the altar

The Oracle stamped his feet on the parched earth, one after the other, raising hellishly purple dust from within the crevices. Then he carefully lay down a granite slab that passed for the Altar.

"This is it. We must begin here."

The paesanos dug and dug for hours but time after time, they came up high and dry.

"I am certain of it. We must not give up".

Thus they went on laboring under the high sun clinging to prophetic words. The day was slipping away -- yet little sign of the aqua vita showed.

The ditch grew wide and deep by twilight. Torches were lit against the brooding hills on the pitch-dark night.

One Ignatio unearthing the core uttered a panicked scream. Two of his compagnos (Antonio and Marco, cousins from the Monserratis) hurtled into the abyss, following the receding voice and little premeditation.

Within moments, it was evident that all three men were gone. The fellows standing around took turns hollering out the plungers' names in anguish and probing each other's eyes for signs of dash. Not one volunteer would emerge.

Ordained certitudes steadily devolving into blind hysteria, a hushed retreat to the village followed, heedless of the Oracle who thundered at the cruel cravenness of it all and hurled grievous imprecations at the decamping rustics.

At dawn, the entire village (save the infirm and old) gathered back at the scene. A glistening pond now covered the excavation. In the center, three white lotuses stood floating in full bloom.

The Oracle was soon summoned to sanctify the site. His lamentations at the sacrilegious hegira only hours earlier gave way.

"What glorious metamorphosis! Here lie the three brothers-in-arms -- the Fraternità di loto", proclaimed he with eyes to the heavens, lips trembling with a rapturous smile, hands gesticulating the consecration.

That night, all but a dozen-and-one denizens dreamed of silently opening lotuses.

The accursed thirteen, hereafter conferred upon who were the variously inglorious titles of "Band-Of-No-Bothers", "Cowards-In-Harms", "No-Moon-Poltroons" and "Lotus Retreaters" could not sleep at all (nay, not for the rest of their ignominious lives!).

Even as they were silently reclaimed by mortality decades into this singularly shameful incident, it is rumored that on black moonless nights still, the tortured souls emerge to tiptoe around their own graves. For those dreadful epithets followed them to their epitaphs (and that wearisome insomnia to supposedly supine non-existence).

Moreover, it was surmised by a perspicacious few that it didn't help much that the headstones happened to be crushing reminders (nay exacting replicas!) of the Altar (nay spitting images!).