― Emi Zako
Andie
Why was I walking into the Devil's den?
All I could think of was the warning Dante claimed was inscribed at the gates of hell—Abandon hope, all you who enter here.
Hell itself was a prison house and torture chamber from which there was no escape, so why was I flirting with perdition by voluntarily entering Malachi Bane's estate?
The man was undoubtedly a Satanist, if not a high priest of the black arts. Was it worth the risk to attend an initiation session where I'd undoubtedly be called upon to sell my soul to Lucifer?
To say I was having second thoughts about the whole enterprise was an understatement.
I parked on the circular drive and headed toward the house.
From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a dark figure but when I turned my head, it was gone.
It could have been a shadow, it happened so fast, or my imagination working overtime.
I had no idea what to expect, so it was off-putting to be met at the door by Bane's personal assistant and handed a black cloak and instructed to put it on.
The only other time in my life when I ever wore something similar was when I graduated from U of T and wore a black gown.
This was much more intimidating and certainly no cause for celebrating.
"Draw the cowl up over your head," the man whispered. I looked at him dumbly.
"The Hood," The assistant said tersely, obviously irritated by my slow response.
I felt like a monk solemnly preparing for tonsure and was sure I wouldn't trust the assistant to stop at merely cutting a lock of my hair if he had a knife in his hand.
"Follow me," he commanded and led me into a great hall where there were a dozen other initiates similarly clad and apparently awaiting my arrival.
Shortly after I was seated, the lights were dimmed and Bane entered leading a silent procession of dark robed figures who gathered around him at white draped altar at the centre of the room.
Bane lifted his hands and made a sweeping gesture intended to include all present and declaimed in a solemn tone.
“Let all reply, Yes, who are here tonight to commit themselves to the service of Great North Corp”
“All the initiates, including me, answered in the affirmative.
Bane nodded and began a litany, listing various things the applicants were expected to reject by again affirming each item.
“Do you reject the slave mentality of traditional customs?” He asked, and we all agreed and affirmed our commitment.
And so it continued in a monotonous question/response manner that became mesmerizing and seemingly interminable as he catalogued a list of traditional attitudes and practices apparently associated with the follower mentality to which, ironically, we all agreed to reject.
Apparently, this was the rite of ‘Unbaptism’ and at the end of the ceremonial chant, we were all handed a braided cord of red yarn that represented our ties to conventional societal institutions and by dropping the cord we were dissolving those bonds.
It all seemed so trite and mundane I began to feel foolish that I expected some disgusting ritual that might involve animal sacrifice or the shedding of blood.
Surprisingly, I felt a twinge of disappointment that the whole ceremony was contrived and melodramatic and that I probably wasted the detectives’ time by imagining something far more sinister than what it actually was in reality.
But it seemed I was hasty in my belief—the rejection of traditional societal values and norms was only the first phase of the ceremony—now each of us was to participate in a destruction ritual where we had to make a break with our past in order to achieve self-empowerment.
Each of us was presented with an obect symbolizing our ties to a person or relationship we had to permanenty end and we signified this by choosing a tool of destruction such as a hammer, a bat or a knife and destroy the object, saying aloud, I do not belong to this person, place or thing but it belongs to me and I reject it.
Each initiative had a different attachment that we were required to destroy and to my dismay, my object was a framed photo of Andie.
I was expected to bring down a hammer on her portrait and by so doing, end our relationship.
We’d proceed in order and I was near the end of the line, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to go through with this action, symbolic or not.
This was a step too far and I could see no exit out of this.
I was trapped. Some attachments are just too precious to end.