Demons in your soul

There are demons in your soul. They bathe in the blood of your heart inside your body and never want to leave.  They are like uninvited guests that you hate, but can’t banish. They know all your fears, all your secrets, all your sins. You want to get rid of them, to run away from them and never see them again. But unfortunately there is no escape: like an annoying fly, they follow you in your thoughts and your dreams. Like a hungry worm, they eat the peel of your heart; like a thirsty bee, they drink the nectar of your blood; like a parasite they attach themselves to your soul and slowly devour it.

Demons are difficult to fight. They turn your life into horror, into a never ending nightmare that leaves a deep ugly scar on your heart. Look at famous artists who committed suicide because they couldn’t handle the dreadful whisper of their demons anymore.  Look at your neighbor who sits in his back yard all day long with a blank horrifying stare on his old wrinkled face. Look at the young South African woman, Elizabeth, the main character of Bessie Head’s novel “A Question of Power”, who is haunted by her demons at night, who is tortured by a “wild-eyed” Medusa, the “direct and tangible form of her own evils”(40). 

Elizabeth’s simple life as a school teacher in Bostwana turns into hell when she starts having the bizarre nightmares. In her dreams Elizabeth meets Sello, “a reincarnation of prophet-like figures who takes her on “a nightmare soul journey” exposing her to “a depth of evil you cannot name”” (Burton, 72).  Elizabeth’s most agonizing sufferings begin when she encounters the cruelest of Sello’s incarnations, Medusa, a dreadful representation of Elizabeth’s demons and fears who constantly chases her and causes her mental break down. After she got out of the mental institution, Elizabeth confesses: “She’s so real to me that I live in terror of her all my days. That’s why I broke down. It’s Medusa. She scared me from the first moment I saw her” (58). But who wouldn’t be scared of Medusa? With hissing serpents in her hair and “a mocking smile” (61) she throws with great hatred her terrible thunderbolts at Elizabeth’s soul making her “slip into black unconsciousness” (92) unable to resist the satanic evil power that occupies her heart every night. “It wasn’t Elizabeth’s body she was thrusting into extinction. It was the soul; the bolts were aimed at her soul” (87).    

Every night a ruthless Medusa appears in Elizabeth’s dreams. She brings all the demons that occupy her soul together, she makes Elizabeth’s fears push away the goodness in her heart. She destroys Elizabeth’s inner peace, makes her “sick to the point of death” (65) and wants her dead: “Dog, filth, the Africans will eat you to death” (45).  She hates Elizabeth, wants to fracture her into thousands of pieces and “threatens to drag Elizabeth down with her and to literally drown her” (Burton, 72) : “ Africa is troubled waters, you know. I am a powerful swimmer in troubled waters. You will only drown here”  (44). Medusa’s “main priority was the elimination of Elizabeth” (62) and she did everything to demolish, mentally destroy her, to make her suffer and lose the connection with goodness.

Elizabeth is exhausted with this evil woman living in her soul and making her heart bleed. She would like to live in harmony and inner peace. She doesn’t want to be disturbed every night with all the horrors and excruciating pain. In her conversation with Birgette she frankly admits: “I am being dragged down, without my willing, into a whirlpool of horrors. I prefer nobility and goodness but a preference isn’t enough; there are forces who make a mockery of my preferences” (85). She can’t handle this suffering anymore that is why she realizes that in order to overcome her fears and obtain happiness, she has to confront her demons, she has to stare Medusa down and face all the evils that eat up her heart. She must do it to survive and to find harmony in her soul as “people only function well when their inner lives are secure and peaceful” (49).  And she does it. She gathers all her strength and wins the bloody battle with Medusa by staring directly into her eye. “Each night she looked straight into Medusa’s powerful black eyes. It was tracing the evil to its roots” (92). Elizabeth was able to confront her fears, free her soul from demons and embrace love and goodness.  She couldn’t allow Medusa to annihilate her anymore with her thunderbolts and hatred. She said “no” to her fears and opened up her heart for love. “She had been forcefully thrown into a state of death, but she instantly sprang to life again, laughed and flung her hands into the air with a bounding sense of liberation” (100).

Struggling with your demons is not an easy task. It can be a very painful, sometimes even a deadly process. But once you have the courage to empty your heart of all the nasty worms and parasites that reside and feed there, your soul will start blooming again and your heart will be rejuvenated with a new bud of life…