It was midnight. A few minutes ago I had been sleeping, but the tribal Leader had called an emergency meeting. An impure baby had been born into the tribe, and needed to be disposed of. We would have to hold a midnight ritual.

I went with the rest of my fellow members to a secluded barn. Inside was the child, lying in a wooden box, and on the floor was the child’s mother, her mouth gagged, her hands and feet bound. I did not feel sorry for her. She should have known better.

In a back room I undressed and put on a special dress for rituals like this. I adorned my face in paint, with the colors of the lower class tribe members.

I walked back out. Someone had a fire going, and it was getting fed paper to help the wood catch on fire. The Leader was wearing an elaborate mask, the only thing that took him apart from the other high members. Smoke had begun to make the room foggy, and the baby began to cry.
The Leader nodded to me, indicating that I was to take care of the baby. I was angry. I was ready for advancement and they had me taking care of dirty, diseased children. How unfair.

I walked over to the box and looked at the baby. He was tiny, and perhaps he was innocent, but I could not be the judge of innocence. I reached down and picked him up, touching as little of him as I had to. I heard his mother whimper a little as I carried him to the table. There, carved into the stone top, was a pentagram, and within it I placed the child. I looked over at the mother and she was crying. Whoever had impregnated her was causing her a lot of grief, but she would learn her lesson.

I told the Leader we were ready. We all formed a circle around the baby and the Leader began chanting. It had been a long time since we last had to perform this ritual so the words came slowly to all of us, but eventually we were all participating. I could still hear the mother’s annoying and useless whimpering in the background.

Then the Leader began dancing slowly around the baby and we all followed. Around and around, cursing the child for he was impure, and hoping the mother wouldn’t do this again. As we danced, the Leader broke out of the circle and went to the baby. He smeared an oil all over him. Then he told us to get the mother.

One of the men of higher class went over and brought her limp body over to a longer stone table. She seemed not to have the strength to move. I couldn’t wait to see her taught a lesson. I couldn’t believe she had gone against the tribal code.

The mother would have to be purged, and would have to conceive a pure child to regain any status whatsoever. Taking turns, each man from the higher class went over to the table and had sex with her. She would be purged. She had known what she was getting into.

When the Leader was finished with her, he motioned to me. I was ready to advance. I went over to another table, where they all began doing the same to me. I would bear them a pure child, and then I would be in the high class. My destiny would be fulfilled, although I would never be Leader.

The rest of the lower class continued to circle the baby and chanted. We all knew our duties to the tribe, and while we each took them with our heads held high, inside we would feel cheated. And everyone would show happiness towards my advancement, but underneath would be a bitterness, and any one of them would kill me in an instant to take my position. It took me years, and I was moving up, but I knew how those people felt, still dancing around the baby in a slow, dreamlike way. The words they chanted seemed far away and distant. And as I saw one of them hold up a knife and stab the child, I was relieved that the evil was gone.

3-19-98