The isolated small towns have been building up to this for a festive week. A slow-building excitement. A celebration brought over from the old country. A holiday so old it's origins are lost in history. People dance to deer skin drums wearing brightly colored beaks. The kids get to drink candied liquors til they pass out in a dream filled sleep. The adults drink hard liquors fermented in meat.
The slow sipping of the seasonal spirits escalates as the climax of the week-long event gets closer to the sacrifice of the cheese vessel. The evening begins with the loud clang of the gigantic bells in the town central area. The burning of Man shaped bundles of vegetation in fields. The endless layers of percussion. Bells big and small, all sorts of drums. For those who have no instruments the clapping of hands, the beats of whatever found percussion is available. Plastic and metal buckets. Metal tools clanging together. Kids striking tin sheds with branches broken off trees.
No one works that day. Excepting the noble souls who prepare the festivities. They are rewarded for this time with a year of no taxes. But it's an elder selected group not just anyone even gets a chance to join. Everyone puts a blue mint cookie on the night side table to eat when they wake up. Special blends of herbs generate pleasant closed eye visuals as they drift back to sleep for an hour or two. Strange dreams.
The tea parade starts early. Many sleep past it. All kinds of teas on trays pushed by the prettiest young girls in town. Five cups for a cup and a kiss. As many refills as you want as the parade goes by. Extra kisses five bucks. Plenty of competitive children's games. Boys boxing each other. The loser bloody nose and sobbing. Heckled by the crowd. Many boys pass the 2nd of The Five Trials of Manhood on this day. Snack tables replace the Children's sports set ups. Buttered cheese and roasted grapes are favorites this time of year. Cotton candy laced with Pumpkin dust.
All the years scarecrows have been gathered up and nailed to telephone poles. Later tonight the people will burn them up. A burnt human skeleton or two are always found somewhere in the county afterwards.