Short Snippets - The May Holiday - Visions from the Past
Tales from the fantastical universe of Angelika Moonglenn
About this Short Snippet
Today is a long weekend in Canada. It is the Victoria Day holiday, but is more affectionately called the May 2-4 (or May two four) holiday. This is because, after a long cold winter, this holiday is the official start to summer, nice weather, and sitting on a deck, or porch with a beer. In slang, two four, is a case of twenty four beers.
The holiday is also officially supposed to be celebrated around Queen Victoria’s birthday which is May 24th.
With different things going on in my life, and around the world, I really appreciate that today everyone gets a chance to sit back, relax, and take a breath.
I am also really grateful for the many things my country has given me. Canada is far from perfect, many things need to be fixed, and sometimes we get into spats, but this is home, and like everyone I have had a stressful life, but it is still a life that has been more blessed than others on this planet.
So today, I wanted to incorporate some of the holiday into my current project. I had always intended Earth to be an ancient, extinct planet in my tales, so for the first time I included a reference to its death here.
I hope you enjoy these words. I’m always happy to hear your comments.
The May Holiday - Visions from the Past
Final Newsletter, before the great hiatus break, after the completion of the Meter Project. All questions, complaints, laughter or whatever to be addressed to Angelika Moonglenn
Hello all, Elon is off, so I’m filling in. Many of you have asked me why I like May, and what the May holiday on Erudus is all about. So, here you go.
I can’t believe I’m writing this, but please read all of the words CAREFULLY, before contacting me for more information. Honestly, guys it’s not that difficult, and you are not going to be tested on it.
Once you have read this, you can fly away, to your beaches, bars, mountains, or whatever. Honestly, if you want, ditch the newsletter and go, it’s just between you and me.
Uh oh! Tallman’s reading over my shoulder and told me that I should say that TECHNICALLY, your supposed to read this. So yes boys, it is required in your contracts, and by the laws of the Magaus Alliance, that your read all memos, notes, addendums, text, emails, yada yada yada…
OOP! He's gone now. So ya, technically your supposed to read it, but nobody’s going to check, so do whatever.
Enough of the frivolity, thanks for all your work, have a great vacation, cause you’re going to need it. When we return, we have something doubly exciting, doubly frustrating and, well, doubly deadly in mind. So have fun!
So, chatty me will stop. The actual content is below.
It was coming again. That day that I had learned to fear. I had been on Erudus ten years, helping people, living through weird shit, and tuning my magical powers each day.
The first May holiday, after I had run through the cosmic gate, had left me frustrated and upset. I didn’t understand why, a community which does not remember where the ritual came from, continued to celebrate something that kept people miserable and in grief.
Jynx and I sat on the cool stone ledge, overlooking the pampas. As I watched the flare grass swaying in a gentle wind and heard the soft melody from the burning stalks, my mind drifted back to the last May holiday. At sunset, Keefee and his men had lit a bonfire of dried sighing sage. When the intoxicating smell of the burning plant filled the air, elders, mostly old women, marched forwards with memories of their dead. They spoke of the pain and suffering that they still felt after their loved one had passed on through the veil into the light. The tales were often long, vivid and detailed. In some cases, they brought bloody shirts and wrote magical images of the person’s last moments in the sky. This had happened repeatedly for years.
As I have matured, I have learnt that while memory and love of the dead is important, to move forward through life, you must remember the good times spent with your loved ones, instead of dwelling on the horror of their deaths. If you only remember the pain, as I did for many years, remembering my grandfather slitting my mother’s throat, you circle through the pain forever, and eventually it will take you down.
So, as I sat on that ledge, as the sun descended, and the aurora began to bounce around the mountains, I needed to know why the ancestors were so callous, as to start this grief-filled tradition.
I wandered back into the cave, down into its depths, where the library I had found rested. It was dark here, many of the ancient texts were damaged, and although I was always fixing the old mechanical video system, it always smoked during use. Still, the books here were older than I had seen anywhere else on Erudus, and I hoped in this chamber, I could find something about the May holiday.
I searched for much of the night, through the dragon hide covered books, feeling the soft leather on the tips of my fingers, looking for something that would help me. Towards dawn, I resigned myself to starting up the recording system, and inserting, small rectangular keys into openings on the big silver box.
The videos I began with, were images of the last days, on the now extinct planet Earth. As I watched, fire rained down from the heavens, and terrified families fled the flames, carrying everything they had, trying to protect themselves from thieves, using home spun implements, such as pitch forks and slabs of wood.
I sighed. I was the only one on Erudus who knew the ancestors had fled from Earth through the cosmic gate. I had learned this only a short time ago, and I wanted time to plan how I was going to tell my friends. When I told them, legends would die, people’s traditions would be in flux, and the identity of the Erudites would be damaged.
I stretched my arms high above my head, hoping to ease tension in my back. I was tired of watching dead people fight, so I threw the key to the far side of the table and grabbed a box of rectangles I had not yet searched through.
I picked up the closest rectangle, intending to insert it into the machine, when I saw faint writing on its side. Written in the now universal language of English, granted a very old form of English, but still understandable, was the word Christmas.
My feet drummed the floor as I smiled. I didn’t know what Christmas was, and it wasn’t what I wanted, but at least I would not have to view every video in the box.
I grabbed a cobalt pebbles from the floor and threw them upwards, hoping that the universe would grant me luck. I began pulling rectangles from the box, reading the labels. Halloween, Qingming festival, ANZAC day, Hogmanay; the names were weird.
Still, I continued my search, until halfway through the box, I came upon a rectangle with “May 24th” labelled on it. Could that be it?
There was a click, and a whir, as I inserted the rectangle into the box. Then the video began playing. Almost immediately I frowned, tilting my head sideways, as I leaned forward to get a better look at the movement. In the first image a man in a boat, on a long-ago forgotten lake, dragged a scantily clad woman, across the water with only a cord attached to the boat, and boards attached to her feet. Another showed beautiful sparks filling the sky with magenta, sage and gold. The sparks glittered in the sky while crowds watched below. Other rectangles showed images of hiking, fishing, tenting, festivals, and outdoor dining. It was only when I saw the last image, that I understood how the May holiday on Erudus had begun.
In the last video, friends sat over a great bonfire, holding sticks with strange mushy cubes, over the flames while laughing. They told stories, some of them funny, but most of them of murder, mayhem and ghosts. Everyone laughed at the results and added their ideas. The tales became bizarre and horrific. When I thought they couldn’t get worse, someone pulled out an old guitar and began to sing, out of tune, a boisterous song. Everyone surrounding the fire joined the song.
It seemed to me that the holiday originally was about fun, relaxation, and friends. It was never meant to be a memorial for the dead, where misery is revered. The bonfire and tales were just for fun.
I reached out and turned off the machine, waiting until it clicked itself off. I knew what I had to do, and I only had a couple of days to do it. I would need help.
On the night of May Day, the ritual began as usual. Keefee and his men built a bonfire of sighing sage. But, before the melodic sound of the burning leaves began, I raised my hand to the sky, concentrated, and played back the images I had found for all to see, in the dark sky. Once the last flame of bonfire disappeared from the sky, I steadied myself, took a breath, and started to talk about Earth, how the inhabitants had killed her, and how everyone on Erudus were descendants of the people who fled destruction.
When I was done speaking, the melodic sound of sighing sage, was all that could be heard. The people were silent and still. No one stirred for sometime, until Keefee, moved forward and began to speak.
The dead deserve to be remembered; both our kin, and those who long ago sought to celebrate life. The ancestors may not have understood that both our environment and our lives are fragile, but they did understand that life deserves to be celebrated.
In saying this, I do not wish to dishonor the dead. We will continue to remember our friends, when their souls pass on, and we will still grieve. But, for so long, this day has been about dredging up old memories, that fuels our grief and keeps it burning too long.
We must look around us. The mountains are now safe to walk, our land is fertile, the plants are growing wildly again, and there is no longer a voice in the wind that wishes us dead. Today should celebrate the living, and the joys we have each day.
So, from today, we will celebrate the May holiday, with a festival honoring the great beauty of the landscape, emphasizing its fragility, planning to help it. There shall be Dilly ball games, our children shall tent under the stars, we shall grill, and we will build bonfires, around which we will spend time together, taking pleasure in each others company, and watching our beautiful aurora.
Everyone, let us cheer the ancestors, who lost everything, but taught us that spring, and life are worth celebrating.
Keefee raised his left hand to the sky. “Owa! Owa! Owa!”
When everyone raised their hands and cheered in response, I was so proud, that my smile must have glowed. These people, who in ten short years had drastically changed their lives, so that they no longer killed and focused on death. Now, when given the chance, they chose life over grief, and they chose to move forward.
Now, that I am far away, here at the head nest of the Magaus Alliance, helping my you, my new friends ease pain in other places, when the May holiday comes around, I remember those smiling faces. They give me the hope I need, to continue my journey, wherever it may lead.
To everyone around me, you may not be Erudian, but you’re all human, and everyone deserves to celebrate life. So, happy spring, and happy may, I hope you enjoy blue skies, bright sunshine, and the call of the wind.
Before I leave, I want to say one more thing. Don’t try that cord and boards thing on the water, because it looks like it’s more weird shit to me. But then, everyone thinks I’m odd, and Tallman and I are off to go ziplining, so maybe I’m wrong.
Anyway, happy May 24th! See you!
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