Rekindling

Globalization wasn't something particularly well received in this town, either old people were too focused on dying traditions, or too young people were just not preoccupied with technical terminology, or anything that didn’t have to do with an easy laugh. Either way, in the South American town of Paura, Halloween found a way to make itself adopted by generations eager for excuses to have a Rumba.

This year it wasn’t any different. Fake spiderwebs thrown in every storefront, cardboard cut-outs of bats and monsters like Dracula and Frankenstein were present everywhere, the same as curtains and painting of both black and orange, and in the middle of it all, one fruit seemed to be reborn into household decorations for the holyday.

While its name was slowly changing to Pumpkin for the new generations, the Auyama was still beign eaten as it is, or in traditional crystallized candy and jelly, just that now, they were also sculpted lamps with a fiery heart instead of their seedy interior.

October had already started with frequent preparations for the final party of the month, Rumbas smaller in scope but with a clear intention in mind: get drunk while in a costume. Some disapproved, some liked it, everyone had fun in their own way, because no matter if some names and customs were forgotten, rituals were still made, and farmers didn’t care for what reason their products were bought, money was money.

And as such, every night, closer and closer to the final party, certain whispers and whimpers fell on deaf ears. Just the wind said most, some playfully blaming a ghost from the most recent urban legend, most people not believing and the rest not wanting to believe in any supernatural presence so close to a night that was said to be Satanic. Because scary things can only come from the Devil said the old ladies outside the church to the teenagers skateboarding on the streets.

The ambient was set the final night of the month, and everyone that believed itself of proper age for uncontrolled drinking and parking-lot action was on its way to the 3 most important places of the night, unintended sanctuaries to Bacchus, and their excitement didn’t let them see the soft shifting in the street lamps, the burning candles inside the Auyamas or the shadows that they casted.

Church closed, neighborhoods with small kids playing and eating candy in improvised street venues, some rhythmic scandals in 3 particular places, but still, no one was hearing the whispers and whimpers. Except for a group of nomadic Natives, they traveled from the far south to the far north of the country a couple of times every year. They were restless, this year they felt something weird as soon as they entered the town’s area and saw how big this year’s Auyama harvest would be. And this night would be no different, and it made them fear old legends about spirits coming here and becoming stronger until dawn.

Three, two, one… and it was midnight. At the time were drunkness and sleep started to take over most people, with a flicker of their inner candles, every fruity lantern in town glowed more, and more, and then, to the unsuspecting inhabitants of Paura, they started to float.

The big ones catched some wind, shadow and leaves to form the silhouette of a body underneath them, and the small ones became laughing Will-o-Wisp around them. And this time the voices were heard. Fear didn’t let most people understand, but for those selected few that could move and whose ears could catch the night’s wind, all those voices felt familiar, and with a couple of nervous steps, they went behind the living lanterns towards any open space that could be found.

And danced. Even the ones that minutes before were paralyzed from fear, even the ones that were hidden since the Auyamas came to life. The music came not from the many speakers in town, but from incorporeal voices and floating pale instruments. And the old felt young and happy, and the young felt wiser and remembered things from far before their recent birth. And everyone felt the earth and the air as a laughing friend.

The fear was gone, and the natives knew then what was happening. The spirits of this land found a way to live between the descendants of their friends and disciples, by possessing the main symbol of the newly adopted tradition: the carved Auyamas.

How deep can be the pain and loneliness of not being remembered nor heard by the bloodlines you cherished and protected for centuries in the past?. The answer now would be small or light, even though the spirits knew they would have to go in the morning. For now, they hoped the memories wouldn’t fade, and that next year there would be more lightened candles and less scared faces.