sit and talk a while–not long, certainly not long–then take up my post as I go to my rest.
Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no spouse, hold no lands, engender no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of what was once the city. I pledge my life and honor to the Weight’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.
[Image via Neverendingstory.com]
Tags: ancient sleeping evil, blatant lifting from dune, blatant lifting from game of thrones, fiction, impending doom, oaths, standing guard, vigil, weight watchers
melis
this is everything I could ever have wanted
#fuckyeahmalloryortberg
It is now my most fervent hope and wish that when one googles “Weight Watchers”, this is the first result.
What do we need to do to make that happen? Beautiful piece.
something about reddit, probably
Be wary of The Weight, my son, it creeps in, steals through our city gates through Trojan Points constructed of reduced-calorie Wheat Thins and sugar-free gelatins.
Who watches the Weight Watchmen?
Secret Neverending Story Image Day is my favorite Day on The Toast so far.
It just seems like there aren’t quite…. enough Dune references? Maybe The Weight could be also vaguely reminiscent of a giant sand worm?
Makes for sort of a messy metaphorical system, sure, but “The Fremen could hear The Weight coming” is sort of fun, right?
Aw man, thanks for reminding me too late that I totally should have made a joke about Saint Alia of the Knife in the comments on the “songs about women who are girls” article. Even if Alia was the other way around.
This is perfect and right and fills me with joy.
Where is my The-Toast.net book already.
We had been told by some of the elders that it could be stopped by yogurts
the besssssst.
ACCURATE.
LOL, not the yogurt I’m eating. I looked at the label the other day and saw that it was ~8g/fat PER SERVE.
No wonder it’s delicious.
Mallory Ortberg is my favourite writer and should she write a novel I would buy about ten copies.
Are you listening, publishing industry?
Mallory I will pay you money to write some sort of Lovecraft Mythos novella. Publish a commonplace book, something, just grant me this sacred, fervent wish
what i really want is for the dudes who write welcome to night vale to collaborate with her
My sister keeps going on about that – do I need to listen to her?
I’m tempted to say “YES” but I don’t know anything about you or what you’re into. I love it, and I have friends I think who’d love it, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to everyone I know.
Mallory I will pay you money to write some sort of Lovecraft Mythos novella. Publish a commonplace book, something, just grant me this sacred, fervent wish
Mallory, have you ever read The Perilous Gard? asked my 11 year old self.
…you should.
If you want to save our world, you must hurry. We don’t know how much longer we can withstand the Weight.
Ahh it was so Ursula K. LeGuin-y at the beginning! (V. glad there wasn’t a starving child in a small dark room at the end.) Bravo as usual!
I would fear to eat a waffle from a Mallory Ortberg waffle iron, but I would eat it anyway, in the hopes that moments before the madness claimed me I would know all things.
THIS!