Writing for Fun
December 2019
Conviction - Jeff Kebbell
When I was a toddler both mum and dad had to work to pay the mortgage and feed ourselves.
They both worked in the A & E at the local hospital and handed me over to my Grandmother who looked after me and fed me during the day. Granny was a quiet mysterious woman who had stray cats and dogs wandering about her house. They all seemed to get on with one another and stepped carefully round a large ear torn moggy called Merlin who allowed me to stroke it but wouldn't sit on my lap; it perched on the sideboard, purring quietly to itself.
After lunch I would climb onto Granny's lap and she would talk quietly to me until I fell into a doze then I would find myself gradually leaving my body and standing beside her and able to look at myself asleep in Granny's arms.
She would come and stand beside me and we would leave the house and pass along the lanes and into the countryside I was not frightened by this Out of Body Experience and Granny was always there to take me to streams and lakes where we could pass round them and enjoy the peace and tranquillity they gave to anyone who came there in a spirit of harmony.
Before Granny went to meet her forefathers. I had learnt to have out of body experiences by myself and she left me enough money to go to University and graduate as a doctor and then qualify as a psychiatrist. With the ability to induce the spirits of patients under a light hypnosis to leave their bodies I could find out the truth behind people who had suffered severe trauma and were unable to communicate their problems to the doctor or counsellors I worked in a London hospital and had a private practice in Jermyn Street.
As you might expect, I became fairly prosperous but remembering my humble beginnings and Granny's poverty, I referred any working class people to my hospital practice where I was paid well enough by the latter.
One day the hospital rang and asked me to go to one of the London prisons where they had a prisoner who was completely uncontrollable. I went and the prison Governor explained that Mr X had been as 'Mad as a hatter' from a young age and gone from one approved school to another and to solitary in a psychiatric hospital.
His violence and cunning had been the cause of several severe injuries on staff and most of them felt he would be better dead. Apparently he had been a normal boy until a road accident had left him unconscious for a week and he woke a violent person. I asked if I could see him and was taken to a secluded section of the prison where, before I arrived at his cell, I could hear his screams. The Governor feared that the staff or other prisoners would get to him before long and kill him.
Mr X was an ordinary sort of chap but restrained by a body belt and chain which enabled the guards to put food in the cell but avoid his clutches. His glare actually put a shudder down my back and a conviction of the problem. 'Too much for you eh, doctor,' said the Governor with a smile.
'No, I think I can help him,' I said, 'but I would need some help and I will return in a week to try and cure him. Please keep him safe till then.'
On the way home that day I called at the Church of the Holy Sacrament and asked to see Father Kevin, the priest who I had known for some years.
'Hello Joe,' said Father Kevin, 'don't tell me after all these years you've decided to join us.' I explained that I had a patient who needed more help than I could provide and who I thought was possessed by a demon. Did he know an exorcist who could come to my aid. Father Kevin did and a week later I presented myself and Father Brown to the prison Governor. We went to the cell where Mr X was now chained to the wall and in a straight jacket. I didn't realise that these jackets still existed. Father Brown undid the case he carried with him and took out his bible, a breviary and a jar of holy water. 'Are you sure he can't escape?' he said to the Governor.
With just the three of us in the cell but with three hefty guards ready outside to break in, we started the exorcism. It was difficult with Mr X's noise but eventually I brought the spirit of the man who owned the body from it. He was a harmless and very frightened man who had been overpowered by the demon spirit that had taken possession of his body all those years ago while he was unconscious after his accident.
Father Brown exorcised the spirit and when it had departed the rightful owner of the body was able to return. He was traumatised and would need extensive help to return to himself. The guards rather nervously removed his restraints and the mart was put in a separate cell to await counselling.
Father Brown, covered in sweat and visibly shaken was escorted with me to a waiting taxi and we went back to Father Kevin's Vicarage.
'That was difficult,' said Father Brown after two or three glasses of whisky. 'Don't give me too many of these to do, Joe, or I shall end up in a hospital myself.' I gave him suitable remuneration for his church and went back to my practice. Later that day the hospital rang to thank me and then the consultant said, 'By the way, Mr Livings, we have a problem with a patient who recently came in from a car accident and is completely paralysed. In fact she cannot hear, see or speak except to scream which she lays here doing incessantly. I wonder if this is too difficult for you.'
'I'll come right away,' I said.