Blood and Magic

Ah, such bliss, getting an extra hour in bed. And we awoke to a clear sky and a crisp earth.

The Divali celebration last night was most enjoyable. The food keeps coming at you at that do and of course, the food is Indian.
But it did remind us that this time last year, I was in Britain and Kevin chose not to go to the Divali party because there had been a huge snowfall.

Tomorrow night is Bonfire Night and I am hosting the writers' group. I wanted to do Fifth of November food, so I have chestnuts and the compulsory orange coloured tomato soup but I can't do the sausage in a bread roll because I have yet to find any ordinary frying sausages like Walls'.
Superstore had something they call English breakfast sausages, but British bangers they ain't. My life remains banger free.
On the other hand, I was also too lazy to make toffee apples so I have toffee and I have apples.

And on the subject of bangers, on the cover of our local free-sheet was the shock headline, 'Dead Rabbit horrifies Mom'.
So you think, good bloody grief.
Then reading it, it transpires that the aforementioned mum came upon a group of teenagers who had put a live rabbit into a bag and set off some firecrackers inside it. There will be no punishment for these animals because they ran off, but I hope that at some point in their rotten lives they will be tortured by what they have done.

In traditional European literature, one of the recurring themes is that of the magic philtre. The philtre or potion, when taken, exculpates the imbiber of whatever they do during the period of enchantment.
'It wasn't me officer, I had taken a magic potion.' It allows us to be free of our own freedom, to act immorally without blame since we had no free will.
And in modern literature this theme endures. I include film and television in modern literature just as we include the oral tales of the jongleurs in the traditional form.
As it turns out, if we could partake of a vampire's blood, then our human judgement could be suspended and we would be like them for a while, except that while they crave our blood, we would crave theirs.
Are we not vampires in any case? Those of us who share the blood of a human who was put to death two thousand years ago?

I often wonder.