Crimson Moon

It’s a typical urban two story self-contained house, complete with a basement, a yard, a garage and a workshop with all the goodies one can imagine…. Starting from basic saw and hammers for the repairs around the house to the best of gardening automated lawn mowers.

It is coloured in green, a very typical of this area, the mediterranean climate and ever green seasons make green a favored colour for houses to be painted in. the windows and doors are always white. The wooden panels colored every year and funny how no amount of rain and sun messes up the appearances of any built up here.

Life in this city is always a struggle, though the houses look calm, the streets quiet, the dogs well-groomed and leased and the owners all dressed in uptight clothes bought from the best of shops, the best of collection available for the season.  Men generally are seen with signature golf cap and women with polka dresses and grand hats. The clothes are fairly easy and set a mood of a happy cheerful neighborhood all set to welcome to spring and summer.

The neighborhood has a funny feeling ….. Something is not as it seems to be ….. Though the breeze around it feels free and friendly the wind blowing smells caution…. The peace on the road feels more sinister than serene…. The houses beautiful but the secretive… scary….

The doors are never locked but never wide open either, how is that there are no kids on street or in any front yard, no one playing in water, no soap bubbles, no climbing trees, no sand castles, no toys scattered in front yards, no ice cream vans being driven around the neighborhood lanes, no nothing…..!!!!

Its only after a while I remembered being warned about it…. It’s the night of cults…. It’s the night when sacrifices and rituals we read as ancient become present…… it’s when the secret basement doors open and instead of electricity bulbs candles are lit, the dark hoods are pulled out of hidden closets and worn with absolute secrecy… the vows of secrecy float in the air and chanting of verses fill the chambers built underground…. Connecting the houses through secret passages ….slowly the sacrifice is bought in the main chamber and the silence is broken with the ….

For a while after that in the candle lit chamber where the stench of blood, sorrow, fear and stench grows stronger all you can hear are screams, shrills, fear, struggle, fights, pleading, pain, attempts of overpowering and submission…..  All accompanied by verses in an ancient language as if summoning the unknown, unseen to accept the sacrifice….

On the surface of the neighborhood everything is peaceful and beautiful, the full crimson moon and stars shine bright in the sky, no breeze blowing…. No sound… did anyone hear the noise from the chambers or was it just suppressed with careful acoustic treatment of the chamber and killed before it could rise….

I feel peace….as I lay with eyes open but un emotive… wet, warm flowing down my throat, it’s a relief to let go….. Enter a trance or should I say a phase of no pain, no matter how traumatic the start was …… the body now motion less, the stance loosen, the resistance lost…..

I feel no remorse, no pain, no regret… I see myself now sleeping on the stone quadrant surrounded by hoods whose faces are not visible in the dim light of candles…..I still hear the verses being chanted…. Lying lifeless with slit throat, clothes nowhere in sight …. Covered with black silk and each one gathering their share from slit veins, hands moving on my life less naked body to check for signs of reflexes…or remotes signs of me being around… alive …. Still possible of feeling pain….

Yet for some reason I am not disturb…. I am far floating, watching all, and hoping it’s not one of the outer body experiences again… I don’t want to enter the bodily space again….. It has suffered a lot of pain and though I don’t feel the hands moving over my body now and cuts being inflicted now I don’t want to be in the recovery ….. It’s never easy…..

I feel light now … floating through the layers of painstakingly arranged bricks and other rubble I reach the surface …. The neighborhood now feels peaceful and the sinister feeling nagging at the back of mind is gone…. I look up towards the sky to see where am floating….. And I see the crimson moon…. Big round and red…….