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Don't look. The sight of me may offend even the sickest minds... so
be wary.
You've been warned.
Ten hundred years passed before I finally came to understand
the curse of
this death and made peace with the Ja-monati, known to most of the
living as demons,
the scary imagined boogie creatures. The cost of peace was to violently
rip away the
last of my humanity, and join wholly and be part and parcel of the
Ja-monati.
When I finally came to agree with the Muluck, the chief of the
Ja-monati, that no god
would redeem me, I sat out to do the impossible, to replace the
gods. My centuries
of death, of watching the Ja-monati work, taught me, I thought,
all I needed to learn to
advance the cause. I invented some new tricks as well. This is no retelling
of history,
but a confession of how I fell in the crawls of a mortal, human being,
a child to boot!
It began in a church. A bright, sunny, Sunday, I sat
above the pulpit, gazing on
the congregation, thinking I could have my pick of nice clean goody
souls to
possess. I almost got drunk, thinking how I would drink those
sweet souls dry.
The Ja-monati particularly enjoyed drinking Church people's souls.
So much was
there that the choice was difficult. There was the preacher, though
a small, crusty
old man with narrow eyes, his soul produced much light. To a Ja-monati
of modest
ambition, his soul would have been a dream to possess. The choir was
alive with
music and light. The soul of any member would have made a Ja-monati
leap and
scream with joy. I searched on, when all of a sudden, she walked into
the sanctuary.
I tinged, shook, shuddered, I lost balance and fell from
the pulpit. I'd never before
seen a soul shining as bright as hers. Hers appeared to be a cross
between a saintly
mortal's and a blessed spirit's, attired solely in light. I looked
her over and saw
she was extremely sweet, pretty, barely five, with bangs and long yellow
hair, wearing
a white dress, pink ribbons, very delicious looking. Her skin was naturally
perfumed
with the scent of baby oils, clear as the cloudless heart, and
her eyes looked as clean
and pure as her soul, with not a spot anywhere. I thought that wherever
she stepped,
she would sweeten the ground. I leapt into her soul and sank.
Her soul was quite large,
with no sweetness, only a top-less, bottom-less pool of light,
no substance to drink,
just a white emptiness, such a place where a spirit could starve, and
I heard her giggle
when I struggled to get out.
What surprised me the most was that she knew I was there and spoke to
me. Up until
then, I thought only the Ja-monati did the soul possession thing. She
possessed me,
held me, like it was old stuff, I guess. She asked me my name.
I told her: "Little girl,
I am a demon. You had better be afraid."
She laughed. She was in church laughing. The dark stout woman, in the
business outfit,
seated next to her, her mom, told her to shut up, to be still.
She asked me if I knew how to give people tummy aches.
I answered: "I'll give you a tummy ache, you little witch!"
Her mom almost keeled over in the seat from a sharp discomfort in the
stomach
and from shame, the result of a sudden, whacko gas attack The
woman broke
wind and had to leave, run. As the mom left, a lot of eyes were on
the kid, all
condemning, though she hadn't broken wind, her mom had. The kid sat
with head
up, eyes straight, all innocent and sweet.
Well, the kid and I didn't hit it off right then, but I could see we
had much in common,
except she was a mortal human.
Her mom did not return. After the church service, she found her in the
parking lot
waiting in car. In silence, they rode to where they lived.
The girl was an only child. She had her own room. The room, like the
whole house,
was neat and tidy and boring. I saw nothing that could explain the
girl's peculiar
oddness, except, maybe her loneliness. She closed the door to the room,
sat on
the bed and tried to start a conversation. I refused to participate.
I wanted out,
wanted no part of her. She kept at me for hours. Surprisingly, the
mom didn't look
in on her. After a good while passed, I asked, "Don't you stop to eat?"
She told me she could skip meals, and as for her mom, she could make
anyone
forget to bother her. She said she had come to church looking
for a spirit like
me who could be some kind of friend.
"Friend? I am not your pet!" I screeched. She giggled.
She told me how she'd befriended other spirits, earth bound ghosts,
but after a short
time, they had to leave. Her last "friend" suggested that she should
get a demon. He
told her demons don't have to leave, and that the best handled demons
are found
waiting in church.
"Girl? Do you know what you're doing?" I screeched after listening to
her tales, then
I told her some tales of my own. "I've roasted children! I've roasted
them by the
thousands, like your mommy and grand mommy and granddaddy roast peanuts!
I've
toasted little five and four year old girls and their little dollies,
and their pets too!
Toasted them crispy!"
She told me that her granny and granddad were dead, and her daddy and
mommy
were divorced.
I retorted, "Want to join your grand parents?"
Halfway through my account of how I roasted and toasted half the children
in China,
she yawned. She said she was sorry, but it was starting to get
late and she was
sleepy. She asked me to hold my stories until later, because she enjoyed
them and
my company. I bellowed screeches. She smiled, laid back, shut
her eyes and
went happily to sleep.
You would think it would be easy to escape from a sleeping child. Think
again. Her
body went to sleep. Her soul did not. Every time I made a move to exit,
her soul said,
"No, no..." And "CLUMP!" I was new at the possessing thing. I had no idea of
how strong a child's
soul could be. While she slept, her soul wrapped itself around me,
so tightly that I
couldn't move.
She had kindergarten the next day. But she got her mother to agree to
let her stay
home alone and play. Her mom went to work. She went to work too, on
me. She
wanted to show how much she knew of the spiritual world. How accustomed
she
was of getting whatever she wanted. She said she used her special
abilities sparingly.
Her dead grandmother told her how dangerous it was to show off,
and that people
would hate her and think that she was a threat.
I told her that I truly, for real, only knew little, and was really
not ready to be
in somebody else's soul. "I've been telling you stories. What you need
is a demon
who can teach you some supernatural techniques, take up where your
deceased
granny left off. I'm just a phony, a liar. I've never done so much
as to roast a
chestnut. I've toasted only wheat bread." I worked hard to convince
her of
how much of a pitiful demon I was. If I still had my body,
hadn't died, was mortal,
I would have worked up a sweat.
She said, "Cool down, sport."
"Sport?"
"Sport! My granny told me that word. She said --"
The child spoke as though she was speaking to a jerk. Then suddenly,
she stood
and took off in a blast --out of her room, down the stairs, through
the backdoor
and over the fence in the yard. She moved, as though she didn't
have to breathe.
She covered the ground in a heart beat, without a pant. She was just
in her pajamas
and bare feet. But I sensed that she had put on armor and carried weapons
to slay
dragonslayers. I observed her and became increasingly alarmed. She noticed
and smiled,
and I could see that my apprehension made her stronger. I had never imagined
that a
human being could have such power. I assumed she had seen demons quake.
I
decided to take it easy, to lay low in her trap and just let
her play. She sensed this
and liked it. She turned off the light in her soul and was completely
dark. I couldn't
help but shake, her darkness was double what mine was, and mine
was quite a measure.
Her mortal darkness was just like a demon lord's, except for the lack of
sounds: no
wailing of lost souls, no sucking "swish" of light being driven out.
The silence was
more unsettling. She was ready to show me again what she knew.
She knocked on the neighbors' backdoor and laughed when a tall young
woman,
with long blonde hair and blue eyes, holding a rosary firmly like a
stick in a shaking
hand, opened the door and yelled: "Be gone, you little she-devil!
Leave me and
my baby alone!"
She continued to show me what she knew, when she knocked the woman down
with a thought. She stooped as though she would help the woman up, but
came close
to her face and kissed her. I saw in the woman's wide, frightened,
tearing eyes, horror.
She recoiled from the child. Then she was pulled into a tight embrace. Her
heart
beat as if it would burst the chest, and though it was a strong heart,
the child's will,
willful heart was tough, stronger. The child caressed the woman's face and stroked
her cheeks.
The child was enjoying this immensely, and I began to feel pleasure
as well. I
looked into the woman, at her soul. It was a tremendous, bright place,
scented,
full of the sweetest sweetness. Sweet energy! I began to swoon. I squirmed in ecstasy. I
wanted to have the woman's soul. I applied pressure against the trap
that held me to get to the woman --foolishly --in vain.
The child began to caress the woman's wet eyes, with her cold, dry fingers.
The
child looked happy. She looked into the woman's face and kissed her
again.
"I love you," the child said. "Miss Grace, I love you."
"Yes, I love her too," I mumbled. If I could've moved, I would have
downed
that soul, gulp by gulp. I could taste it. If I hadn't been engulfed
-- wasn't in the
grip of the child-demon-beast --I would have ... "Damn!" I screeched.
The child attention was on the woman. I might as well not been present.
She kissed
the woman again. "Miss Grace, I love you."
"Don't hurt my baby," the woman begged, freely dripping tears.
"Send him away!"
"He's my baby."
"Before he was born, I was your baby!"
"I was your baby-sitter. I am not your mother."
"I love you!"
The child hugged and kissed the woman again.
Hours later, the child let the woman up. The baby had been crying.
He had cried
himself to sleep. He'd awakened and cried himself again to sleep.
He was still
crying when the girl impressed me, immensely. She made the woman believe!
Believe that she, the woman, went to her baby and bathed him, fed him, sat
down in the mommy rocking chair and rocked him. The woman prepared
a small meal, cooked in the microwave oven. She and the girl ate together.
After that they went to the girl's house. The girl dressed in pretty
clothes. Then they
went shopping at the malls. Together they looked like
a young, pretty mother and
her pretty little girl.
Loving and happy.
The baby? He was the microwaved meal. After he was consumed, his bones
were trashed, smashed by the trash compactor and tossed in a steel can.
(END)
