Ceremony

Ceremony
by Michael Thomas- Knight


He lights the last of five candles, black candles that trace the points of a star within a circle. The circle is a white powder substance carefully laid upon a black cloth, atop a makeshift altar of some kind. Before the man, center of the circle, a bronze bowl sits with several seemingly random items within it; a few strands of hair, a feather earring, a gold ankle bracelet, and a napkin with lip stick smudges soiling its white surface. The man pushes his long hair away from his face and tucks it behind his ears. He briefly pulls on his goatee, his dark brown eyes taking a mental inventory of the items before him. Nimble fingers pull the hood of the black cloak up over his head, shadowing those dark eyes. The same nimble fingers reach out beyond the makeshift altar towards a boom-box/cassette player resting on a nearby shelf. He presses play and a Latin chant fills the room with sound.

"Et al diem vor demorticus."
"Maleadu ohm vies et demonica"
"Phobos bact atenumum eberus"

The man pulls a picture from a large manila envelope. It is a picture of himself, somewhat younger than today, with his arms draped around a young woman of equal age. They are both smiling, exuding happiness, the warm glow of love perhaps? The man's eyes well up with tears as he stares at the picture. Pulling scissors from under the table, he proceeds to cut the photograph in half, separating the two lovers from each other. He takes the half-photo of his own image and leans it up against the furthest candlestick holder. The other half of the photo that holds the young lady's image, he brings up to his face and kisses it. "Alicia", he says aloud, caressing her image with his thumb. He lays it in the bowl with the other items.

"Et al diem vor demorticus."
"Maleadu ohm vies et demonica"
"Phobos bact atenumum eberus"

He sprinkles the bowl with a clear liquid, then lights a match, tossing it into the bowl. The contents light up in a burst of yellow and blue flame. He watches as the edges of the photograph catch fire, flames creeping slowly towards Alicia's captured image.

***

We travel for a solid minute, across the city, over vacant commercial rooftops smattered with chimney caps and vent pipes, dissected only by the crisscross network of blacktop and asphalt pavement below. We pass the clock tower, black in silhouette, secretly counting down each and every life of the city’s inhabitants with the clicks of passing minutes. Farther still, we reach the upscale community of brownstones and luxury co-ops, the residents unaware of how fragile their mortality is poised. The minute ticks off its remaining seconds and we hone in on a moonlit second story window.

In the darkened bedroom of the apartment, Alicia lies in peaceful slumber. She looks somewhat more matured than she did in the burning photo. Her hair is cut shorter and styled with today's look. Some of the lines in her face are deeper and more prominent. Her cheeks are tauter, void of the fullness of youth. Beside her, also sleeping lies her husband, Henry. Newlyweds; the charmed time in life of romantic illusion. Beneath the fleshy lids of her husband's face, his eyes are suddenly in motion. They toss from side to side and around in wide arcs rippling his closed eyelids.

In a candlelit basement, standing at the makeshift alter, the man with the black hooded cloak and a black goatee of facial hair to match, raises both hands slowly from his sides to form a V-shape. His eyes are closed in concentration.

In the darkened bedroom, the husband's eyebrows and facial muscles begin to twitch. His upper body jumps in a momentary spasm, his left foot twitches, darting rightward then returning to straight up position.

At the makeshift altar the man with closed eyes begins to whisper the words of the ancient Latin chant along with the recording.

"Et al diem vor demorticus."
"Maleadu ohm vies et demonica"
"Phobos bact atenumum eberus"

Now standing at the foot of the bed, facing away from his sleeping wife, the husband raises both hands slowly at his sides to form a V-shape. Momentarily, he begins to whisper words that he has never known in his life. His eyes are closed however, cobalt blue orbs remain hidden behind his fleshy eyelids. His wife, Alicia, stirs from her sleep reaching her hand over to the opposite side of the bed where her husband should be sound asleep. Not feeling his presence, she props herself up on one elbow, rubbing the sleep away from her eyes with her free hand. She gets her wits together realizing her husband is standing in an awkward stance and whispering towards the ceiling at the far corner of the room.

"Henry?" she questions, "What are you doing? Come back to bed."

The man at the makeshift alter, in a candlelit basement half a world away, raises his voice, shouting somewhat operatically, the chant that fills his ears.

"Et al diem vor demorticus."
"Maleadu ohm vies et demonica"
"Phobos bact atenumum eberus"

Ignoring his wife in the bed behind him, Henry begins to shout in a language that his now frightened spouse has never heard him speak.

"Et al diem vor demorticus."
"Maleadu ohm vies et demonica"
"Phobos bact atenumum eberus"

“Henry, god damn-it! You're scaring me," she yells. "You're talking gibberish - come lie down before you wake the neighbors."

The man, a half a world away with his long hair tucked neatly behind his ears stops chanting. He thinks he had heard something. Yes he did... a familiar woman's voice told him to come and lie down before he wakes the neighbors. He opens his eyelids but his eyes are gone, only white eggshell is seen between the frames of his eyelashes.

Henry falls silent and his arms drop to his sides but he doesn't turn around to face his wife. The sudden long silence is even more frightening to Alicia than the previous strange behavior her husband had been indulging. She pulls the covers further up her body for security. She pulls the blanket to her chin. The silence eats away at her mind until she can't stand it anymore and she lashes out in fearful anger.

"Fuck Henry! What is wrong with you?" she screams.

At first, Henry turns his head only, twisting it three quarters the way around, stretching his neck unnaturally. Alicia's muscles flinch, and then lock up painfully when she sees his face. Henry's eyes aren't blue anymore; they are dark brown - almost black. Henry turns his body to join his head, facing her.

"What is wrong with me? How about, what is wrong with you, my love?" He says. But it is not his own voice coming from his mouth; it is someone else's. Alicia gasps for air and tears fill the rims of her eyes before rolling down her cheeks in a soundless crying fit. Her voice gets stuck in her throat as she tries to say something and she swallows hard.

"Do you think you can steal every last bit of light from my heart, and continue on with your own life as if I had never existed?" Henry says in this other voice.

Alicia's eyes dart around the room quickly and return to him. She thinks she recognizes the voice but, how could that be? It can't be...but it is.

"I would kill myself for you... and vice-versa." Henry says.

Alicia says only one thing in reply, "Michael?"

Henry's face contorts to a hard, wicked smile. Then, with bizarre speed, Henry rips the blankets and sheet from the bed with his left hand and grabs hold of Alicia's leg with his right. He pulls her forward quickly, as she's kicking and screaming; he pulls her right off the front of the bed, allowing her head to slam on the floor with a dull thud. Henry jumps down on top of her gripping his hand around her neck and driving it downward into the floor. Alicia's eyes go wide as she realizes he means to kill her. She kicks and flails her arms but Henry ignores her screams. He seems to not even to feel any of the blows delivered to him. With his free hand, Henry reaches up to the dresser-draw countertop and grabs hold of the big lamp with the marble base. He gets one of her hands pinned down beneath his knee for a split second and that's all he needs. The base of the lamp comes swinging down with ferocious force, connecting firmly with Alicia's skull. Immediately, her arms drop to the floor like dead weight and her legs go limp. It's fair to assume that the first blow has killed her but the heavy marble lamp base comes down, again and again and again - over and over as blood showers the walls and Henry alike, and the bed sheets and the rug are sprayed with red rain. The lamp base continues to strike as Alicia's skull buckles and her face cave's in.

In a candlelit basement, Michael, whose eyes are pale white and vacant, has his fists clenched together as if he is holding something in his grip. His arms swing down again and again, violently through the air, connecting with nothing but continuing their downward swings nevertheless. The cassette tape of Latin chant continues to fill the room with sound.

"Et al diem vor demorticus."
"Maleadu ohm vies et demonica"
"Phobos bact atenumum eberus"

Finally, Michael stops his exertion and his arms fall limp to his sides.

Henry suddenly stops bashing his wife's skull with the marble lamp. He stands and the lamp falls from his grip to the floor. His eyes are once again blue but he sees nothing.

Michael, standing before the altar, his eyes returned to their normal brown as they are in his own photograph looking back at him, says aloud, "Sleep"

Henry's eyes close and he falls backwards to the floor. He will wake in the morning and find his wife's bludgeoned corpse at his feet. The police will find the murder weapon with Henry's bloody fingerprints all over it.

Michael, in a candlelit basement, clicks off the cassette player, delivering the room into silence. He looks at his clean hands and smiles. He clenches them then releases, splaying his fingers wide. Dropping his hands by his sides, he walks a few steps away, grabs a book from a nearby shelf and brings it back to the altar. He lays it on the black surface. It is a high school yearbook. He flips through the pages and suddenly stops. Running a finger down the page he pauses on a picture of a young man. The name beneath the picture reads Todd Freeley. The picture shows a brutish looking young man - no doubt, the class bully. Michael closes the book and lays it off to the side.

He walks over to another shelf and grabs a medium-sized box, bringing it to a table so he can go through the contents. He lifts the lid to see a dozen or so manila envelopes. He pages through them with his fingers. He stops at a certain envelope, pulls it out of the box and looks at the marker writing on the face. It reads, "Todd Freeley". He brings the envelope to his altar and dumps the contents onto the black clothed surface. There is a photo of Todd Freeley and a collection of seemingly random items.