When I was about 17 me and my friends B and C used to play a game of our own design. There was a low cliff with a river beneath it right off the property of our town’s temple. My parents always told me to never go near there but I had always disregarded it. We would jump off the cliff onto the soft muddy river bed below. Landing on your feet would mean 1 point and falling on your back would mean you would subtract a point from the player. B kept all the scores in line while C and I would take turns watching each other jump. Jumping sometimes felt like an out of body experience. I don’t know if falling always felt like that but that’s what it felt like to us. Sometimes when watching C and B jump I felt like I could see them falling in slow motion. I was the only one who ever saw this. Maybe it was because I came from a long line of shamans who resided and maintained the temple or maybe it was because I was just lost in the moment. I’m not sure but that’s not the point.
It was a humid day in late august. It was just about to be dusk and we knew we would have to cut the game short soon. “Just a few more rounds” C begged to B and I. we reluctantly agreed fearing we might not be able to see the river bed we were jumping down to. I went first so I could make sure the ground beneath us was safe. I knew where the mud stiffened and where the high grasses would cushion our fall. I knew the grounds like the back of my hand. My feet hit the ground with a thud and once I moved out of the way I shouted. “C ITS YOUR TURN”. I turned my face so that I had a clear view of the top of the cliff and watched C jump. I watched his body slowly near the ground. His body started to turn. “Ahhh that’s going to cost you a point” B said, crossing a point off in the notebook we had been using all summer to record our victories. We chuckled in unison before hearing a crack. I looked over at C to see him lying limp on the river bed I had just landed on a moment ago. There was nothing there that C could have broken anything on. I held my breath as I walked over to him. “Hey this isn’t funny to get up” I said , nudging him with my foot. He didn’t move. Again I told him to get up but still, no reply. At that moment I realized the ground beneath me, the ground I had jumped on, the ground that was soft and muddy only moments ago was now hard as a rock. I realized something was very wrong.
I picked C up and threw him over my shoulder. I ran up a hill about 20 meters away and then into the temple. B tagged along only a few feet behind me. We laid him down on the ground I screamed as loud as I possibly could. “MOM, DAD, ANYONE PLEASE HELP”. I felt a knot forming in my throat as I realized I might lose my friend. My dear friend who I had spent all summer hanging out and playing games with. My friend that I had known since I was a chichildfe could slip away at any moment because we had let the game go on. I felt tears roll down my cheeks and looked over at B. He was on his knees by C’s side, tears dripping on his chest. Just then my parents and grandparents rushed into the room with puzzled looks on their faces, their gazes finally reaching C’s body. I ran up to them and spoke as fast as my tongue would allow me to. “W-w-we we,, he jumped off the c-cliff” my dad’s eyes filled with rage. “YOU WENT TO THE CLIFF” he exclaimed, bolting towards C and manually opening his eyes. They were a deep red. “Tell me exactly what happened” my dad muttered as my mom slowly approached B. “Please try to calm down and tell us the whole story,” she said, petting his hair. My mom had been a peaceful person for as long as I could remember and was somehow always able to calm a person down. B and I took a deep breath and started explaining how we had been playing this game all summer, the rules, how we had never played in the dark before, and finally, the hardened ground.
Finally it was my peaceful mothers turn to grow angry, but not the way you would expect. She stood up with a cold look on her face. “You’ve angered the spirits of the river and now they are coming for your life”. She glared at us with disgust, not with the face of a concerned mother. “Many years ago” my mother continued “there was a famine in this town. Many people died and many turned to cannibalism. The remains of the dead were put in a mass grave in the river bed. Our family,,, our family made a deal with wandering angry spirits. The living would be allowed to use the river in daylight but during the later hours of the day, the river belonged to the spirits. There’s a small chance of C surviving. When he recommended playing into the night, it may have been possessed by an angry spirit.`` She turned to face me and looked me in the eyes. “You’re lucky this family’s blood runs through your veins, otherwise that would’ve been you” all of a sudden her expression relaxed and the once angry woman lowered down to her knees. “We will do everything we can to purify him”. Arrangements were made and C’s family called. He had only broken his arm but remained unconscious. B and I sat next to him until his family arrived. When C’s family finally turned up his mom slapped both of us in the face. Hard. We cried together as my family came in to tell us they were ready to perform the ritual.
We carried C into the temple’s main room and placed his body in the middle. My mom drew a circle of blood, liquor, and human excrement around him. “This represents the world of the living” she stated before drawing a larger circle around him of sand, dead bugs,s, and salt. “This is to represent the world of the dead” she stepped through the circles and with a knife, stabbed it into his broken arm, draining out a black thick liquid into a bucket. She tied a blessed rope around his shoulder and pushed down on his arm until the black liquid turned into bright red blood. She smiled gently “Ah there we go”. It seemed the atmosphere of the room had lightened, but it wasn’t over yet. She threw salt over his body and whispered a prayer. “Take the bucket to the river,” she said to me “you will state that you are returning the spirit who had possessed C and that you are giving the blood of the living as an apology”. I did as told then hurried back. C was awake finally. We cried together in relief, pain and fear. After high school, we all stayed in touch. It’s been 40 years. C is doing well with a wife and kids and B had started a real estate company that sold real estate which had become quite successful. I worked at my family temple performing rituals, also with a wife and kids. Despite how different our lives had turned we all had one thing in common.
We haven’t set foot on a riverbed since.