Gadara.
*
Three weeks ago today, before the first episode of insanity struck him, Issachar named the then-eight-year-old girl Nanya. He wore a child-like smile across his face as he pulled the name from his throat, pronouncing it so solemnly. As if it were the name of some god. As if he had practiced pronouncing it for days. His eyesight was foggy; clogged by tears condensing from the steaming joy in his chest.
The girl is his and Noa’s first and only child, and Issachar thinks her to be a living miracle whenever it is he who owns his mind. She isn’t just the only one out of Noa’s five pregnancies that wasn’t spontaneously aborted at around the fifth month, smeared as blood clots across the beddings in the silence of the night. She’s also a dead-come-back-to-life.
Minutes after the child’s birth, she was believed dead: believed to be just another one of the many stillborn children whose souls had been claimed by something; a spirit of some sort, before getting the chance to find life.
But, Nanya wasn’t stillborn. She would pull into her lungs a noisy, unexpected, and somewhat laborious first breath just before the two stout midwives present at the delivery could have announced a death incidence. Her first cry would be a choking but pleasant surprise to everyone.
Nanya’s naming took place on a Saturday evening, hours after a long morning teaching session at the faraway synagogue at Jerusalem. Issachar had attended this teaching. Some strange man— tall, with flowing hair and broad shoulders, relatively darker skin,— had been there, and everyone’s attention had seemed to be on him.
This man several times called himself the son of God, and the synagogue would roar with laughter. Some found it funny and amusing, both, that one could be so stupid. But certainly not the scribes. They wouldn’t do the least thing as giggle.
Dressed in their usual flowing robes and seated on high chairs paces away from the pew, they spent the morning casting glares of disappointment on everyone within their visual field, scoffing underneath their breath.
“Madness seems to be more common in the city these days, and anyone who isn’t blinded by the nonsense the pagan Romans preach would know that this isn’t a thing to laugh about at all.” They would stand at a corner outside the temple and whisper amongst themselves when the teachings were over, throwing glances at the strange man—who is called Jesus—and the twelve older men around him.
“We’d be there.” One of the scribes said sternly to Issachar when Issachar approached to remind them about the naming ceremony, the scribe raising a hand into the air to stop the publican from coming too close. “We’d be there.”
This man told a lie.
No religious leader in Israel showed up at the naming, save Miriam’s husband, a Sadducee. Issachar’s small sitting room was full of just commoners that evening. Publicans, who cheered and chanted.
Noa stood before them, holding the child the same way she is doing now. To her breasts, like a fragile thing whose life depended on how good it was hugged, looking down at it with sheer admiration. Although on that day, as opposed to now, her cheeks weren’t lined by tears, and neither was she sobbing, entreating her child to suckle.
*
The child is in so much distress right now. For the past minutes, the little girl has been screeching as if her lungs are being compressed by an invisible hand, gasping to catch her breath, jerking and jerking with every bang that comes from the room to the left.
Nanya is terrified, Noa knows, and can’t suckle even though she desperately needs to feed. Noa is terrified, too, of course. Pacing back and forth in here, a silent prayer grows on her lips like flowers along the Jordan.
The screams lancing through the air are getting louder and louder, like those from a wounded, dying man. And so are the bangs on the door.
These screams are Issachar’s. He’s awoken from his forced sleep and is now trying to burst his way out of the room he is locked in.
Fifty minutes ago, Noa knocked him out with a well-struck hit to the back of his neck with a wooden stick because it seemed like another one of his maniac fits was on the way.
She had seen the signs in his eyes, in the spasms across his hand when she offered him the baby.
After knocking him out, she bound his wrists and ankles with ropes, dragged him into the room he’s in now, and locked the doors behind her.
Issachar’s fits of rage have grown a lot worse recently. Nothing seems to help him these days. Except of course a hit that knocks him out for a couple of minutes.
Noa does feel bad whenever she hits him, but she just has to do it anyway. Things could be much worse if she does not do the needful.
At first, when this all started, a gentle pat to the back used to do a lot to make Issachar calm. The sight of his daughter, too. He would see Nanya and the redness in his eyes would clear out, like foggy water left to settle. He’d stretch out a hand, take her and break down into crying.
But things would worsen. Slowly, but steadily, they would. The pats across his back soon began to help nothing, and so the Hyssop leaves would have to be introduced: squeezed into his drink to sedate him.
Miriam’s idea.
Miriam (called Miriama) had visited one evening and had talked about how good Hyssop would prove to be in treating cases like this.
“I promise it’d work,” the woman said. “I have seen it work many times.”
And so Noa tried it out.
When the Hyssop stopped working, the hits became a last resort.
The snapping of wood and the breaking away of metal buckles. Following the sound, a roar from a seared throat. As if voiced through a final breath.
Noa’s heart skips beats.
She knows what’s just happened: Issachar has broken free. Without a thought, a moment of hesitation, she would take to her heels, running as fast as she can away from home, the squealing of her child riding the wind.
*
It began as a not-so-serious headache. A pulse throbbed at his temple that morning and he thought he had been seeing things.
The last night, in his dreams, he had been confronted by an army. A legion of beings too massive to be humans. Nephilims, perhaps.
In this dream, Issachar was armored like a Roman Soldier and had been manning a massive gate. Just himself. Dead bodies surrounded him, spoils of war, arrows jutting from the corpses. The stench of drying blood hung in the stale, smoky air, Issachar’s skin tingly from burns.
Some kind of siege was happening. And somehow, Issachar knew that it was his duty to keep the enemy ahead from surging into the gate behind him.
But he failed at doing this—failed at keeping them out.
Despite being so massive, the enemy weren’t just normal soldiers. They had mages amongst them. Demon-like beings. And Issachar didn’t stand a chance. He would be blasted away by an overpowering force with just a wave of a hand the minute he pulls a long sword free from its scabbard and takes a battle stance.
A conflagration of sorcery.
He would jolt awake in the real world, screaming, something pounding at the insides of his skull.
“Are you okay?” His wife, who had noticed his winces, would ask him as she serves him breakfast. “You seem in pain.”
“I am fine.” He muttered curtly, squeezing his eyes shut, jerking his head to the left and the right as if trying to clear his mind. There in his head, an army was running into a gate. Screams. Chants of victory. Smoke. The clanking of chains. He saw all, heard all. Six Nephilims carried a throne on their shoulders. And atop this throne, a fierce god sat.
“Are you sure?” Noa would drop the plates in her hands, ambling over to rub gently her husband’s neck.
“I am fine!” Issachar barked, pounding fists into the table.
Noa backed away, terrified, watching with sheer amusement as Issachar again recoiled into his senses the moment Nanya’s cry sounded.
Apologies rained.
More of such occurrences would occur—times when Issachar would abruptly go wild with rage. Then a lot more, the flashes of battle and gods and chains increasing in intensity within Issachar’s mind.
A god-like voice, belonging to a demon atop the throne, which now sits in the center of his mind, would soon be introduced into the scene, thundering a command into Issachar’s head at random.
At first, two to three commands a day it used to be. The first command would come during the early hours of the morning, after a nightmare of battle, and the subsequent would follow whenever the effects of some spicy tea Noa had formed a habit of preparing wore off.
But these commands would begin to come more often. Five to six to even up to ten commands a day.
One word: “Frekun!”, and Issachar would lose control over his mind.
He would become an alien in his own body, understanding nothing, controlling no action of his until his mind has been returned to him; the memories filling it untampered with. Small fragments of alien memory chipped into it, even, so the man knows what he normally shouldn’t know.
*
Around midnight.
His eyes flap open to the foggy sight of a full moon up in the skies—encircled by clouds. Bemused, he raises himself into a sitting position, pain blasting into his skull, slithering across the cuts scattered all over his skin.
He winces at this pain, recollection coming to his mind, slowly, as he looks around.
He’s in a graveyard far away from home, he soon realizes, surrounded by tombstones on every side. He has been here for at least two days. He knows he had run away from home, away from Nanya and Noa, at the command from the Nephilim god in his head.
Leaving home, he first ran into a large pigsty down Krul street, but was driven away by the swineherds there. With sticks and with clubs, they chased him, yelling, “Maniac!”
They weren’t Jews like himself, these swineherds, no. They weren’t dressed like Jews. They looked like displaced men who had come from Egypt with spices and animals to sell. They would chase him on and on for a while, stopping only when he runs into this graveyard he is now within.
He has spent two days and two nights here, alone, cutting himself.
A crow’s caw from paces away defeats the unnerving night’s silence for a moment, the crow cawing once more and then flying overhead.
Sudden fear grips Issachar, racking him into tears as he struggles to his feet. Sharp pain gnaws at his legs the moment his feet balance atop the ground, his wrists burning as if they have been set on fire.
He lets out a hard groan, raising his hands to his face. Blood, he sees in the moonlight. Dried, smeared along the length of his forearms. Horizontal wounds across his wrists; deep stone cuts, still oozing fluid. He looks down at his legs. There’s a wound there also, just as big as the one across his wrists, but not half as painful.
Groaning, sobbing, he would begin his long walk back home, his thoughts on Nanya; his miracle, and on Noa; his mistress, strange heaviness on his chest.
He senses the throne in his mind. It’s asleep and just might remain asleep for a long time. The Nephilims seem to be satisfied and at rest. He knows they feed on his pain and rage. Alien memory. The pain seems to calm them.
*
Miriam mops the baby dry, dresses it, and carries it in her arms to the dining room— where Noa, the child’s mother and Miriam’s friend for as long as Miriam can remember, is seated.
“What? You’ve still not eaten?” Miriam drawls, managing to hold the baby still with one arm as she with the other hand opens the plate in front of Noa.
The plate is still full, Miriam sees; the food in it untouched.
She glares down at Noa in disapproval, but Noa throws her face the other way.
Silence.
“C’mon. Noa. You have to eat. You really do have to!”
Noa does not answer.
The child in Miriam’s arms starts to whine.
Miriam hugs it closer in a bid to quieten it. Ambles over to the cradle bed at a corner within the sitting room and puts the child in there, walking back to the dining room to sit with her friend.
“Listen.” She puts a hand over Noa’s shoulder. “You are going to be fine.”
“I am not!” Noa snaps with a loud voice, jerking her face around. “Don’t you lie to me!”
“Noa.” Miriam drawls. “God is in control. Don’t you sound like a pagan. Only pagans sound this faithless”
“Oh, he is?” She’s crying now. “Need I remind you about all that is happening?”
She pauses, scoffing as she wipes tears off her reddened chin.
“I haven’t been home in two days because it’s not safe to go back there. I can’t go back to my family in Judea either, because of the child. She’d be badly affected by the dust along the plains of Gaza. My husband has lost his mind. Someone who was never once troubled by anything. Someone so calm. Turned into a fierce thing.
“You needed to hear his roars that evening, the pain in his voice. No one knows where he is. I don’t even know if he is alive. What am I going to do with the child if he’s dead? God is in control? Don’t you tell me that, Miriam. He’s not.”
Silence, again, then Miriama punctures it.
“Yes, you can’t go back home.” She begins as if admonishing her friend. ”And so what? You’re here, with me. Safe. That’s God’s provision in a time of need. I’m sure my husband would be more than happy to welcome you when he returns with our kids from Jerusalem. You and Nanya can stay here as long as you want.
“And, have faith. Your husband is not dead.”
Noa jerks alert.
“Yes. He’s not. There are rumors. People say they saw a man…a craz…a man around your house. I believe that’s your husband, Miriam. I believe God has set him free. Our God is a healer.”
“And what if it’s not him?”
“Let us hope it’s him. I plan for us to go down there this evening. One of my husband’s servants would accompany us, if that’s fine by you.”
“It is fine by me. We’d go with the baby.”
A smirk on Miriam’s face at the mention of: “The baby.”
“Okay, then. At sunset. Just, eat your food.”
*
The servant waves the women behind him to a halt on reaching the front door of Issachar’s house. Noa and Miriama share glances as the young man stealthily moves forward, gently pushing the door. It isn’t locked. The women backpedal as it cries open, its hinges squeaking and squealing.
The manservant peers inside, looking around. He spots something at the far corner, suddenly alert. Something moving; a man, leaned against a wall, half-sitting, his legs stretched out.
Miriam snaps out a hand in a bid to pull her friend back. But Noa, voicing a scream, has already lunged forward. She is now crouched on one knee beside the man at the corner. It’s Issachar, her husband, covered in blood and dirt, cuts all over his face and arms and legs.
“Issachar.” She mumbles, tenderly pulling his face around.
Red eyes, a face swollen.
He is too weak to answer her, too out of his mind.
He stretches a hand into the air, the frail hand falling back almost immediately.
“Nanya. Where’s Nanya?”
“Here.” Miriam steps forward. “She is here. She is safe.”
He has just been washed. And now, he sits at the dining room, eating like a starving child, stuffing his mouth with the unleavened bread before him, downing it with the contents of the cup on his right side.
Noa and Miriam watch, Noa’s eyes tingly from much crying. In her husband’s eyes, there is renewed sanity. A child-like innocence no maniac ever shows. Something relaxing.
Following an exchange of glances between her and Miriam, and a go-ahead gesture from the Sadducee’s mistress, she hands him their child when he is done eating.
“Nanya. My miracle from god.” Issachar mumbles, smiling down at the child, his cheeks reddening.
He would squeeze his eyes shut, a solitary tear trickling down his chin.
Before leaving, Miriam admonishes and prays for the family.
“God does not fail. He never does.” She says, squeezing her friend’s hands in hers. “You have been healed, Issachar. I told your wife everything would sort itself out. And now, look. Everything has been sorted out!”
A smile from the man.
Noa follows Miriam to the door.
“Thank you for everything.” She pulls away from the hug to say, a forced smile on her face.
“You are welcome.”
Awkward silence.
“Hey. Noa. What is it?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like it still isn’t safe to be here.”
“Hmmm. Oh, don’t worry. It is. He’s fine. I promise you. Look at his eyes. You’re safe. I have left the servant with you. He’s going to look after you. You’re safe, I promise.”
“Okay.”
Tonight, in bed, the baby between him and his wife, Issachar tells Noa about everything that has happened to him. It’s a conversation he has been running away from. Excusing Noa’s every question with an, “I am fine.” But, tonight, he tells her everything.
He tells her about the nightmares and the Nephilim spirits and what happens when he loses his mind. The air is saturated with emotion as he talks. And when he is done talking, prayers rain.
*
Three loud bangs thunder at the door this morning.
“It is I, Miriam! It is I!” Noa cries from outside.
Miriam, chest beating, would pull the door open and Noa would surge in. She is almost unclad, her baby strapped to her back with just a thin piece of cloth.
“He has lost it again!” She bursts, almost throwing herself to the ground.
“Oh, my,” Miriam says. “God.”
Hours pass and when moods subside, the two women sit to talk.
“He had been fine for three days. But this morning, he just starts to roar, and then he loses it again.” Noa explains, pulling breaths. Her baby is in her arms, suckling.
Miriam responds with her usual warm admonishes, talking about God and how God always makes a way.
Whilst they are still talking, the manservant in whose charge Noa had been put walks in.
“He ran out of the house,” He says, “We chased after him and bound him in chains and fetters. But he would break free of these chains as if they were just threads wrapped around his feet.
“Over and over again, we bound him. But he would always break free each time. So we got tired and let him go. He just ran. Ran as if his life depended on how fast he ran. How loudly he screamed.
”I don’t know. I think he was headed for the cemetery of Gadarena. I don’t know.”
Miriam dismisses the servant with a wave of the hand.
She turns to Noa, hearing the plan in her friend’s eyes.
“Don’t even think about it. Don’t. We’re not going there. You’re staying here. You’ve been out too often for a nursing mother. Stay put and we would pray. You do not want to defile yourself by being out too often.”
*
Issachar senses something, a strange but powerful presence from the boat that has just landed on the shore several yards away from where he is seated on a ragged tombstone; covered in bleeding cuts.
The spirits in his head cower at this presence; they go silent for the first time in seven days. They stop making him cut himself, running to hide within the deeper recesses of his mind—like a child would at the sight of a strange animal.
Knowledge, not completely his; fragments of thought belonging to the spirits in him, soon seeps to the surface of Issachar’s mind. Somehow, he knows that around the boat that has just landed is a man named Jesus and his disciples.
Jesus.
He had seen this man at the synagogue months ago. Jesus. The man who had called himself the son of God and was mocked by everyone.
He really is the son of God, it soon becomes clear. The spirits in Issachar’s head know this. They know that this Jesus can send them away from their new found home. Issachar shares this knowledge with them.
Realizing the proximity of his freedom in the presence of this Jesus, he would jump to his feet, running towards the shore, screaming, “Jesus! Son of God!”
“Frekun!” The Nephilim god barks in his head, snapping Issachar’s mind away.
Issachar falls to the ground, his mania returning.
The one called Jesus, on hearing his name, turns around.
“I heard it, too.” One of his disciples says. “Your name.”
“Me too,” another says, stepping forward.
“And me too.”
Silence.
“Come here. Now!” Jesus barks into the air, looking around him.
His disciples reel backward at the sight of a man running towards them at frightening speed from yards away. But Jesus doesn’t. He steps forward, waiting for the man to reach him.
On reaching Jesus, the man drops to his knees, his head bowed.
“You are the son of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He mumbles, shuddering. It’s the spirits who are speaking through him.
“What is your name?”
“We are Legion. For we are many.” The Nephilim god in Issachar speaks through Issachar’s mouth again.
“How many are you?”
“Five thousand, Master.”
“You are Nephilim spirits.”
“Yes, master, we are.”
“From where have you come?”
“From our home. A war displaced us. A war against the Balamak. They won. We fled. Here. To this man’s mind. He failed to keep us out. We’ve been here for two months. We feed on his pain. He feeds us well.”
“Oh well. I guess it’s time to leave.”
“No!” The demons shriek, jerking Issachar’s body. “Please, no!”
Fear runs through Jesus’s Disciples at the piercing noise.
“You would leave. I’m sending you into the water.”
“No! Please! The water gods would kill us. If we must leave, please send us to those pigs over there.”
Jesus turns around and sees the pigs. They have been brought here to drink from the river. Swineherds follow behind them. Men from Egypt.
“Okay then.” Jesus steps backward. “Be cast out now!” He yells, “Into the pigs!”
A wind blows. Sudden power electrifies the air. Issachar falls to the ground, jerking and jerking as the demons leave him.
Grunting from the pigs fills the air. The Nephilims now posses them. The pigs scatter, running towards the water and plunging into it.
Loud noises, the roaring of water.
*
“Master.” Issachar kneels before Jesus and breaks down when after a moment he realizes himself, when he realizes that his oppressors are gone. “Thank you, master.”
“Thank the Father. You’ve been freed. Now, go. Go to your wife and your daughter. They seek after you.”
Jesus faces the approaching crowd. “I have to go. These people come to send me away.
“Go. Receive strength in your bones.”
Issachar leaps to his feet and is soon on his way home, singing, the crowd staring, murmuring.
This story would take forever to tell, Issachar knows. And he would tell it to everyone who cares to listen. For as long as he lives.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ubong Johnson (Ubee) is a medical school undergrad who is intrigued by the beauty of art. He tells stories sometimes, and plays the piano at other times. His works of short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming on The Shallow Tales Review, Kalahari Review, Ngiga Review, Writer.ie, Eboquills, OkadaBooks, The Paper Crane Journal, etc. He is a fellow of the Hope Waddel Society Of Music, Calabar.
Disclaimer: some names and occurrences from scripture have been mentioned in this work. However, the author maintains that this is a work of fiction.
Wow…..