Festival of Death (Three angry children/a short story)

Festival of Death
(or, Three Angry Children)



“Old man!” said one of the three hard-hearted adult-children moving closer to the bed, turning off the light, “Whose voice is that?” murmured old man Lee Wright, trying to sit up, body contorted, as the dark figures tried to remain in the shadows.
“I’m looking now on the face I once loved and admired!” said one voice in the dark, “let the curse of hell be on you— stricken deep into your soul, because we will not call you father ever again, nor make peace with you before you die, as with my brother and sister!” Then there was a hesitation, a sigh, gasp for air, and the middle aged voice, one of the three adult-children added “You’ve wrapped yourself in smugness long enough—and now let the devils take you.”
And the father knew, each and every voice, each of his three children, sensing they had made their pack with the devil, unconsciously perhaps, with the scorn they had brought to him, to avenge a spoiled childhood—he had not seen them in a decade two. The malice of his kids, the bitterness lurking within their minds and hearts and souls, all made for a war, all wanting to be paid in flesh, to wipe out the a pound of old hurt that now turned to cruel scorn, all this awoke within the three breasts of the three angry children: as the old man lay there in that dark room, he just shook his fist at all of them “Wretched children,” he called them, in an outburst, as they laughed in some insane merriment (at his age, ill health, and helplessness).
The old man then whispered “Another triumph for Old Nick; you all are his victims.” (And he felt sad, that he had to say what he said, but who chases pretence on their death bed?) And the Devil’s voice came out, echoed into the room, as if it had come over a public address paging system, amplified, saying “You are so worthy to be the final victim, as they!”
By some strange illusion Old Nick had felt with his crazed intellect, he could snatch old Lee Wright at the last minute of his life, by rushing his children over to his bedside, and working on sympathy, and perhaps bartering for his soul and an ounce of life.

That night a procession passed by his window—by candlelight, along the street outside his hospital room. His three children in the midst of the reflecting light shinning through the window, which enveloped the old man in bed.
“What is that?” questioned the old man. He got up looked out the window—it was a mob of devils burning the effigy of him, and then as he whispered a prayer a stirring wind came, and swept the horde of devils away, as if into a vortex of ashes. And the children began to wriggle into the darkest corners of the room, with uncertainty, brooding over the unhappy fate of the festival of death.

October 8, 2010/No: 694 (nh)