Okay, here's mine. Please comment on it, good or bad. I've done a very bad job of editing this piece, as it's actually over 1800 words. Plus I don't have an internet connection anymore!!!
Folly
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"This is a mistake, Ling."
As she stepped into the house, finally ready for the task at hand, her inner voice seemed to be playing on her fears, repeating what she had heard earlier in the day. Sweat beaded in her head, she remembered, when she was having this dialogue.
"Every single step must be adhered to without exception! It has to be flawless. Flawless!"
Yeah, but I could also get what I wish for. And it’s payback time anyway.
"Forgiveness, Ling. Please."
No!
"Oh, hi! What are you doing back before midnight?" Joyce laughed. Joyce was her housemate, endlessly prattling, endlessly annoying. Having just appeared from the kitchen with a huge bowl of popcorn, Joyce must have no plans tonight. Ling didn't even bother answering, but went straight to her room and locked herself in.
She had cleared as much of the space between her bed, which rested against the room's far wall, and her room door, for this purpose. In the middle of this space as she entered her room now was a small wooden table, square and simple. It was draped in a ruby red table cloth. Her makeshift altar. Right in the middle of the wooden table was a small porcelain urn filled to the brim with fine grey ash. On either side of the urn sat two thick red candles, unlit. Also on the table were a bowl filled with rice, a bowl filled with chicken blood, and most importantly, a stack of fu. Chinese talismans. The strips of yellow paper are normally drawn with chinese words to imbue them with magical properties. These were unmarked, allowing Ling to write on them in the course of the ceremony.
Ling began to stuff the underside of her room door with folded towels. This was important. She made sure she got every inch. Then she drew close all the curtains in her room. The curtains were new, bought specifically for tonight's purpose. These were thick, heavy blue. Light from outside her window will not get through, that's for sure.
She took in a final appraising look at the altar in front of her. This is it, she thought. I will get back what's mine.
Her jaws set, she walked over and switched off the room light.
It was pitch black. The curtains and the stuffed towels under the door were doing their job. Excellent. Ling struck her match. The flame danced, throwing shadows on the altar that waver to and fro. She lit the two candles.
She took out a pack of joss sticks, counted out twenty of these, and lit them. When the tips of the incense caught with a slow steady flame, she extinguished the flame by fanning it with her free hand, leaving the incense glowing bright red with slow burn. A trail of whitish incense smoke drifted from each of the glowing red tips, snaking up skywards with slow deliberate swirls. The smell filled her senses, calming her mind, but only somewhat. She was at once fearful, but eager to begin.
She closed her eyes and mouthed a prayer, reached forward and set the joss sticks into the middle of the porcelain urn, burying the ends of the incense into the fine ash. It held fast, keeping the joss sticks upright.
It begins.
Ling started to chant in a low murmur, like singing. She took her brush, moistened it in the ink pot, and began to write on the stack of fu. Chinese calligraphy. It began slowly, and as each fu was written Ling took the fu and flung it high in the air, letting it flutter this way and that as the fu slowly dropped to the floor. The writing began to hasten, and soon Ling was throwing fu in the air faster than the previous fu can reach the floor. Soon, like yellow snow, the fu were falling down all around her in slow motion.
Slowly, but perceptibly, the air around her seemed to cool. It was coming. She continued to chant has she wrote furiously on the fu, one after another, not pausing.
Then she saw it.
The smoke from joss sticks began to coalesce, intertwining, like a dance. The smoke, formless before this, now seemed to gather in front of her, twisting into shape. Wispy features began to take hold in the air, becoming clearer.
A face made of incense smoke now looked at her with unblinking eyes.
Ah. The invitation of the spirit was successful. Flawless, even. Ling smiled.
Summoning presents a colossal risk to the summoner, as spirits are malevolent, and detest being bid by humans. Ling was aware of this. But spirits, properly controlled, can grant favours no mortal can match. The fruits of a successful supplication often outweights the terrible risks the summoner takes in the summoning. The risk for Ling was several magnitudes higher because the face before her now was not a mere passing spirit.
She threw down her ink brush. The chanting now changed. Her words were more urgent, quicker. The mantra was now of quelling and control. As she chanted she picked up a single lighted joss stick from the prayer urn. She drew chinese characters in the air with it, the burning tip pointed outwards like a pen nib. It was as if she was writing on an invisible wall in front of her. If she were to print the words onto a piece of paper, it would be beautiful calligraphy. How ironic that something so graceful be used to perform a ceremony so decidedly ugly.
The face in the smoke opened its mouth, a gaping hole as the head swayed from left to right and back. It's as if it was yelling. It was then that she realized that something was wrong.
Why isn't the spirit responding? Am I forgetting something? That must be it. It must... blood. That's it!
She knocked the bowl of rice over as she reached over for the paper. The bowl tipped over the edge of the table and smashed on the floor with a loud crash. She gave a startled cry. Abruptly, the light from the candles and joss sticks went out all at once, plunging the whole room in total darkness. She heard the distinct sound of the circuit breaker pop downstairs. It was as though she had poured water over an exposed circuitry board, shorting it in tiny sparks.
NOOOO! Oh no no no no ...!
She had just screwed up the summoning of the Spirit of Vengeance.
Her fingers trembled violently. She fumbled to put everything right again. She felt for the spilt rice on the table and gathered them with her hands to where the bowl had been, sweeping with her hands as she would in the beach when she's gathering sand. She fumbled for the candle. Wait. The candle wick was gone, and the only way to get the candle burning again was to melt it until the fire catches wick within.
This is futile. Ling sat down heavily on the floor in the darkness. The room smelled of extinguished candle smoke, incense still cloying her senses. Her hands still trembled. Her heart thuddered hard and fast in her chest, the sound of it pumping was almost palpable. She didn't know if the spirit annulled the spell, or if she severed the connection herself by spilling the offering. Her mind was racing like a bullet train, thinking of everything at once. What if my heart stops right now? Quite involuntarily, she started crying. Uncontrollable sobs wracked through her. The culmination of fear and utter disappointment at her failure.
After a moment she stopped. She was still alive. It wasn't so bad, she thought, no earth-shattering retribution had seemingly come from the spirit over the failed transaction. She shuddered suddenly; what if the spirit somehow transported her? It would suck mightily if she were to find herself in Hell once the lights came back on. A quick grope in the dark found her sneakers - no, she was still in her room. It was still too dark to see her own hands, her eyes still not adjusted from the sudden change from candle light illumination to pitch blackness.
"Ling?" A soft knock on the door. Joyce. "Are you in there? What's that noise?" Faint squeak as the door opened. One hears everything in the dark. "What the... What the hell happened in here? Are you alright?"
"I'm okay, just scared the shit out of myself. Reset the circuit breaker and turn the bloody lights on, will you?"
A pause. This was an awkward pause, and in that instant Ling felt an involuntary jolt of abject terror. The realization spread in her mind, her brain slowly working out the full extent of what really happened. The spirit didn't leave without showing its displeasure after all.
"But Ling, the lights are already on. Can't you..."
But she didn't hear the rest. It was drowned by the sound of her scream.
