The Banshee: A Cautionary Tale

There are many who do not believe in banshees.   I myself would be counted among their number had I not met one.

It all started some four or five years ago.   During that time, I lived as though a great fog had descended on my continence occluding all but my most immediate surroundings.  I was merely reacting to whatever came at arms length from me.  It was not the most undisconcerting
period of my existence.

I met the banshee late one night.  She was already well into her delirium by then.  I later learned that each evening if there was more than a minuscule amount of moon peeking through the clouds she would fall into the throes of a strange fever which manifested itself in commanding her to roam the countryside and perform a gyrating form of dance.  There was a full moon that night and it showed.

For many months I bemused that her nightly meanderings were random in nature, Then quite by chance as I began to keep a journal, it was clear that she was following a pattern.  As a moth to a flame, she was attracted to any form of music that was present in an establish that did not honor the dictates of prohibition, to wit:  heavy metal, punk, folk, rock, blue grass, blues, almost any music other than techno and dub-step.

Regardless of the venue, the ritual was the same.   She would drink of the fermented beverages in large quantities, to the point where the trials and tribulations of day time were vanquished like an out of breath dragon.  Then she would dance and dance and dance in an ever increasing crescendo until midnight when she would emit a blood curdling howl the force of which would keep her awake until dawn.   Then at dawn, she would retire back to her crypt only to reappear later in the evening.

I am not yet willing to say whether my enchantment from the banshee was a hideous actually or only a nightmare hallucination.  Such musical venues have strange properties and the legacy of insane legend might well have acted on more than one man's imagination amidst those huddles of people caught up in the trance.  Is it not possible that the germ of an actual contagious madness lurks in the depths of those nocturnal ramblings, and the pleasant vibes of the bass pulsating against your being?  Where does madness leave off and reality begin?  Is it possible that even my latest fear is sheer delusion?

Another decatur coco mero/krogers run.   A comfortable ritual with the whirles.  I wonder what gifts the sandman will bring me tonight?