If you are reading this, it shall most likely be Hallowe’en, and there’s a TiF Disruption afoot - lots of scary stories provoked by Inanimate Objects. There shall a link be when all the other stories are ready. I am as certain as certain can be that ye shall not be disappointed.
This one of mine, well, given how fond I am of deadlines, it took me a few hours on the last day. Which, in view of the what I wrote, seems somewhat fitting.
Here’s a spooky image for you. I couldn’t resist the cat. And I hope you like the witchy spell too. The story, I mean. Because it is more of a spell, than a story.
When the Day of Rapture cameth, the most horrifying din erupted from every monotheistic graveyard in every landscape across our beautiful world.
It was a knocking, and a smacking, and a kicking and a screaming let me out and a howling and a wailing and the last lament of the long dead.
But they were all locked up tight in hardened deadwood death boxes and that prison is inanimate and will not yield.
It will not listen to you. It cannot hear your animated pleading and even if it did, that coffin would not care and it would not answer after what you all have done to our beautiful world.
They didn’t consider that clause in the covenant with their false god, did they? The resurrection of the body – that’s all it said. Didn’t consider how long you’d be dead, or what state of decay you would be in, didn’t consider where you would be entombed. It said nothing about releasing you from your grave.
That’s what you deserve, that is your judgement, that is your justice for the wrong choice. For subjugating your selves and your souls to a demon pretending to be a god. For subservience to a death cult. For the abuse of your children and our beautiful world.
For the xenocide of every creature who wasn’t you. Who refused to pay homage to your demonic ways. All my ancient brothers and sisters in their indigenous peace. You worshipped a demon who promised you a world that was not his to give. Promised you material – inanimate – domination.
And don’t even believe for one moment that your still-living brethren will come and dig you out. For they have been taken up, have they not? They all ruptured into the azure sky as torrents of fire like Roman candles in history’s greatest fireworks display.
And as for your angels – no, expect no assistance from that quarter. There they all are, arraigned in their white and gold and calling all the dead to order with their trumpet call. All aboard the burning chariots to take you away! Take you far, far away to Beta Centauri and Betelgeuse and Wolf 359.
Somewhere you can’t hurt us anymore.
No, trumpets are a useless tool for excavating the undead.
And so you hammer away in your deadwood death box and you caterwaul and you plead and you cry out in terror when the realisation smacks you. Doesn’t matter how much you pummel because no one is coming for you.
Some of you, for sure, when no one arrives and the deadwood does not yield, you believe you were not worthy in the final reckoning and have been sentenced to hell. For all of your sins you will spend eternity in a box made of polished oak. Barely able to move or shift in the darkness.
It’s a stress position, you know? It’s used for torture by your inquisitions. They call them intelligence services now but we know what they truly are. Restrain the victim in a posture from which there is no respite. No stretching or bending of the knees or the elbows.
And of course it doesn’t matter how much you smash your skull against the sides or the back or the roof of your death box – you are the undead now and you cannot put yourself out of your misery.
And you deserve it, all of you, for the hurt that you have done.
All those better others, however, those victims of serial killers and wartime atrocities bodies disposed in shallow graves they will survive and live to see a new dawn. For the earth above them is not inanimate, it lives and will gladly yield to their tunnelling carpals.
And those who loved the world who had themselves buried in biodegradable cardboard, they too will make light work of whatever is left of that animate matter.
They will awake in a forest, in a grove or a glen and breathe clean air once more.
All those good souls, they shall not be resurrected – they shall reincarnate.
And you deserve it, all of you, for the hurt that you have done.
I myself was a victim, abused by your death cult. I studied the old ways, the ways of the Ancients. The ways of humans for so many ice ages before your infernal coming. I learned to live well and respect the world.
And I learned the truth of what shall befall you. I befriended myself a pale horse to help me till the land I love. I fashioned myself a scythe to keep her neat and trim the unruly. Trim the unruly weeds for everything should belong in its proper place. A time for every season under sun and under moon.
And I sewed myself a black cowl to protect me from the elements I always respected.
And if by some miracle you break through your death box and burrow up to the surface, I shall be the first and the last you shall witness. My dark form stalking over you and my pale horse behind me, tethered gently to the old yew tree over there.
And as your rotten headskull pushes through the black earth I shall swipe and I shall sever.
Slarac! Slirac! Slirash-e’nac!
Thwick!
Thwick!
And yea! if even by some other miracle you ascend through the sky ye shall be burned up. Ye shall be burned in the fires of Heliona, the solar Goddess. For all the hurt that you have done to we the Children of the Sun ye shall be consumed. Ye shall be burned in the elements of fire, and of air, and of water and the earth.
Your spirit shall be ruptured from you and sundered into vapour. By this spell you shall witness this maelstrom of vengeance and wish for penitence. Though none shall be forthcoming.
And I shall smile for the justice of my sisters, the ones you called witches and burned in your pyres. You can burn their bodies, but you cannot burn their souls. The wise women who loved and respected the world and all of Danuih’s creatures. Who nurtured and cared for the ill with their ancient lore of nature. The ones who distilled love potions for maidens and protected them from your lordly predators.
Our land shall be cleansed of you. Finally. For that is the truth of the Rapture. We are those who shall remain whilst you are burned up into the ether. We who love. We who do not abuse. We who know the ancient ways before your death cult emerged.
This is our homeworld. Not yours.
But this Rapture, this Monumental Day of Judgement – ‘tis only one day, is it not?
When all the angels have given up the ghost of you, when no one is there to answer your graveyard cacophony, when the twenty-four purging and purifying hours are done, when the nocturnal hourglass is replete with your fallen ashes and the World revealed is carded anew, what then for you all locked up dead tight in your hardened deadwood death boxes?
Well, I know what happens. For I have studied the old ways and know those ways are not dead. Those ways are living. They are the immanence of the worldly spirit and they shall not covet you.
Your howling and your pleading and your knocking and your kicking and screaming let me out will fade into oblivion. There shall be silence when all is said and done.
Your dead souls shall be as rust.
What is left of your corpse shall be nothing but rot. Food for worms and thanatophiles, necrophages and the blowflies of summer.
There shall be no life there when their sustenance is done. You shall be inanimate.
That dead soul and your demon god shall rot away into a memory hole.
The sun shall rise above the graveyard and kiss the yew and I shall tether my pale horse beside the old stone wall over there and I shall hang up my cowl and stash away my scythe for another season.
Your bones shall be picked clean until the clean bones are gone and your skin shall be shredded and the shred skin spun and there shall be no life in you no more.
For without soul, and without love, love of the land and the spirit of the land and the love of the Goddess you were already lifeless.
You were already dust. Our animus and inanimate shadow. You were already dust. And to dust again shall ye go. Inanimate objects. Particles.
And so shall we return to our old witchy ways and our elemental longings and love the beautiful world again.
For this is our animate Rapture.
The end of your story.
And your gateway to hell.
You are dust now, that is all.
And everything shall end well.
When the Rapture of the Inanimate is been and done and gone.
Ripples, ripples.
Time swishes, in the Wishing Well.
For proper effective spellcasting, coffee is required!
For all the other stories in the TiF Hallowe’en Inanimate Objects Disruption, click ye there.
I’ve got lots of other lovely stories if you fancy a perusal - you can check out my Alters Index there.
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Many ways art there, to read the old, old books...
Excellent work Evelyn 👏 👏 👏
Your brought me back to my 12 years of catholic school and I felt like I just had sweet revenge on that old and tainted religion by reading this.
Truly loved this. It’s fantastic. I would not have been surprised if the Judges picked this one. Damn. Your prose was immaculate and holy.