Every year during the Summer there is a Carnival. The week of the Carnival are many other festivities, but the carnival is the main event. While some events are for children most of them are intended for adults. It's like summer vacation for adults. The carnival itself is like a parade, with different groups and companies, anyone can take part. But in order to take part you must be in a costume of sorts, kind of like Halloween.
Most costumes change every year but some groups never change their costumes. Grand-mother said its to keep everyone else safe. The ones who never change are the ones that look like demons, devils and spirits. The JabJab, Shortknee and Vecou. The groups that masquerade as such have done so every year since 1942. That year every group did something different. It was the first time they tried to have carnival without spirit costumes.
Sometimes practices are passed on and their reason or meaning are forgotten. Consider why it is respectful to cover ones mouth and nose when coughing, sneezing or yawning. The elders used to say it was to keep the spirits from entering your body, today science says it's to keep from spreading or catching germs that can make you sick. The elders may not have known the science but they knew how to keep us safe.
Such was the case for the Jab, Shortknee and Vecou spirit costumes. They were designed after the spirits to trick them into thinking others had already joined the carnival, like how animals mark territory.
But in 1942 there were no spirit costumes and the real spirits joined the Carnival. That year without the costumes Carnival turned into a massacre. The JabJab ran through the crowd rubbing the oil on their skin on people and dragging a few onlookers into the parade where they were trampled. Some ShortKnee jumped and slashed onlookers with the shards of mirror on their dress. Others with their white powder and bells charmed some people to dance in a frenzy. People danced while their feet bled, they kept dancing until they died. Those who tried to fight the urge to dance were beaten to death. The Vecou pounced on people in the crowd, crushing them with the spikes beneath their feet. The bands playing music were at the front and back of the parade, they did not know what was happening at the middle and kept playing.
The police eventually showed up and stopped the music, they tried at first to capture some of the culprits. The ShortKnee ran away and exploded into powder, when the music stopped the other spirits disappeared. The people charmed by the Shortknee kept dancing long after they left, most of them died. Many attacked by the Vecou who were slashed lived, but of those who were stomped with the spikes only one person survived. Her feet had been badly crushed by Vecou spikes the doctors had to amputate everything below the knees. That night every one wgo had been touched by JabJab oil were dragged from their homes, the sound chains and screams filled towns and neighborhoods. The next morning there were mangled bodies strewn in the streets.
The rest of the festivities were cancelled that year and a meeting was held between priests, police and wise women. The outcome of the meeting was that police would always be on patrol during Carnival festivities and some groups were picked to maintain the traditional spirit costumes every year. Although designed after the spirits, the costumes were tweaked. The JabJab chains were shortened and the spikes removed, Shortknee mirror shards were changed to rounded mirrors, they were allowed to keep the powder but only to use it on each other. The Vecou spikes were cut down and rounded so they would not crush and stab if the happened to step on someone. The first night of Carnival was also turned into an event, Monday Night Mas.
Since those measures where implemented and the groups maintained their spirit costumes there has not been a repeat of the Carnival massacre. Sure, some spirits still join the fun but it is usually one or two and if they get violent the police are equipped with holy water. Every few years though one gets away, a murder or two here, a stabbing there, but for the most part the Carnival is safe.
I asked grand-mother why there is such a threat of spirits during the summer, she said that during summer the barriers between realms are close so it's easier for spirits to step into this world without a medium or being summoned. August is apparently the peak closeness between the barriers, the week of Carnival being the climax, the barriers cross. She said parents are supposed to tell the stories that were passed down every summer as a warning and reminder for children to be careful when they are out playing without supervision.
Going to school and learning sciences made many skeptical, along with the fact that there are fewer witnesses and encounters of spirit sightings, the warnings passed on are often dismissed as fables.
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