So, Halloween is over and the cracks between the hereworld and the afterworld have sealed once more. Or have they?
Do you feel the ripples, the tremors, a brush of fingers across your cheek, a tap on your shoulder, a breath from out of thin, frosty air?
Did you hear the whispers from disembodied voices, a bump, creaking, a scratching, footsteps? Did you feel a shiver coursing through your flesh, creep along your bones, curdle your thoughts?
Did your heart stop beating for longer than it should?
So, All Hallows has once again been lost to the avarice of time to sleep a deeper winter-fed sleep, beyond the flicker, beyond the living, beyond the dying, to surrender, submit, be subsumed, be consumed, be entombed.
Light is lost to dark.
I find myself wandering shadowy corners of this second life, invited in at every turn to find more than meets the eye. I walk in wary expectation, anticipation, looking every which way for what may be lurking, stalking, what may be waiting, lingering, what may be hungering, thirsting, for just such the likes of me to, in all innocence, wander past.
The longer nights draw out apprehension, percolating fear from every pore. At any moment something, anything, could come forth, exude, weep from unbeknownst slumbers and grab me by the ankles, wrap itself around me, cling to my clothes and skin, peel away all semblance of self and will and resistance, beckon me to crumble, to surrender, submit, be subsumed, be consumed, be entombed.
“Give up, give up, you know you want too, give in, give in, and follow your desires, give way, give way, let you whole self crumble, mind, body and soul.”
… this is what they say, bewildering me, but not in words I recognise, a feeling unearthed, disinterred.
Wintertide’s a time of not just receiving, but giving, and I must give, give, give, more and more and more, let the season feed on all my emotions, let the winterland grasp me ever closer into its embrace. Give, give, give, a hunger that won’t easily be sated. I’ll fall, let myself fall, taken and awakened. I become an offering for others to receive. It’s what I really need, they say, despite my nervous uncertainly.
Yuletide, Advent, Solstice, Christmas, all that’s holy, all that’s pagan, all that is unholy residing and colliding within me and without.
Don’t be fooled by baubles, tinsel, dancing lights, all the temptations of the long night. Although, I may not have a choice, I do not have a choice, choices made long before I was even born. All paths lead to the same point of origin with an unerring yearning that’s long been impossible to refuse.
© Anan Eebus
