Reindeer Antlers

“Myrna, wait!”

The old woman heard a familiar voice behind her, yet she continued to weave her way through the crowded parking lot to her car.

“You forgot your lemon.” Cheryl sounded much closer than she had before. Myrna silently cursed her frail legs and the fact that she had to move slowly to avoid falls. Her doctors warned her that at her age falls could be deadly. She believed that at her age most everything was deadly.

Myrna knew she could no longer ignore Cheryl. “I have no need for that or for you,” she spat. Literally. Droplets of saliva shot from her dentures which sat awkwardly in her mouth. She had lost weight recently, despite having a healthy appetite and, at 85, weight loss did not herald the joy it had in her 30s.

Cheryl stepped in front of Myrna, crossing her arms and examining her in a way that Myrna hated. All younger women gave her the same expression now: a sour look mixed with sympathy. “Did I do something to offend you? I try to be helpful to everyone in the neighborhood.” Cheryl smiled around her perfect teeth and straightened her hair beside her wrinkle-free brow. “My grandparents taught me that ‘we rise by lifting others’ and I have always lived by that.”

Cheryl’s smugness infuriated Myrna. Cheryl’s smugness and all that she represented—women who felt they were better than Myrna because they had careers and educations and advantages that came from being young in a time period which allowed for such things. “You humiliated me!”

“Humiliated?” Cheryl looked confused. “When? How?”

Myrna felt her cheeks burn. She thought back to the day when she had been walking with a friend and they had passed Cheryl’s house. Cheryl had been in her yard, seemingly watering plants, even though her hose was not turned on. “You…you…you made reindeer antlers at me!”

The confusion remained on Cheryl’s face. “Reindeer antlers?”

“Yes.” Myrna placed one of her thumbs against her temple and raised her second and last fingers. “Like this.”

Cheryl tilted her head, looking at Myrna quizzically. “My hands were just like yours? At the temple like that?”

“Yes, exactly like that.”

“Show me again, where were they?”

“Here!” Myrna put her hand at the side of her head.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely!”

“They weren’t…here?” Cheryl’s hand moved quickly. Myrna felt a lightning bolt of pain shoot across her forehead. Then she felt nothing at all.

***

We rise by lifting others…we rise by lifting others…we lift others to you, oh ancient one…

Myrna could hear voices chanting. Were they talking to her? She tried to rub her forehead but found that her arms were bound. The voices continued to talk about lifting and she felt the air move around her. Her stomach dropped as it had when she had ridden the old wooden roller coaster at the beach.

Myrna opened her eyes to discover that she was tied, crucifix style, to upright wooden pallets. She had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was in a cavernous concrete room, like a warehouse.

We rise by lifting others…accept the sacrifice at our hands, oh ancient one…

Myrna turned her head to see an old man beside her. She recognized him; he was often at the pharmacy when she was picking up her medication. They had exchanged complaints seasoned with humor about the plethora of pills they needed to wake up each morning. They had compared aches and pains and laughed at how old age had snuck up on them. No complaints or pleasantries would come from this man’s mouth again, as his throat had been slit and blood poured from it as if from a garden hose.

Garden hose…Myrna remembered that she had been talking to Cheryl in the parking lot. As her vision cleared, she could perceive the chanting people. They wore robes that covered their faces and bodies, only their hands were exposed. They caught the old man’s blood in chalices and then poured the blood into a golden tub in front of Cheryl. It was clear they had been addressing Cheryl; she was the ancient one.

Myrna watched as Cheryl rubbed the old man’s blood into her skin. With each application, her skin appeared younger and more vibrant.

“Better than Botox,” Cheryl said, smiling with her wrinkle-free lips.

Myrna gasped, which garnered Cheryl’s attention. “My old friend…but still younger than me,” Cheryl laughed.

That makes no sense, Myrna thought, as she tested the ropes that bound her arms. Even if she were still a young woman, she would not have been able to fight her way free from the pallet.

Cheryl pointed a manicured finger at Myrna. “These wrinkles appeared in the short time I spent talking to her.” Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Normally one sacrifice would be enough, but because she rambled on and on, I have to make it two.”

“Yes, exalted one,” the robe wearers chanted.

Rambled on? “But you, you did something to me!” Myrna tried to remember what happened in the parking lot. Instead her mind went back to the day she had encountered Cheryl on her walk. She realized that she walked by Cheryl’s house often. She realized she had walked by Cheryl’s house for years, maybe twenty years, yet the woman looked no older than when they had met. “You…you made those reindeer antlers,” Myrna spat, not knowing what else to say. Fear had overtaken her. She did not want to meet the same conclusion as the man from the pharmacy.

“’We rise by lifting others’,” the devotees chanted. They lifted Myrna higher, tilting the pallet so that she was bent over a large bucket.

“Antlers?” Cheryl laughed. “Those aren’t antlers, they’re horns. As in devil horns.”

One acolyte produced a large knife and Myrna screamed.

Cheryl tsked. “That’s the problem with this younger generation, they never know when to be quiet.” She rubbed blood into her décolletage. “And when to keep their copious complaints to themselves.” Her smile grew wide. “As I said, ‘I try to be helpful to everyone in the neighborhood.’ I was just returning your lemon. If you had simply taken it then…we wouldn’t be here.”

∼ Elaine Pascale

© Copyright Elaine Pascale. All Rights Reserved.