The rain tapped counterpoint to voudoun drums last night, and a dark man danced outside my window, shaking a fetish and casting graveyard dirt toward the house. His shadowed face seemed not to move, but I could hear chanted prayers.
This morning I rose without waking, and moved with shuffling gait through the house. I acted out the rituals of the day without feeling, spoke without thought, ate and drank without affect. I have made and drunk potions that seemed necessary at the time I did so, and I am unchanged. People speak to me and I make answer, and do not know what has been said. I act, and do not think to wonder what I am doing, nor why.
The darkness is still all about me, not menacing, and the echo of chanting is still resounding within it in rythm to my underwater movements. I lift my cup, and smell only graveyard dirt.
Somewhere, there is unquiet within me, but it is far, far from where anyone will ever hear it again.
Papa Bones croons from over my shoulder, “perhaps a nap at lunch.”
Unfeeling, I nod as I type.