Undivided

It was dark times. Really dark. 12:30 am and nobody was seen walking along the streets nor was any neighbour awake. The surrounding was quiet and gloomy. The street lamps had been out of service due a glitch in the transformer. Ellesa’s home was equipped with a generator which could develop enough power to light up the house during nights. She is sitting on a swing chair, with her cute little red cheeks, and her intimidate bright eyes. It was her sixth month with the baby.

Although she must be taking a nap according to the schedule set by doctor’s advice, yet she patiently waits for Joey’s returning footsteps. He is an industrialist and had been to Manchester on an official meeting. Despite his busy schedules, he never left Ellesa alone, that too in this condition of hers. His love for her was unconditional and everlasting. There were hardly any nights where in Ellesa slept all alone in the home.

She could now hear the tyres of his Skoda run over the gravelled paths. The headlamps shone brilliantly through the windows. She now heard the engine cut down and the door close with a thud. The pretty thing waited for this moment from a long time. She feels like she had parted with him for years together, although Joey had left for Manchester only in the morning, the same day.

“Hey darling, how do you do?” said he and then they hugged and kissed each other.

“I’m doing fine. How did the meeting with your clients go?”

“It was pretty good. What’s my baby girl doing?”

“She’s asleep, or may be waiting for her Papa to give her a goodnight kiss”

“Lemme do it right away” and then he bent down and unfolded her T-shirt a bit, until he could see the womb, and gave a cute little kiss on the womb. He then curved his arm around Ellesa’s stomach and gave a hug to his baby.

Although both of them were unsure if it’s a girl or a boy child, yet they believed and loved to have a girl child. Also, according to the doctor, a few characters of Ellesa’s pregnancy, like the complexion of the skin, sleeping posture, food preferences and many more, were similar to that of a women who carried a female child.

Being very tired, Joey just went upstairs to freshen up and to go to bed. Following him, Ellesa locked the door, turned off the lights and went upstairs too. As it’s past her sleeping time, she walks through the bedroom, opens the closet, takes her nightgown and changes herself. Joey comes out of the bathroom and they hug each other, wish each other a “good night” and go to sleep.

After a very exhaustive day at The Manchester, Joey drifted off into deep sleep. Ellesa slept too. But she wasn’t completely asleep. This night she was totally uncomfortable. This night was not like any other ordinary nights. There was something that disturbed her emotional state of mind. Convincing herself that it just ought to be the effect of her pregnancy and nothing else, she slept.

It is now around 3:30 am. Everything and everyone is quiet. There’s literally pin drop silence. Ellesa gets up and starts walking out of the bedroom, goes downstairs, into the kitchen, grabs herself a glass of wine. She then walks towards the prayer hall (a small one in the house), but doesn’t get in and starts murmuring something.

After the whispering, she behaves vaguely and ambiguously. As though someone is controlling her and she acting according to the orders of that person. She starts banging her head on the wall in the intervals of three - “dak,dak,dak”, “dak,dak,dak”. Unaware of what’s happening downstairs, Joey is fast asleep.

Down here, Ellesa raised her hand, to grab something probably, and accidentally hit a flower vase, which was made entirely out of glass, making it fall and breaking it into a thousand tiny pieces. On hearing the glass shattering into pieces, Ellesa woke up and her conscious mind is awake now. Joey rushed through the stairs and was surprised to see her with a glass of wine in her hand and that too in front of the prayer hall.

“What’s happening dear?”

“I don't know. I was fast asleep and when I opened my eyes, I found myself here.”

“Apropos, what have you been doing with the wine and that too in front of the prayer hall? You felt like praying to God in the middle of the night eh?”

“I told you that I don’t know. I was magically transferred from the bedroom to the hall.”

“It’s alright. Come sit here” he makes her sit on the couch and walks into the kitchen to get her a glass of water. She drinks the water and asks for some more. Later, they walk up back to the bedroom. While going back, Joey notices that The Holy Cross, that was hanged on to the wall of the staircase, had turned upside down. He thought that Ellesa might have done it while she was somnambulating and he turns it back to its actual position.

They kiss each other a ‘good night’ and continue to sleep. Again, Ellesa feels agonising uneasiness. She now thinks of waking up Joey to express her restlessness but she decides not to, as she thinks he was already tired because of all the travelling and he had to report to his work in the morning.

The sun rises and Joey wakes up. Makes two cups of coffee - one for him and the other for Ellesa. He drinks his cup of coffee and keeps the other cup in the oven for it to stay hot. He wears his tracksuit and goes for a lovely jog. When he returned, Ellesa had woken up and she was all set to carry out her day-to-day chores.

The day went as usual. Joey gets ready to leave for work and Ellesa makes his breakfast ready. They give each other a goodbye kiss and Joey gives a goodbye kiss to his baby as well and each wishes the latter to have a good day. He gets into his Skoda and after reversing it, they exchange a cute look with each other, as though they’re looking at the latter for the last time, and then wave their hands to bid goodbye.

After his departure, Ellesa got back into the house and looked over all the household chores done by the maid. She then engages herself with some programme on the television. She feels quite bored at home to stay all alone. By profession, she is an accountant. She worked at The ABZ departmental stores. Her job over there was only bookkeeping and nothing else. After she was pregnant, she decided to quit her job for a while, as Joey’s business would fetch enough to lead a comfortable life and they had never run bankrupt. She worked there only to eliminate her boredom and Joey, being broad minded, never really interfered with her decisions in this matter.

It’s dusk now. Sun starts setting in slowly and significantly Ellesa starts to wait for Joey’s arrival. The sun sets in completely and it’s dark now. The transformer is still not repaired and the night remains to be dark and quiet as the previous night.

“Pheem, pheem”- Joey had arrived and having heard at the sound of the honk, Ellesa was very eager to go and meet him. He got out of the car and they hugged and kissed each other and Joey kissed his baby again. Ellesa made two glasses of whiskey - a lighter one for herself and a stronger one for Joey. As they sip through the glasses of the whiskey, they enjoy spending time with each other. They both talked about everything that happened throughout the day.

After their supper, they went to bed and the uneasiness, that Ellesa encountered the previous night, had prevailed this night too. But she slept anyways. She again started sleepwalking and did everything she did the previous night before she broke the vase. And the time again was 3:30 am when this happened. After banging her head on the wall for a few minutes, she walked into the living room and murmured something again.

Meanwhile Joey had gotten up to use the restroom, and when he returned, he found the other part of the bed to be empty. He believed that Ellesa is somnambulating again. He was really shocked at this thought because before yesterday, he had never seen her somnambulating. In fact, she didn’t even utter a word while she was asleep.

He went downstairs and to his utter surprise, he witnessed something which he not ought to have witnessed and which was least expected of a pregnant women. He shouted, “Ellesa! What the hell have you been doing?”

He ran towards her and held her hands tight and stopped her from beating her womb. Joey would’ve never imagined, even in his wildest dreams, the scene of his beloved wife, lying in a corner of the living room and beating up her womb, in which she carried her child. This was totally disgusting.

Suddenly, a voice came out from Ellesa’s secondary vocal cords - “Satan needs it, I’ve given myself to the services of the Satan, nobody can ever stop me.” Followed by this was a long howling laugh and Ellesa fell unconscious. By now the Sun started rising and Joey grabbed his Skoda’s keys and took Ellesa to the hospital to make sure both his wife and his baby are safe.

After elaborating what Ellesa had done to herself, the doctors told Joey that Ellesa will be kept under observation for few days and everything else will be taken care of. Following all the paperwork, Joey decides not to go to his office, instead he stays back to look after his wife.

Throughout the day Ellesa was just asleep. Meanwhile, Joey was thinking of what Ellesa spoke through her secondary vocal cords. “What could it mean ‘I’ve given myself to Satan’? And what does the Satan need?” He said to himself. For a moment he thought of going to the Chapel and speaking to the Father about it. But being in a scientific era, Joey didn’t really believe in existence of spirits.

He slept on the spare bed provided by the hospital authorities, in the same room where Ellesa slept. At 3:30 am again, she got up and went towards the door, started banging her head and tried to unlock it, but couldn’t. Disturbed by this, Joey wakes up, holds her hands and leads her back to the bed and calls for the nurse. Fortunately, even the doctor was right there and both of them entered in. As they entered to examine her, Ellesa started shivering and shaking her body with strange voices coming out for her mouth.

The doctor orders the nurse to get an injection quick. The nurse followed the orders and brought a vaccine coupled with an injection tube and a syringe. She set up the injection to be administered to the patient. Snatching the tube, the doctor starts to pierce the needle through the skin, but suddenly Ellesa holds his hands and says “Dun need to do that, nothing is gonna work out. She’s under my possession. Satan always wins”

Surprised by this behaviour, the doctor is taken aback.

“Three more days for a full moon day and it’s all gonna be over” said Ellesa in a strange voice, like that of a 100 year old woman.

The doctor now feels he is not qualified enough to handle such cases. He says that she’s suffering from a mental disorder and he advises Joey to take her to The Stevensons Hospital at Scotland. Joey, completely immune to what’s wrong with Ellesa, follows the suggestions of the doctor as he as no other option left. He decides to leave for Scotland in the morning.

Before he sets forth, Father Bonanza arrives at the hospital. Joey was surprised at this. Joey knew Bonanza as he was the father of the church to which Ellesa and he used to go for the Sunday Mass. Father Bonanza, without wishing a good morning, only told “Her life’s in danger and God hath sent me here for her help”

Joey asks “How did you know about all this Father?”

“I was passing by through your house yesterday afternoon and I felt some kind of eternal power being surrounded by the house. Not everyday could I feel such a thing at your premises. I thought of walking in and checking out what had happened. But you were already at the hospital and your maid told me I’d find you in this hospital”

“So why did you take so much time to come here? I mean it’s a lot of time for someone to come to this hospital from my residence”

“I tried reaching as early as possible, but the Satan had set up a lot of hurdles to prevent me from reaching here.” Joey could see that the Father’s arm was bleeding while he talked all this. He tried to call the doctor in for Father’s treatment, but Bonanza denies it by saying “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Let’s just get her and the baby out of trouble.”

“So what should we do Father?”

“An Exorcism”

“Exorcism?”

“Yes. But before we do that we need to get the approval from the Bishop and we have to collect some solid evidence to prove that your wife is possessed. Before we do so, have you seen any strange activities with your wife?”

And Joey told everything that happened, the way her forehead was injured because of banging her head, her act of hitting the womb, strange voices coming out and the incident at the hospital.

Father Bonanza is now confirmed that Ellesa is being possessed by an evil spirit. He explains everything clearly - “The banging of her head at intervals of three along with wine in her hand is to insult three things - The Son, The Father and The Holy Spirit. The witch which has possessed Ellesa had probably sacrificed her life to Satan and she follows the orders of the Satan blindly. This time Satan has asked her to take away the life of a woman who is pregnant and also the life of an unborn child and the victim for this is your wife”

Shocked at the interpretation of the Father, Joey replies “But why my wife?”

“I’m unsure. All I know is we ought to save her and I’m to perform the Exorcism.”

Father Bonanza and Joey waited for the night to arrive, so that they can capture some pictures of Ellesa’s demonic activities and produce it before the Bishop as a proof of evidence. While all this happened, Ellesa Was completely unconscious and fast asleep and they took her back home.

They waited for a long time, both of them almost drifting off to sleep. They couldn’t find any demonic activities. After a while Ellesa starts to murmur something. Bonanza is wide awake now and he looks at his watch, it reads 3:30. Father Bonanza had learnt it somewhere that the Satan is most powerful between 3 :30 am to 5:30 am. He was now double sure that Ellesa was being possessed.

He wakes up Joey to get ready with the camera to record. While Ellesa still murmurs something, Joey started to record it. Father Bonanza happened to stand beside a window and he looked out through the window, realising it was a full moon night. Surprised at this, he says to Joey-

“Stop it. The Satan has gained control, it’s the full moon night.”

“A full moon night. Are you serious? I thought that the full moon night was after two days, because that’s was what the Satan told yesterday at the hospital”

“Yes. The full moon ought to be two days later. But the Satan has gained control over the creater of this universe. He has become more powerful than The Holy Father.”

“So what should we do now father?”

“I will perform the exorcism myself, right here, right now. We must do it before the sun rises, else we’re gonna lose Ellesa forever”

Joey nods his head, conforming the process of exorcism. Father Bonanza runs out and quickly comes back with a religious robe hanging on his neck and holding the Holy Bible. Before he begins, he says it’s better to tie Ellesa Up as she might be harmful if it isn’t done so.

“Our Father, Who Art in Heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” Father Bonanza continues to recite the prayers

Suddenly, Ellesa starts shouting and starts to behave like a langur. Joey, disheartened by this, starts sobbing right away. He says “I love you Ellesa. You got to fight this demon or whatever the thing controlling you. I know you can do it. Come on.”

After almost an hour of reciting the prayers continuously by Father Bonanza, the witch started losing it’s power over Ellesa and Ellesa now tried to speak in her original voice “Joey, please save me. This witch is going to take me away.” Suddenly this was interrupted and Ellesa spoke in her secondary vocal cords, “I’m gonna take her away you moron, you can’t do anything other than sitting there and sobbing.” This was probably addressed to the Father or may be to her husband.

Joey decides it’s time for a new course of action, he decides he just can’t sit like a rock and goes near Ellesa and hugs her tight. He starts talking to her in her ears. He says “Listen Ellesa. I know you can hear me. Whoever it is, the witch, the Satan or whatever, I believe in my heart of hearts that you’re gonna fight this thing and you’re gonna live much longer and you’re gonna bring our baby girl to this earth. I know that you possess enough courage and strength to fight the evil and the wrong doers. You’re gonna make it, come on.”

It’s almost around 5:45 am now and the sun has started rising. Ellesa falls unconscious and all her demonic activities stop. Father Bonanza shouts “Yes, we did it.” He rushes towards Ellesa and takes his fingers near her nose to check for her breaths. “Ellesa, my child, you’re all good now.” He turns towards Joey and says “Don’t worry she’s just asleep. She’ll be alright in a few moments”

Listening to this, Joey is overwhelmed with joy and happiness. He thanks Father Bonanza and Bonanza explains him that he kept the powers of the witch confined so that she couldn’t take away Ellesa’s spirit. And the witch lost her power as soon the sun rose and since it was the witch’s duty to kill Ellesa and her unborn child during the full moon night, in which she failed, she was taken back by the Satan. The Satan now decides what to do with that beast.

Very soon, Ellesa woke up and found herself very tired. She called Joey and he rushed towards her and gave her a glass of water. She told him that she heard everything he told her and how much he loves her. It was may be because of the encouraging words Joey spoke in her ears that led her to fight back against the evil spirit. It was may be because the power of their love kept them together and saved Ellesa from the witch.