In the beginning of the universe, before there were stars in the sky, there was Chaos. Chaos was the primaeval void. To Chaos we were born, and to Chaos we will return. From Chaos emerged Erebos (Darkness), Gaea (Earth), Tartarus (Underworld), Eros (Love), and Nyx (Night). To Nyx were born the Moirai, also known as the Three Fates.
These three sisters are Atropos, The Inflexible; Lachesis, The Allotter; and Clotho, The Spinner. These women ensure that every being, divine and mortal, lives out their fate as it is assigned to them.
The oldest is Atropos, the cutter of the life thread. She chooses the manner of a person’s death, and when the time comes, cuts it with her shears. She is the unavoidable end that awaits every living being. Next came Lachesis, who measures the predetermined length of life and the experiences that the person will encounter. The youngest is Clotho, who spins the unique paths and experiences of an individual. These three women, with their distaff, spindle, and shears, determine the destiny of every single being in the universe.
The decisions of the Moirai are final and unalterable. Their verdicts are woven into existence, undeniable. No god or mortal can defy their will. Take, for example, the tale of Oedipus.
When Oedipus was born to the King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes, the oracle at Delphi prophesied that Oedipus was doomed to kill his own father and mate with his mother. Horrified, they bind his feet and abandon him on a mountaintop, where he is found by the King and Queen of Corinth. They raise him as their own. When Oedipus accidentally discovers the prophecy that bound him to ruin, he runs away from Corinth to protect his adopted parents, towards Thebes. He encounters an old man at a crossroads and in a fit of rage, kills him, not knowing that he was King Laius, his birth father. At Thebes, he solves a riddle of the sphinx and as reward, is given the hand of Queen Jocasta for marriage. When they find out about him being Jocasta’s son, Jocasta hangs herself in her bedchambers and Oedipus blinds himself with her brooch. His desperate attempt to alter fate by fleeing Corinth ends up with him fulfilling it instead.
Despite Oedipus trying to alter the course of his fate, the will of the sisters remained the same. The fates are unbiased beings that exist beyond the concept of time. They are not kind, nor are they just.
Each person is a unique thread woven into an intricate tapestry of life. Each thread symbolises the life lived by that particular person, connected to other threads, forming an intricate canvas. It is massive, larger than anything in the world, but it is also the most beautiful. Nobody knows when this tapestry will be completed, but once it is, it will have woven a tale of countless lives, of their joys, sorrows, and their relentless pursuit of purpose. It will be a reflection of the human journey, a piece of art that transcends time and space. And as the tapestry is finished, the Moirai immediately begin to work on another tapestry, bigger and more intricate than the previous.
As time passes, a quiet layer of dust starts collecting on our weave, it would begin to fray at the edges, and the threads start succumbing to the tides of time, we would start to turn into dust. Our memories would start slipping away from us, fading into the backdrop, and all that would remain in their place would be the pure essence of emotions, of the feelings of happiness from our best, and lingering shadows of sadness from our worst. We return to Chaos once again.
And yet, we would depart with happiness, to turn into meaningless atoms once more, bound with joy and pride for being a part of something so monumental. Our paths were chosen for us before our eyes could perceive the world, before we even came out of our mothers’ wombs, and yet, it was the journey that made it all worth it. It was the bonds we forged— the ones we cried with, laughed with, loved with— that made it all worth it. And in the grand tapestry of life, aren’t the connections we nurtured and the shared experiences we cherished, what makes it worthwhile?
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