The card sits on the table. The device sits on the card. The interior of the rear of the brass chamber is lined with red velvet. There is enough of the candles’ light to reach that chamber and illuminate the velvet.
Before any ritual, regular or unique, banal or exciting, I always take a pause to ask myself if I want to continue. It is during this pause that I study the chamber and note each reflection and refraction of light within it. There is nothing out of the ordinary here. Let’s invite the extraordinary in, eh.
“Rede…” There is a glint from the chamber. I perceive a solid line crossing the chamber horizontally where there should be none. After twelve previous summonings where nothing visually happened, I am intrigued, but also able to dismiss the line as being where my eyes are focused and noticing how the candle light is playing in the glass.
“… rede… ” The chamber’s window is round and it is placed between two lit candles of equal height. Two candles plus one brass rimmed window creates a triangle of light within the chamber. The triangle has blunt corners.
“… rede…” Other lines of flame-hued light rise to my perception. My eyes widen as I realize I am watching something like the upper portion of a hooded figure appear within and behind the glass of the chamber. The hair on the back of my neck rises and the scent of cedarwood oil intensifies such that I am concerned that the smoke alarm may sound off.
I pause again. Just long enough to study the image and confirm that I don’t remember seeing these lines in this way before. My imagination could easily complete the image into my perception of [Patient Caller]. The image moves and I can’t tell if I just watched the figure adjust their clasped hands or if I just imagined doing so. Welp. Let’s go.
“… in pace.” The head of the figure jerks up. A pressure wave comes from the direction of the glass of the device and rushes over my face. I flinch and close my eyes.
The vision envelops me immediately. I “open” my eyes to find the working table has been replaced by a large, wide, and mostly empty table with the spirit seated beyond it in the same position I had seen in the glass. Everything I saw was dominated by a brilliant amber glow.
I made the gesture as both greeting and challenge. Slowly and with formal movement, the spirit returned the gesture. As we both lower our hands, I note the small shallow cedar bowl is present at his right hand. A pinch of incense is burning there without charcoal or heat. I keep feeling that this detail is very important but I still don’t understand the layers of meaning to it.
“Have you any words for me today, [O Patient Caller]?”
He said nothing but raised his left hand and covered his already obscured face. Unbidden memories and seemingly random images rose from the depths of my mind and overwhelmed me. They swirled in my head and wove a new story from fragments of others. The images told an unlived story of [faraway spirits] that bartered with me for access so to get closer to a man chanting his evening prayers.
The spirits were unable to approach him as spirit because the man saw them as unclean. They didn’t want to hurt him, they only wanted to listen and feel the deep rumbles that his faith extended into the world(s) around him.
A bargain was struck, and the spirits possessed me. Together we made our way as close to the man as was proper for my station. We listened to his sure timbre of voice and how his faith made his age worn voice sound stronger and more steadfast than a mature cedar tree.
Once his prayers were finished, we stole away from our listening place and returned to the site where the bargain was first struck. The spirits left me then, and in keeping with their end of the deal, watched over me as I slept and recovered from the possession.
The false memory of the story ended and I opened my eyes to find myself back in the vision. The spirit had moved the smoking bowl to sit between us again. Though his face was immediately beside the stream of smoke, when he spoke, the smoke did not move even the dip of a glance.
«You still struggle with prayer. Continue finding your faith and how to express that faith. This is your soul’s medicine for a reason.»
I had no quip, rebuttal, or vicious and sarcastic rejoinder to attack him with. I did not want to admit before him that I shared the longing of the spirits in the story to hear such prayers, to speak such prayers, again. I did not know how to admit that I felt so broken and abused by divinity, that it felt like self-betrayal to so much as admit that to myself privately.
Funny. For all the gods I have called upon, I do not have such faith in any of them anymore. I am reminded of unresolved pain and spend a few seconds of silence ignoring the words inspired by it by focusing on my breathing until I am capable of coherent speech again.
“Have you more words for me?”
«Yes. Sit with [Wit]1»
I realize the spirit already knows what I’m trying to ignore. Very well, then. “How?”
«The way you have been actively avoiding.»
I know better than to complain or throw excuses by now. I adjust my plans for the evening. “Have you any more words for me?”
«None.» He clasps his hands and lowers his hooded head over the small bowl of smoking incense. The smoke collects under the hood and never seeps out or through the amber-red hued cloth. I see the color clearly but do not ask for its significance. I think I’ve been given enough homework for the day.
I give the license to depart and close the ritual.
Total time killing time: 12 minutes.
1 The public pseudonym for the Black Armored Angel.