The Ritual
An old ivory white basin. Paint cracked and peeling, the rust exposed. The now brown-orange hue metal smells rotten. Hundreds of teeth. Some false sets, most are not. White, beige, yellow, brown, and gray. The core chunks of mouth flesh torn out, still decaying on them. Red dry stained into the ivory white paint underneath. A toy doll. Blonde curly dirt caked hair, black jagged lines on its skin, black empty eyeless sockets, a torn fancy Sunday's best dress, one shoe unstrapped. Six seasoned witches gathered 'round. Stringy, dirty hair. Sunken eyes, almost black. Wrinkled skin, around wry smiles. Narrow teeth, when present. Flickering flames revealing dark hooded robes. Their bony jagged fingers reaching to the clouds. Six torches burning. Crackling embers, ascending reds, oranges. The ritual begins. Together the witches hiss, "Feast, famine, friend, foe, bring us a Daughter to end terrible woe." "Deep, shallow, far, near, deliver her to us sometime