The Ritual
When I wake up, it doesn’t feel like I’ve slept.
I wander through my house doing the things that are logical. Put on a pot of coffee. Feed my cat. Remove a meal-prepped dinner from the freezer.
My kitchen is spotless. So is the rest of my apartment. The cat is happy to see me, weaving at my legs. Maybe she’s actually happy about the can of wet food I bring down from the cupboard and empty into her bowl.
I am trying to better myself lately, to see if it helps. Taking more time outside, walking, watching less short-form content. Everyone says it is rotting our brains, stealing our happiness and our attention spans with an insatiable hunger. I think they’re right. I try to recall if I felt like this before or not, when I was a kid, but it all feels so far away. Maybe they’re right. I barely remember last month.
After my coffee, I get ready in the usual way. Checklist: Brush teeth, wash face, comb hair, get dressed. Socks, shoes. It’s all just repetition. I don’t have to think about it, which is great. Anything outside of arms reach feels like it’s encased in fog.
For as long as I can recall, which again, isn’t long, the inside of my body feels detached from the rest of me. Like if I turned too quickly my guts would swivel around and I’d be staring at the inside of my own skull. It’s a gross analogy, but I saw a video once of someone’s finger being degloved. It feels a little like that. It kind of hurts, but not in a pain that’s quantifiable. The space between the connective tissue holding my skin on my body is just static from an old TV broadcast.
I go to work. My coworkers are all very nice, so I smile and laugh at their jokes, filling the air with my own dopey office humor. I say it in a tone that stresses I realize how cheesy it is. I am a good performer.
Partway through the day, I wonder if perhaps the feelings have passed. I’m bubbly and cheery for my customers, chit-chatting about their day and the cold weather we’re having. I feel like I connect with them, but it’s temporary and eventually they move on.
Five o’clock comes and I get in my car for the night. The temperature has dropped by ten degrees at least and twisting the key in the ignition, I shiver and feel myself deflate. Today was just a distraction. All the smiles and laughter kept my attention focused and off of the implacable sensation but now that it’s quiet, now that I’m alone, I feel it acutely again. The thought sinks into my gut like a brick.
Unlocking my phone, I link the Bluetooth and play music, loud; Metal and Midwest emo, something I can scream along to, but I can’t fill my lungs enough to do so. The words are mumbled before I give up entirely. Instead of exiting off the highway to my home, I pass it, detouring three exits down into the heart of the city.
It’s dark now, or almost. The skyscrapers cut off the sunset, which is muffled by grey clouds anyway. It’s probably going to snow.
There’s a place I know of that supposedly has the Cure. It’s housed in a shitty brick building in a disused part of downtown. It’s an occult store, but I never remember the name of it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another person there, outside of the shop-keep.
Today is no different. Janey perks up from her book. She has a mother’s comfort in a wrinkled, round face and warm smile.
“Tired today?” she asks.
I nod. It’s not a lie, unlike the countless times I’d replied with a polite ‘I’m alright’ to my coworkers when asked during small-talk.
“Are you ready?” The question startles me. I’m not sure how she knows why I’m here but I believe it immediately.
“Yeah,” hope chokes the word and my voice cracks. I blink hard.
Janey rounds the glass counter. It’s filled with beautiful carved amulets and minerals and jewelry. She disappears through a door in the back.
With no indication to follow, I simply stand and look around at the objects in the store. Necklaces hang from an old piece of driftwood, books stack up by a little reading nook, and everything is incensed and mystical. I’ve always loved places like this. I tried to make my own room and house similar, but I grew tired of dusting it. Most things outside of my routine are exhausting.
The woman returns with a book and gives it to me. She takes my free hand in both of hers, smiling. “I know you’ll get your gold back.”
Her words twist in my chest and it hurts. I almost cry. Love glitters in her eyes, and I recall the first time I met her. She took my hands and looked me in the face, well before asking my name. “Your aura is golden yellow,” she smiled. “You’re a healer aren’t you?”
My mom used to say that. That I helped heal people. I held onto those words for years. I wanted so desperately for them to be true. But how could I help anyone when I could barely breathe most days?
The price is more than I expected. I thumb open my phone and move money from my savings account. It will be worth it.
I go back to my car, clutching the book to my chest as the snow begins to fall and I place it in the passenger seat carefully.
My jacket buzzes and I check that little box of distraction; one of my friends is calling. Since I’m still parked, I switch Bluetooth off and answer: “Hello?”
“Hey! Are you coming out tonight?” I hear the raucous sounds of a bar in the background, music droning behind my friend’s voice.
“Oh, that’s tonight, huh? Sorry, I’ve been crazy busy at work and I totally forgot.” Not entirely a lie. I love hearing from them but my eyes fall to the book. They wouldn’t really miss me not going.
“Well, are you busy now? You get off at five, right? You should totally come out still. The gang’s here, just waiting on Mindy.”
“Yeah, sure. Fitz’ right?” I ask, opening the search on my car’s navigation and starting to type in the name as my friend confirms.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
This wasn’t what I had intended on doing tonight. Something in me decides to sacrifice my jacket to hide the book in my front seat and I head inside. Four of my friends sit at a table and welcome me warmly. I plaster a smile on my face, playfully shoving them closer together in the booth so I can scoot in. The waitress brings me a Guinness. She knows my name.
Yet again, among my friends, I feel that weight lift. At one point, I wonder why I spent so much money on that dumb book. It’s probably the same as all the others anyway; some new-age, self-help bullshit that will make me feel like I’m making progress without actually doing anything at all.
I make sure to eat and drink lots of water before it’s time to leave. For a brief time, I forget.
But back outside the night air is even colder now, and I pull my arms tight against my body as I shuffle to my car. The static returns like a coat by the time I shut the door.
My hand moves the jacket in the passenger seat, just to put my eyes on the book once more. I’m glad that I bought it. It feels like relief.
The drive home hardly registers in my mind. Routine.
Gathering my things I walk up the stairs to my apartment, clutching the book to my chest again. My hands are shaking so unlocking the door is a chore, but I step inside to the meowing cat and twist the deadbolt to lock it behind me.
I drop my things on the floor and make my way to the living room since it’s more spacious than my bedroom. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I crack open the book carefully and hardly notice as my cat crawls into my lap, purring loudly.
I flip the page to:
𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕽𝖎𝖙𝖚𝖆𝖑
There’s a list of things I need and I type it into my notes app so I can gather it. I can hardly wait to get started.
It takes fifteen minutes to scrounge up enough candles. They’re all half-burned, mismatched, but hopefully it won’t matter. They say it’s about intent, anyway.
Carefully, I lay out everything how the book shows; the bowl, the salt, the candles, the crystals, the knife. Scooping up my cat, I lock her in my bedroom.
A green lighter is used to light the candles. My apartment is so quiet that I can hear the humming of the refrigerator. My neighbor’s TV. A distant siren.
I light the incense next. Every fiber in my being is praying, pleading, that this will work, though I don’t know who I’m pleading to.
Kneeling within the circle of salt, the words in the book don’t make a lot of sense to me. I read them as verbatim as I can, terrified that if I don’t say them right that it won’t work, that it will be for nothing. I say them with conviction, my tongue tripping on the unfamiliar language a few times before the book instructs me to put my blood in the bowl. Using the knife I poke a small hole in my wrist, not willing to cut open my sensitive palm like I always see in the movies. My eyes water.
The pain is worth it. It will be **worth it.
Seeing my own life dripping into the bowl, it sinks in what I’m doing. This is big. Dangerous.
I pick up the book with my other hand and begin reciting once more. The blood drips down my pinky, warm against my cold flesh and I hear it resonating as it falls against the brass.
Some kind of pressure begins to weigh on my shoulders. It’s outside of me, though when I glance around there’s nothing there. Discomfort wriggles beneath my skin, twisting in my core, as the temperature drops.
I’ve been around ghosts before. This feels similar, but never have I felt so watched, so imposed upon*.*
As I speak the last incomprehensible word, the candles flicker out.
My heart is pounding in my ears now as I sit, alone in the darkness of my apartment. There’s not a draft, no reason for the candles to go out at all.
Slowly, as if fading in, I hear a low growling. A slow wet, gasping sound and my blood goes cold. It’s coming from me.
Yet again, it feels like something moves inside my own body, a familiar sensation but it’s deep, cellular.
Something is pushing on the back of my throat.
I cough but nothing happens and I’m unable to resist the urge to stick my hand in my mouth to try and touch it, making myself gag in the process.
Nothing feels unusual. I feel my teeth, the moisture of my mouth, the scars on the inside of my cheeks from years of anxious biting. I cough again, unable to shake the feeling that something is lodged at the back of my throat. It’s not impeding my breathing, but I panic nonetheless, at something being wrong. I grab my phone and switch on the selfie camera to peer into my mouth.
Something slick and black rests just behind my tongue, out of place among the pink flesh.
I reach my hand back into my mouth, my frantic breath clouding the camera on my phone as I try to use it to navigate my fingers to the object. Leaning forward, I practically push my whole hand into my mouth, teeth scraping on my knuckles as I try to loop my finger under it to pull it out. My body heaves, trying to make me throw up and maybe that’s what I need.
As I touch the object, I feel a shockwave through my body like strumming a taught string running to my core. It resonates all the way down to my fingernails, my toes, my scalp, like a thread connecting every cell. In my mind I felt like I could see my nerves in all of their spiderwebbed glory electrified with that one small movement.
I heave again, vomiting right there on my floor, strings of black ichor trailing from my mouth to the dark pool. Fear twists in my guts, wanting me to stop, to go sleep, to run from the sensation but I’ve come too far.
My hand reaches to the back of my throat and I manage to hook a finger under the object and I pull.
The slick cord yanks taught at my core and I gag around it again as I wind it onto my fingers, desperate to not drop it. Finally I have enough outside of myself so I can put my eyes on it.
It reminds me me of an eel, or a hagfish, slimy and darker than black, as if there is simply a void rather than a three dimensional object in my hands. I pull again and heave; at least three feet now spilling on the floor in front of me. Another round of vomiting and the sensation of unraveling myself like an old sweater is so strong I can hardly keep going.
My eyes are watering so badly it blurs everything around me and I keep pulling, the wet sound of it pooling around the saliva and stomach fluid on the floor, like ink.
It’s blocking my entire throat. The horror of the moment concealed it until just now— I can’t breathe. Frantic, I pull hand over hand, faster in a desperate attempt to get all of it out of my throat. I think of biting it off but I am scared I won’t be able to grab it again.
My body feels like it is tightening from the ground up, as if this substance filled all of that space between my spirit and my corporeal body and I keep pulling and pulling and pulling, involuntarily heaving as it tries to expel this sickness.
Plucking the nerves in my mouth and skull, the last threads are extracted with a snapping sound and I manage to gasp in one breath before expelling more of the black fluid amid the puddle of viscera. Spitting, I sit back and breathe slowly, shaking and weak.
But my body feels different. That oppressive weight has lifted.
I look at my hands, seeing the splotches of ink and realize that they are more sensitive. The static, the gap between has been closed.
I reach out and touch the string that sits like tangled phone line in front of me. It’s ice cold now and I recoil. I need to burn it. And I would.
But for now, I lay back on my floor, feeling my own body from the inside out for what seems to be the first time. My skin is cold from sweat, and I feel saliva and that filthy liquid drip from my mouth. But it’s over.
Tears in my eyes, I smile.
It was worth it.