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"Dies Irae" by Janey (sexual retrrospective) 10, 10, 10
"Dies Irae" by Janey (janey98@hotmail.com). As a child, I attended numerous Catholic funeral masses. In fact, when we got to the seventh and eighth grade we became the funeral choir, which meant that we got out of science for a half hour and sang while they buried some poor soul. The Catholic funeral mass is an incredible study in contrasts. It starts with the "Requiem Aeternam," which is beautiful, restful, and optimistic. It ends with the "In Paradisiam," which is beautiful, triumphal, and optimistic. In between, lies the "Dies Irae" (pronounced DEE-ez EEE-ray) - a lengthy medieval poem designed to scare the hell out of everyone present. Even if you didn't understand the words (which were in Latin), the music itself scared the hell out of you. This is the way it was with the Catholic religion of my youth - a study of contrasts. Half the people seemed to be concerned with burning in hell and half seemed to be alive with a wonderful lust for life. We'd be told that people burned in hell for masturbating, but we were assured that our bodies were holy. We had a vague feeling that celibates were holier than everyone else, but Catholic weddings were some of the wildest parties there ever were. In this story a man returns to his home town and happens to notice from the obituaries that an old girlfriend has died. He attends her funeral and thinks about her. I suppose the title refers to the hymn from the funeral mass plus the fact that the last time he was with the woman was a dies irae - a day of wrath - of sorts. There's not a lot of hot, explicit sex in this story, but I enjoyed it very much. Ratings for "Dies Irae" Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot & character): 10 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10 |