capuchones

When I lived in Spain I was teaching a class and the owner of the school came in and told me that at about 9 o'clock that evening the parade would be passing. It would be completely silent and the lights would have to be switched off and the class paused till it passed. The parade was to symbolise the death and internment of Jesus.
"Okay," I said.
So we carried on our class and had our fun. A Paramedic came to class with only one English phrase that he learned from attending British people. The phrase was, "are you drunk?"
The area is famous for its furniture and I also had many furniture salespeople too. I was doing some vocabulary for furniture when I was suddenly met by puzzled expressions and furtive looks between the students. I couldn't work out why: all I was doing was telling and showing them what a drawer was.
"Cojones'" I said and mimed opening and shutting a drawer over and over again.
Puzzled looks.
"Cojones cojones.." my arm pumped away opening and closing the imaginary drawer.
Puzzlement started to turn to worry and then it clicked...
Drawers in Spanish is "Cajones", not "cojones" which are testicles! What the students thought I was miming as I said "testicles, testicles.." and pumped away with my arm doesn't really bear thinking about.
*
So, the time came and we got notice that the parade was approaching. We stopped, turned out the lights and went to the street to watch.
The town was in darkness. No-one spoke: there was just silence and the faint shuffling as the capuchones approached carrying an effigy of the crucified christ. There was the odd intake of breath. A sob from across the street. Silence prevailed and charged the pitch black street like a static storm. My skin prickled and I felt myself suddenly at sea in the silence and darkness. The still crowd and the slow procession was utterly unearthly. Something was happening in that nondescript street. The everyday normalities had been eaten by the dark. Any noise seemed uncanny. Shadow was king and had dominion over everyone there. We were swallowed and suddenly sunk in dark matter.

It passed. Slowly we all came to. There were some whispered mutters. Lights started to come on again. People were walking off not looking one another in the eye. What had just happened?
We returned to the classroom, but no-one was really in the mood for anything more so I closed up and we all went home to the sound and light of our lives.
Later, telling a friend this he told me that there is a group of elderly women who keep a walking vigil throughout Semana Santa. They are dressed in black and they walk endlessly throughout the night around the town and surrounding country roads with candles lit until dawn.
And so I think of the darkness when I am reminded of this time. I think of the infinite dark. What an anomalous wisp of light our lives are in this mighty and expanding empty space. That night I felt it and was humbled. How faint and flickering we are, and we must feed each others light not look to extinguish it.