"Ceremony"
(c)2003 Eiffel Crisp

The Balkans are famously said to have "too much history", and that is true.
Behind every hillock, a massacre; each quaint village with a little church and
a towpath nurtures its own ancient local vendettas, and all collectively
subscribe to the most ancient vendetta of them all: fear of the Turk.

Migration to the New World brought freedom from the outward depredations, but
the demons had long since burrowed within. Magyars and Poles, Czechs,
Wallachians, Serbs, Croatians, Ruthenians and Montenegrans. . .all carried with
them their skills and their pains.

The settled in towns like these, along the Monongahela. . .towns where coal was
mined in deep shafts, and where they died as they were used to dying-- in
groups of brothers and cousins, trapped in mines, drowned by floods the
solitary death was a stranger to men-- a woman's death.

And they built churches like this one to mirror the dread of their days, out of
dark green stone bound with limey mortary that grew green with lichen almost as
it was applied. And sat in long oak pews and heard about what would come to
sinners. Salvation and heaven were vague concepts indeed. . .people who know
sorrow and loss cannot conceive of plenty except in abstract terms-- as the
little child pulled on Father Husalka robes and asked him "What's heaven like?"
and he responded only "they sing Hosannas", while he explained with great
precision the tortures of the damned.

Coal mining is gone from the valley, and so are the people, most of them
anyway. A few linger on, enough to fill a church on Christmas eve, when a
prayer for the dead on the field of Mohacs is still offered.

This church, though, has been deconsecrated. There was some flurry of action to
save it, but expensive roofwork and the declining population lead the diocease
to consolidate services elsewhere.

But deconsecrated does not mean unused, its owned by a fraternal group
now, and we are preparing you for the ceremony. You've been kneeling in your
cell since sun rise, thin rays of light struggling through the window nothing to do but clear your mind, or rather fill you mind. The past vibrates,
sometimes, on a different wavelength than the present. Its like a radio station
that you can almost hear through static, sometimes more clearly, now more
distant.

This pile was built with dread and sorrow, and a contemplation of redemption
through pain; the specific theology is gone, yesterday's catechisms dust for
canon lawyers and ecclesiastic historians. But the feeling remains.

Remains, as you are stripped. Remains, as ancient shackles are placed on your
wrists. 

As sun falls, you are lead from your cell, newly draped in a white cassock.
Your head is hooded, you cannot see, you are lead on a chain whose rattling
reminds you of ignominy and your immediate committal.

You are lead into the body of the church, stumbling. You hear rustling in the
pews, the heavy breath of congregants. You are made to stop, and your cassock
is pulled up in the rear, revealing your bottom. This process is repeated
several times; you understand, you are being shown.

You are brought to the front, hood removed; you blink against the faint light,
and take in the scene. A large block stands where the altar once would have
been. Shaped out of a solid piece of wood-- the stump of a great tree-- it is
roughly wedge-shaped, with iron fastenings.

You turn your head and see the pews, half-filled; you see the eyes of the
celebrants, see them watching you. You are lead to the block. Seen up close it
is worn and smooth, a center depression stained dark by years of friction and
sweat. You are bent down, cassock flipped back.

Your wrists are fastened to the sides of the block. "With iron I bind you" is
the whisper as the shackles close. Your thighs, too, and your ankles. You are
aware that in this position the audience sees your vulva with no chance for you
to close your legs or otherwise obscure it.

You feel something different now. Something sliding down your back, a serpent
finding its way to the crevice between your bottom cheeks, slithering between.
The whip. It is upon you, testing your flesh, warming itself; the wielder waits
for it to feel its own life, the whip sleeps heavy and long, here in the New
World.

A voice in your ear: "we thank you for the gift of your pain".

A hundred eyes on you as you twist under the whip, approving.