Dark in Forty

Driven to a reckless abandon by shapeless masses,

howling cries, violent screaming, muttering, insane voices

and scenes of gross indecency,

events which funneled around the dome of their inner sanctum.

Huddled together in the center of a death haunted tornado,

some of the group hid their eyes at times,

others had given up completely

and thrown blankets over their heads.

They'd set out on a full Moon night to tempt fate.

I asked him what sorts of things he saw that night

and his first reply was that he didn’t know.

Disembodied spirits, they enjoyed flickering

at the edge of vision when I came to the end

of each line read at my desk.

There had been, in the slum neighborhood where his childhood years had been spent, many ruined houses, some recently abandoned, others decaying in wait of demolition when the local council acquired sufficient funding or interested property developers to replace them.

Among these, there was a particular ruin, commonly known to he haunted beyond ‘normal’ measure. It was one of the worst ruins, standing in an overgrown garden full of weeds as merely a stone floor, crumbling chimney and stubbly outlines at the height of a single brick outlining what had once been its walls. Even in broad daylight many things had been seen and spectral presences felt and observed by members of the near dwelling public, passing by whilst engaged in the fulfillment of their day to day necessities. All whom had spied these oddities felt the tangible gravitas quality of evil in their nature.

Inflicted upon each other by spirits

both dismayed at their violation

and relishing their opportunity

to enact the perpetration

of their deviance.

Black clouds folded back and revealed the hovering Moon’s cataract eye directly over head, as the night progressed toward its equinox, reaching a point where the frenzy of surrounding activity drowned out even the loudest shouts to one another of the group’s members,

“Are you passed the bridge yet?”

a group of friends

an overgrown garden full of weeds

the fascination the local rumors

had inspired in them equipped themselves

with torches, candles, blankets

and a cat as mascot

to stay within the ruin’s precinct until dawn,

when they assumed

it would be safe to leave.

The purpose of a ‘magic circle’ is to heighten the perception of the events going on outside its perimeter by those enclosed whilst safely preventing intrusion by the spirits within its confines.

The sanctuary

within

the magic circle

multiplies expedentially the inhabitants'

perception of that which its drawing summons

to surround.

Armed with a foreknowledge of occultist practices

they drew a magic circle

on the largest remaining still intact section

of stone floor

and waiting for the Sun to finish falling,

settled in

for their night long vigil.

The frenzy of surrounding activity drowned out even the loudest shouts to one another of the group’s members.

The cat, having not been included in either the psychological preparation for the experience

or even consulted on its desire to be included, was found to be somewhat perturbed by the events

it was witnessing, and as unwilling participant, used all of its feline prowess to escape the arms that clutched, and ran

to escape the site of the house,

which it managed to do,

scurrying from the circle

on its pronged hooks

with back arched

into the massive void.

One of the party understood the danger that it would face

by committing such an act of audacity

as to accompany the party and dare the spirits with the magic circle and then to choose to enter

into their torturous domain, and he too bolted from the circle into what surrounded it, after the beast.

He was sent reeling back in a matter of seconds, having only gone as far as a few pathetic feet from its rim.

Above his top lip stretched a bleeding line from the corner of his upper lip to the edge of his cheek and as he touched it

to see blood upon his fingers and prove to himself what his friends had made him quickly aware of, they asked him what had happened?

His reply was,

“All that I saw was a hand... with a whip!”

This disembodied hand had knocked him to the ground by the force of the impact of its weapon

and had caused him to fall back into the magic circle, which was for him quite fortunate, as the next morning they found the cat amongst the weeds with its neck broken.

In evidence of his story he explained, (without a hint of flamboyance), that the scar which resulted from the specter's attack was the reason he had grown his beard, which he then pointed to, indicating the place where I could clearly make out a thin line of white scar tissue emerging from the bristles of his mustache and trailing away in depth to the center of his right cheek.

I found this photograph on the floor of his room.