Fasnachat... A Finish the Story Entry

Source

In the eyes of the couple, the slate-paved street of the village revealed a cornucopia of crafts, sweets and jubilant peasants. Along the noisy main street, colourful festoons hung from the balconies of typical mountain houses, made of solid stone and original woodwork. The buildings themselves, due to the abundance of decorations, seemed to curve over the long snake of stalls.
There had been an imperceptible moment of silence when the two had laid their feet on the dark pavement of the village, nothing but a quick counterpoint to underline the next wave of noise of the festival in its full becoming.
It had been enough to turn left on the path between the conifers marked by the navigator and their journey had moulted with grey scales now transformed into coloured harlequin’s diamonds.

"Fasnachat". That bizarre writing on a shaky sign had tickled their imagination.
"If Google had reported this village party we could have left two hours earlier." At her voice’s sound, Ben instinctively thought of two Dolce & Gabbana sneakers on the 100 meters starting blocks.
"A break cannot hurt us, but let's not forget about our timetable," he replied, not without a trail of scepticism in his voice.
Ben's senses captured fragrances, widened eyes and inebriated laughter. That joy was as disruptive as it was contagious.
"We do not need to remind ourselves of what it means being late for Grandma Maude's birthday dinner," he said, turning to his wife, whose hand was already wriggling from his, ready to compulsively stuff the car with the many bits and bobs offered by the fair.
Debated between the growing curiosity and the thought of his father-in-law blaming him for the delay, Ben had not even noticed that he had already lost sight of Joelle.
Like a pebble escaping the river’s current, the flow of the crowd had carried him in the middle of a small square dominated by a soaring wooden stage. An acute, strangely cacophonous, chant of stringed instruments enlivened a typical traditional group dance, where couples slapped each other’s feet and bodies.

Under the ever more pounding rhythm of the dance, among almost hypnotized and swaying villagers, his eyes increasingly focused on the show.
For a moment, he thought he saw Joelle surrounded by villagers who invited her to eat something viscidly black. The substance seemed to smear the white aprons and faces of the women, perhaps even that of Joelle who had joined them in a wild chortle. She seemed so lighthearted and it felt good. There was one thing Ben could not remember and squatted in the back of his head, but maybe it wasn’t that important.
He returned to plunge into the dance: it was simply wonderful. He felt he could not miss a movement, not even a note. He smiled at the villagers as a strange heat flared up inside him. An empty and collective smile painted back on the villagers’ gaunt faces.
In a frayed embryo of thought, Ben recorded the distant verses of Joelle, who, strangely, had fused together in a long animal bleating...

And he didn't know how or when he joined in on the whole ceremony himself. He knew that he must have heard his instincts whisper to him once or twice the word "time-table". But like that tiny little detail which somehow still managed to nag him inside, Ben pushed it away, to be pondered later. Now he would dance, now he would move, now he would tap his feet and chant, while he drifted further and further away from his reality, and became body and soul, one with the spirit of the Fasnachat...

...

It was pitch black when they finally stirred...

In the hazy eyes of the couple, the slate-paved street of the village evoked painful pangs of a seemingly distant but unclear memory.
The solemn quiet of the main street, punctured as it were in phases, by the shrill cries of the midnight owls, gave the confusing scenario a somewhat melodic but scary undertone.

"Ben..." Joelle's voice pierced the pulsing rhythm of the night in a disturbing manner.

Ben looked over at her, but he did not see her. Instead he saw vague flashes of bright colours pass before his eyes. Hazy visions of strange men and women in a traditional, no, spiritual dance.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to see through the pitch black night. And for a split second it seemed like his eyes had acclimatized to the darkness. Something that looked like a wooden stage towered in front of him. He rubbed his eyes again...

"Ben..."

Then he saw it. The altar...

He saw it as clear as if it was day now. He saw Joelle's shrieks and wild struggles, he saw the mixture of sweat and that black substance as she tried to hold on to something... Someone...

Then the songs, the chants, the burning objects... He saw and heard it all...

They hadn't been in a traditional festival, they had been in a traditional voodoo ritual...

"Ben... They took him."

For the first time since noon Ben saw and heard Joelle clearly. And as he felt rather than saw the pain written on her face, his thoughts and visions became crystal...

Two tiny Dolce and Gabbana sneakers flashing before his eyes were enough to jolt the recesses of his hitherto drugged memory into life. He couldn't push the thoughts back anymore, no he couldn't...

And chief among them all was that tiny little thought he had kept pushing back before...

The thought of Michael, their seven year old son, who at sunset had been the sacrifice laid down for the Fasnachat...

THE END

#SladenSpeaks

---

Written for the loving @bananafish's Finish the Story Contest #25

I can't tell you how much I love this family. I wouldn't be able to anyway, it's unquantifiable...

So I decided to spoil the festivities, didn't I? Lol

😎

Well, someone had to.

---