the ritual

I followed the youths through the cemetery gates and then around the pathways towards the very centre of the oldest part of the cemetery. They walked very quickly and I struggled to keep up though did, slightly breathless and conscious of the time. I was expected at work in half an hour and had little or no idea as to how long this type of thing was likely to take. When we reached what felt like – geometrically – the very heart of the cemetery some minutes later, the youngest of the youths stripped from the waist up and lay upon the flat surface of an old and likely once ornate tomb, although any engraving or artistic detail had been weathered over the intervening centuries to leave a smooth surface pocked only with lichen. His torso was peppered with keloid scars and more recent wounds still fresh in places across a huge spectrum of sizes and shapes suggestive of myriad utilised implements. His associates cleansed his torso with several alcohol free wipes and invited me to sit, which I did.

Would this take long, I asked, as I had to be at work very shortly. They silenced my concerns, also said no, that the process was an efficient one. I asked precisely what the process was and the three youths looked at one another as though they had selected the wrong man for this process and quieted me again, proceeding nonetheless with the ritual. The oldest youth drew a large knife from his bag and, whispering some incantation above its gleaming metal, began to carve methodically into the fatty stomach of the prostrated youth; he registered no sensation outwardly as the knife sank easily into the tissue but looked me in eye directly throughout. Several further incisions were made until the oldest youth was able to extract a small slice of flesh from his youngest associate; he held the meat on the flat edge of the knife blade and lowered it to me.

Eat, he urged. I must have recoiled some as he repeated the word, eat, and jabbed the knife towards me in a way that would be considered unsafe in any different circumstance. It’s part of the process, he said. Rather than being reassured I felt as though I were continually making an appalling mistake and would continue to do so without fail as the event demanded. I reached out to take the flesh in my hand but was admonished harshly by the youth of middling age, who punched my stomach though helped me upright when I doubled hard over. Use your mouth, hissed the elder of the three youths. Your lips, tongue. It won’t work if you touch it. I noticed that the youngest of the three had sat up and was rubbing handfuls of earth from the cemetery floor into the wound on his torso. He stuck a large adhesive dressing over the entire area from which blood and mud gathered and dressed himself hastily. The imminent consumption of his flesh for purposes of ritual provoked a singularly unusual feeling, but I focused my thoughts on my poor sick child and lapped the tissue from the knife and into my mouth. It was warm and iron-rich and metallic on my tongue. Now chew, said the oldest youth. Chew and swallow. I did as he said and struggled not to retch as the tough skin eventually passed down my throat. The youth of middling age whose role within the process aside from violent retribution was unclear throughout squeezed my cheeks and forced my mouth open and the other two closely inspected the cavity, I presume to ensure I was not stashing the meat in some corner of my mouth to then spit out in their absence or use for some diabolic reason at a later point of my own choosing, which was one outcome I had resolutely failed to consider. Satisfied that the meat was gone they helped me to my feet and the youngest youth brushed my knees of the soil and leaf detritus one routinely encounters within urban cemetery settings.

I paid them each ten pounds, plus a further five between the three of them as a kind of gratuity, and we went our separate ways. When I returned home that evening my child was still incredibly sick, worse if anything than she had been that morning. We agreed to make a further doctor’s appointment for her the following day, and I said nothing about the ritual.