I am a priest in a small village in Serbia. I mean, I used to be one. I have quit as I felt I didn’t deserve to be a preacher of the Lord’s word after the incident.
You see, the village was small and peaceful, and of course, as practically any village, it had it’s fair share of myths and legends. Of course, I never trully believed in any of them. They were just plain superstition, which is of course a sin to believe in, though I don’t think that I am in the right spot to talk about rights and wrongs. But it was something you couldn’t get rid off. Though, I found one of the stories to be believable, and sadly I was proven right.
The story was about a young woman that was born with cracking white skin, and wounded openings like the mouth, ears and what not. The village folk believed her to be a demon, so they killed her, while refusing to baptise her, so that she could not enter heaven and plague it with her demonic spirit. The story goes that the her soul still holds anger to that village, even 300 years later, and that she is the cause of every bad thing that ever happens in it. I think I always believed in this story in the back of my mind. The description of her skin sounded exactly like a skin condition I have read about. Though, very often every suspicion I had about the legend being real was calmed, as the village folk always blamed her for every little problem they had. It happened so often that it was just another phrase without meaning. Someone’s 25 year old car won’t start? Blame the “Vražetina” (this would probably mean something like “female devil” to you english folk). Someone’s chicken escaped after they forgot to close the gate? Of course, Vražetina’s fault.
Let me ask you a question now, do you believe in people being possesed by demons? Even as a priest, I have never believed in such a thing. On that day, I was proven wrong.
I want to describe the horse manure shop owner’s son, Luka, for a bit. He was a young, happy and a good man. He just turned 22, passed his 3rd year of college in the nearby town and had a bright future ahead. He really was the kindest soul in the entire village. When his elementary school bully, who to be honest, was still an asshole, got kidney failure because of his drinking problems, he donated one of his kidneys to him. He never once missed church since he was 4 years old. He was a prime example of what a christian should be like.
You can expect that we all were confused, as this once good man, over night, became an arrogant punk, cussing the Lord’s name in every sentance. There was one explanation the village folk had: Vražetina possesed him. Of course, I didn’t believe in that one bit. I thought that he maybe had a multiple-personality-disorder or some thing like that. I was not sure what, but I was certain that it was a mental illness.
Of course, the village folk begged me to come see him and perform an exorcism. I went to the manure shop owner’s house just so that they could calm down, I didn’t think that the exorcism would actually work. I wanted to perform it, and then force them to take him to a doctor. But when I entered Luka’s room, where he was strapped to his bed with chains, I had a feeling I never once experienced before.
How do you explain the feeling of distance from the Lord? How do you explain the feeling of not feeling Him. I guess it would be like trying to describe a color is like. You can’t imagine it unless you see it, or in this case, feel it with your own skin, with your own body being present in that room.
Luka, or in this case, his possesed body, was trying to break free from the chains and ties that locked his limbs to the edges of his bed. He was screaming all sort of obscurities, words I never imagined to hear leave his mouth.
I prepared my holy water, my Crusifix, my candles and began the ritual. As I was saying the words, he screamed so loud that I still have a constant ringing noise in my left ear. His body was shaking, I believe I witnessed a man use his full strenght, something that should only be possible in a complete life or death situation. As I was about to end the exorcision I felt just the slight amount of Luka returning. I felt that a split second before ending the ritual, and when the ritual ended, I felt emptiness like I never felt before. The complete distance and absence of the Lord I felt in that room was much stronger that I felt when I entered that room.
I looked at Luka’s body and I felt like I didn’t even look at a human. His body looked human, it looked like him, but his eyes were soulless. The body screamed in a pattern I could maybe describe as hellish laughter. It wasn’t trying to break free, almost as if it knew that it was not about to go back to hell. Almost as if the life or death situation was over, it wasn’t strong enough to break free anymore.
At that moment I knew I fucked up, at that moment I knew that somehow, Luka’s soul wasn’t there anymore, and I hoped at that moment that the exorcism didn’t cause his soul to be sent to hell instead of the demon.
I didn’t know what to tell his parents. I didn’t know what to do. They kept asking me what happened to their son, but how do you explain to someone that you killed their child? How do you explain to someone that their child might ended up in hell because of you? The demon kept screaming to free it, screaming and cursing everything that is holy. I didn’t know what to do. The parents noticed my panicked state, realised that their son was no longer there, and they killed the body with the demon inside using the father’s hunting rifle. I witnessed someone shoot the body of their own son.
I was not sure where the son’s soul ended up, I thought only God could decide between someone’s final destination, but this seemed like the demon bent around the rules. I hoped for the soul to be in eternal peace, but I was living in constant guilt and terror as I dreamt of him suffering every night.
I would’ve probably shrugged it off as the brain making up scenarios to cope with fear, but I didn’t believe that in this case. I always had dreams about where the local village folk ended up after death. I shrugged it off usually as in most cases it made perfect sense. I dreamt about the nice people being in heaven while the assholes were in hell. It made sense usually, until I dreamt about the mechanic being in hell. It didn’t make sense, as he was always such a nice guy, often fixing things up for free, until 3 weeks later his daughter confessed that he constantly sexually assulted her, and thretened to kill her if she ever spoke up. At that moment I realized that the dreams were real. And when I constantly dreamt about Luka burning, I knew that he really is, and that it is completely my fault.
That happened 30 or so years ago, I used to work as a regular bartender 5 cities away, but today I got fired because I kept getting drunk at work. But alcohol is the only way to at least temporarily forget my mistake.
I don’t know how to keep living with this guilt.