exorcism ovenbird Two nights ago no one slept due to demonic possession. Or a haunting. Or maybe both. It started just after midnight, as hauntings do. I woke with a gasp, convinced I was blind. The red numbers of the clock wouldn’t come into focus and I rubbed my eyes in a useless attempt at massaging them into compliance. Sweating and terrified I stumbled from my room into the main part of the basement where my children were supposed to be sleeping. But they were awake too, unable to settle after my son spoke in tongues in his sleep, mumbling and groaning and then demanding his sister come over and take off the effect she had put on him. She lay in her bed afraid to move, uncertain what he meant. Which is when she heard the sounds—scraping, or moaning, or a distant thumping, something that defied categorization, something sinister. She strained her ears in the dark and couldn’t sleep and a headache formed like a crust of mould on a piece of cheese. Back in bed I eventually slept fitfully and in the morning ascended, squinting, into the bright living room to find that my father also spent the night awake for no discernable reason. I then discovered a line of small bruises on the underside of my left arm, clearly left by the demon, who had shaken me from a deep sleep just an hour after I sunk into unconsciousness. My mother did sleep. But later discovered that at least one part of her body didn’t feel like her own, swapped out, we insisted, by the poltergeist who had tormented the rest of us. Last night everything was quiet. I slept over seven hours for the first time since arriving in this time zone. Silence followed our bedevilment. Sometimes what you really need is an excuse for an exorcism. 260728 what's it to you? who go blather from