Jeremiah's School of Levitation

I skipped out Friday, but to make amends to the blog muse, I did a ten-minute write on my next non-busy ten minutes on Sunday morning (where we are experiencing summer-like conditions here in the Great Northwest--there's going to be some rolling in the grass happening today) and I pulled out my writing prompt book and it told me to write a story about a chant. And so...


Chant

Up on the cliff, past where we could see, we heard the noise again.

"It's like a chant," Mindy said. She huddled closer to me and we sunk into the shadows. The sun had disappeared behind the horizon, leaving the sky with a bright orange bruise, that was fading into the stars even as we watched.

"That's creepy as hell," Harry said. His girlfriend, Lori, started rustling through her bag, looking for her recorder, no doubt. I was growing weary of her chronicling, of her note-taking, photo-taking, video-taking, and recording-taking. It was getting obsessive, and it was ruining the hike, the wilderness, for, everytime she took out something electronic, memories of my office came rushing back and I was suddenly anxious, thinking of projects, thinking of something I missed, some email I should have sent. It's hard enough getting the office out of my head. I didn't need reminders.

"Well, it's coming from the east. So, that tells us which way we probably should go," I said.

"Yeah, east!" said Lori.

"Wrong answer," said Mindy.

"It's dark," said Lori. "We're fine. We should go see what that is."

Harry, who always agreed with Lori because I suppose that's what guaranteed she'd keep having sex with him, actually tried to tactfully slide out of it.

"I think we should nix the Scooby Doo action tonight. I'd rather pitch camp than go chase a chant. You know? We could do it tomorrow night, hike to where it came from and camp there."

"Shhhh!" said Lori. She had her little digital recorder in her hand. I thought of the copy machine in the office, wondering if the admin assistant had ordered more toner.

Lori pushed a button on the recorder and spoke into it.

"We're hearing this weird noise, like a chant," she said, whispering into the device. She then held it up in the air, toward where the sound came from.

Just then, the chant came again. From right above us.

"Goddamn!" said Harry. "Goddamnit!" He ducked and grabbed Lori. She frowned and pulled away from him.

The chant got louder and louder and finally, it stopped.

We looked at each other, trembling.

"What the hell?" said Harry.

"Did you get that recorded?" I said, suddenly very interested in Lori's gadgets.

She was already fiddling with it. Harry snapped on his flashlight and shone it on the device. Lori pushed another button.

"We're hearing this weird noise, like a chant," came her voice from the tinny recorder speaker.

But, after that, nothing.

"Did you shut it off?" said Harry.

Lori was silent for a second. Then she said, "No."

"You didn't get that?" I said.

Lori shook her head.

"How did you not get that?" I said. Mindy grabbed my arm.

"I don't know," said Lori. "Don't know."

We made camp, quietly. Mindy was angry at me for not saying something about leaving tomorrow. Lori kept her electronics hidden. Harry kept cursing about the chant. I kept trying to remember what the chant was saying.

We never heard it come from the woods again.

But, one day, long past this trip, years past this trip, I met up with Lori at a camping and skiing store. She had long left Harry, maybe, I was thinking, because he stopped agreeing with her all the time. I had long left Mindy, because she started to get angry too quickly and, one day, she brandished a knife at me. That was enough.

Lori had an odd look. Her left eye looked wetter than her right. And, I'm sure that she noticed that only the hair on one half of my head had gone gray.

We spoke to each other, deliberately, but pleasantly. Both of us seemed eager to end the conversation quickly, as if our thoughts were pulling us out to sea.

After we spoke, we turned away, our faked expressions of happiness fading into our faces as we turned from each other. I began looking again at the snowshoeing equipment, but something made me look back to Lori. She was pawing the snow jackets, mumbling something. I watched her lips.

Just as I figured. Just as I feared. The thing she was mumbling was the same phrase that kept going through my mind. The same chant we had heard that night, 5 years ago.

I turned back to the snowshoes. I needed to get a pair because I was going to the mountains this weekend. I was going high, where the air is still, where sound travels far. I was going to a peak where there are snowboarders, other snowshoers, cross-country skiers. It was my last resort. It was, I believed, my last chance to get this chant out of my head.

I was going to stand in a high place, and I was going to wait for sunset, and I was going to wait until I could see a group of people, or maybe only one, and I was going to yell out this chant. Yell it out as loud as I could. And, keep yelling it, until it finally stopped yelling out in my head. Finally. Stop. Yelling. Finally. Stop. Yelling. Finally. Stop. Yelling.

the chant wasn't, by any chance, ENGLAND! ENGLAND!

too much footie... I apologize... :)))

very nice... from where did the idea for this one spring?

Whoa. I liked that you didn't name the chant. Whoa. Awesome!

Creepy, the chant is creepy.

Good writing!