What do I look like?
Maybe I look a little different — that’s part of it, right?
“What are you looking at?” I catch myself snapping at Father Andrew.
He stares at me, and I know that he’s trying to get me angry. He wants to get me angry.
Becca tells me — no, she’s actually telling Father Albert: “He really hasn’t been himself lately. .”
So? I’m actually more myself than ever before. Not that she would understand me.
Father Andrew asks Becca, “Where are his parents?”
Becca frowns. “They’re busy people, um…”
But it’s like both priests put the pieces together without any trouble. I’m thinking, like, “Am I some cliché or something?” Really? It’s that easy to figure out how fucked my family is?
This anger, it shows only when they’re around.
Father Albert starts the conversation. “Hunter, it appears as though we’ve greatly misinterpreted our initial assessment. I’ve returned with Father Andrew so that we might better understand the severity of the situation.”
Yeah, like that makes sense.
Father Andrew says it in plainer words: “We want to measure the depth of the spirit’s influence.”
“Whatever.” I kind of say it louder than I should.
Becca looks at me like I’m disgusting. I glare at her. She looks away. What the hell was that? I tell her, “What? Huh? What’s your damn problem?” She sniffles, and I’m like, “Who’s really the victim here?”
Father Andrew is fearless.
Hey, H, what are you going to do to this guy?
What are you going to do? He’s holding me down. Do something.
Mess with them. Make this funny.
But then Father Andrew says, “It’s breaking you down.”
“Huh?”
He starts asking me questions that I cannot help but answer honestly. It’s like I’m not even talking, the answers are slipping out of my mouth.
First question is “Do you see the spirit in your dreams?”
And the first answer is “Yes.”
Second question is “Have you lost sense of time?”
And the second answer is “Yes.”
Third question is “Do you experience moments of chatter, where your mind talks back to you?”
And the third answer is “Yes.”
I answer yes to everything.
And then Father Andrew looks at Father Albert and says, “Advanced. It is near.”
Becca kind of shudders, makes this noise, like she actually cares, and then asks the two priests: “What, um, what happened? What’s happening?”
Father Albert wraps his hands around hers. “Breathe, dear. Hunter will be fine. Father Andrew only means to say that our unclean spirit is proving to be more aggressive than expected.”
Becca sighs.
Father Albert smiles. “We are perfectly fine for it is Hunter that resists. As long as Hunter resists—”
Father Andrew interrupts. “As long as Hunter resists the spirit, he will remain himself. The spirit will begin to proliferate itself through his unconscious dreams. It will begin to create a sense of cognitive dissonance, where there is chatter of all sorts.” Father Andrew walks around the table, never breaking eye contact with me. I’m frozen in place. I don’t know what to think. I listen on — hearing it all and yet hearing nothing.
“Typical late-stage symptoms include body mutilation, cognitive dissonance, loss or jumbling of senses… one of the most common symptoms, after the spirit has made contact — and it has made contact with Hunter — has to do with the transformation of personality and behavior. Hunter is inside this poor body”—Father Andrew points at me from across the room—“but he is fading, more distant with every consecutive day.”
Becca sniffles. “No…”
Father Andrew shakes his head. “As long as Hunter resists inviting the spirit, it will be akin to a powerful flu. He will not be himself. He has already begun to show the physical signs of atrophy: pale skin, bruising. Soon he will sleep through most of the days. This is due to the body and mind being exhausted by the battle with the spirit’s advances.”
Becca asks, “Will he make it to the exorcism?”
I’m laughing but they don’t seem to hear me.
Father Albert tells her, “Dear, he will make it.”
Father Andrew seems to agree. He breaks eye contact with me and I start coughing like crazy. He tells her, “Hunter is very much alive. But he mustn’t entertain the spirit.”
When Father Andrew says that, it’s like they all turn on me, getting judgmental. Father Albert leans forward and I can hear it in his voice: “Hunter, have you been entertaining the spirit?”
I don’t even know what that means.
Becca is like, “Oh no,” but I know it’s fucking fake. Yeah, right. She cares. She cares only because I’m her boyfriend of, like, three years. That’s a lot of years. She cares only because whatever happens to me, it also happens to her, socially. People will know and associate her with me.
It’s not exciting now, is it?
I wear a weird look that they seem to think isn’t my own face, my own grin.
“A sinister grin,” Father Andrew observes, biting his lower lip.
Father Albert sighs. “My, my, my…”
Becca says, “What?”
Father Albert stands up. “Dear, I think we should let Father Andrew speak to Hunter in private.”
Becca doesn’t put up much of a fight. Duh. No surprise there.
Whoopie.
Father Andrew walks over to me, standing at my side. He puts a cross on the table in front of me.
What is going on, H?
But then I kind of feel it from deep within, knowing that it’ll be okay. This will all be okay. So random, it comes to mind and then I say it: “Damn, I haven’t been drunk in forever.”
Father Andrew tilts his head to one side. “That’s normal.”
I’m like, “What?”
Just stay calm.
Father Andrew kneels down so that he is face-to-face with me. He moves the cross closer to me. “Hunter, stay with me. It’s normal — say whatever comes to mind.”
I start grinding my teeth. I can feel the pain in my jaw.
Father Andrew moves the cross an inch forward. “Say what’s on your mind, Hunter. Say what’s on your mind.”
He’s trying to get H to speak.
“Say what’s on your mind!”
He’s trying to get a look at H. He’s trying to get a lead on H.
H is resisting. H is on my left side, Father Andrew on my right. H is doing his best. It’s like H is telling me to say things that make no sense, just to fight off what’s happening. I’m asking H what’s happening.
What’s happening, H?
I say, “She doesn’t really care!”
Father Andrew isn’t really listening. “Say what’s on your mind!”
He wants to hear H.
What’s happening, H?
I say, “Who really cares about me?”
“Say what’s on your mind!”
H, what’s happening?
I say, “I won’t be remembered!”
“Say what’s on your mind, Hunter!”
H…
I say, “She didn’t really like me!”
“Say what’s on your mind, Hunter. Say what’s really on your mind!”
Father Andrew brings the cross to my forehead and presses it there. It burns, but I’m not going to budge. H, what’s happening? But I hold on, like I’m being torn in two.
Hold on, we’ll be okay later.
Hold on.
It will be over soon.
H?
“I command you to show yourself!”
I say nothing.
Father Andrew shouts at the top of his lungs, “Show yourself!”
I find it all so ridiculous all of a sudden.
The tension, the pain, the sudden fever sweats… it all washes clean and I sit there, normal and maybe even a little numb, watching this funny little thing. It’s like they really believe it’ll work. If this is anything like the exorcism, maybe none of it works. I think about that, watching as Father Andrew says prayers, trying to, like, bring out H from my body or something.