Forgiveness (Saints & Haints, Chapter 32)

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Oh, the lies demons tell!

This chapter is a look inside my mental processes as I finally reached some conclusions, while weeding through the confusion and convolutions of the first story they told me about my possession experience.

Demons lie; because there's a gag order.
They aren't supposed to allow living people to learn too much about them, at least not without killing us off afterwards. Therefore, when one of the living has gained insider information, a lot of crazy-making ensues, which then must be sorted out by the discerning survivor.

That's the takeaway here.
I didn't understand what had happened behind the scenes at first, because I wasn't supposed to. In this chapter, amidst further demon attacks, I was gaining some ground towards finally figuring that out.

Chapter 32
Forgiveness


So, I started writing again.
Youthful commented,
"You are not that bad at writing sentences for us, but now you're writing your death sentences."
I ignored this, because, honestly, I didn't care whether or not it was the truth. I had already requested a sentence reduction.

As I worked, I felt a sense of oppression. By that, I mean that it felt as if lots of people were watching me, and they were angry. It felt exactly as it had when I was being ordered around by Psycho Jesus, but thankfully, he never showed up. Perhaps it was because I was thinking about Psycho Jesus that I made another connection. I realized that I knew what he looked like. He was a tall, pale-skinned white guy, with shaggy, curly, auburn hair, and scruffy facial hair. I knew that because I'd seen him, in my mind's eye, in February 2021, when he had been a booming voice from the sky. I'd caught a glimpse, at least. It was something I hadn't understood at the time. The more I thought back on it, I seemed to recall seeing him when I got the "I had to take that power back," message too. I thought it was weird that I hadn't noticed him at that time, yet I saw him when I replayed the memory.

My demons were acting agitated, but I reminded them that we were under demonic influence, and that they don't have to listen to it or do what they're told. It seemed to help break the spell. I felt fine, but my head was still reeling with theories as I tried to sort out what exactly the truth was behind the conflicting evidence I'd been shown in my interactions with A. I was back and forth, and back and forth again, on the issue of whether A was a saint or a haint.

I realized that the first vision was significant; and that it had been sort of an encrypted message. There had been a lot of confusing symbolism, and I thought that had been intentional, so that someone wouldn't understand it. My first theory was that perhaps, because both sides were watching me, it had been so the other side wouldn't understand it. That didn't really make sense though; because either side could read my mind and discover what I thought the messages meant. I wondered, are there more than two sides? Then it dawned on me that there kind of are; well, there's a third party, anyway --my demons. Still, I didn't know if that had anything to do with the encryption in the message; and I knew that it didn't matter what the symbols meant if I couldn't figure them out. One thing I was consistently convinced of, however, was that this was not a joke.

There were two pieces of evidence that finally convinced me to choose one of the possible explanations over all the others. I was thinking about the visions where A's face wasn't visible; or the center of his face was erased, or he was rejecting his old picture. Those messages had left me with the feeling that he was trying to tell me that he was not who he said he was. Demonasty, bless her heart, has to break things down for me sometimes. She finally 'splained me like I'm five,
"Catholic, he... is... not... that guy you knew in high school, okay? He is different now, but he is that very same soul you used to go out with, okay? That's not what he's trying to tell you. He... is... ashamed... of... his... face."
As soon as she said that, I could have slapped myself. Shamedy-faced haint.

That same day I received a thought-transference tip from an unknown source. It was that the ice cream cone didn't really represent Saint Michael; and that I should think about the context in which the original comment was made. The comment, made while Daisy was dying, was,
"Saint Michael will not only come and pick her up; he'll buy her an ice cream cone on the way to Heaven."
I understood then that the ice cream cone represented the trip to Heaven, rather than Saint Michael himself. I also finally knew, or perhaps finally accepted, that A had been a demon once, who had accepted Jesus and had gone to Heaven. He was a saint who used to be a haint. That still didn't explain everything, though; and my demons hinted that they knew more than they were telling. They taunted me,
"Wait until you figure out what else."

Thinking about things from that new perspective, I realized that A must've actually been the first spirit to visit me, the sweet one; and that Johnny must've been assigned to me sometime later. Johnny had lied, apparently, about being the one who had been here the entire time. I wondered exactly when A had made the trip to Heaven. I thought that the first vision might indicate December 2020, because of the reminder about the "two men fighting for me" vision that my friend from work had shared with me. That time stamp could also explain why he had been "feared or despised" by the earthbound spirit community in January 2021, because it would indicate that he had fought his own kind that night. Yet, somehow, I felt that it had to have been February 2021, after the "wedding scene." Although someone else had been present, I felt that A had been the one who had said,
"That was smart."

Had the purpose of the ceremony been to win Heavenly citizenship for him, through me? Had it worked? Was that why he was now a saint? I contemplated these things, but I thought surely not; surely one's salvation couldn't be tied to another person, could it? I wondered, though, if it might've been the reason that he was given another chance at salvation, possibly right then and there. Regardless of that, I still wondered why he hadn't talked to me for 18 months. One of my demons, who'd been listening to these thoughts, commented,
"Yeah, and, if it's that way, you know what that means? That means he left you here. That he handed you over to those schizophrenia demons, and went on up there, on your ticket."
I really wasn't mad though. If that was what had happened, I was happy for him! Why wouldn't I be? I knew that he would never have caused me harm, nor left me to deal with it alone, on purpose. It would have to have been that he had no other choice. I wondered why he hadn't simply told me that, or whatever the truth was, instead of sending me confusing visions for a month.

One of my demons said,
"I think he fought for you. I think he defended you. It didn't have anything to do with that shotgun wedding."
I said,
"Well, then, I guess he had to go on while he had the opportunity. I don't blame him."
To which the demon replied,
"Yeah, well, it's not always safe for Christian demons down here, so, may be."

I concluded that this version of the story explained a lot about why there was guilt behind his vow to protect me. If that was indeed what had happened, I could see how he might have felt, at times, like a snake or a mud puddle. He probably felt like,
"We did this together; and she's the one who's suffered for it."
I could see it that way, as sort of a survivor's guilt; but I still didn't blame him. I had a terrifying thought then. I sincerely hoped that he wasn't promising to marry me out of obligation. So, I said to him,
"I forgive you. I understand. I just want you to know that you don't have to do anything for me. You don't have to protect me or marry me or anything. I mean, if you want to marry me, that's different; but if not, you can really just go enjoy Paradise. Honestly, I'm not mad. I don't hold you accountable. I don't want to be loved out of obligation. There has to be no guilt in this; no obligation."

He appeared in a vision then, a photoreaslistic movie clip. He had a sweet smile on his face, and he placed his hands over his heart. He transferred the thought to me,
"Then I will love you up here, because right now, there's obligation."
A bit later, he appeared again and added that it was his love for me, not the marriage, or acting in my defense even, but his love for me, that had opened the gates of Heaven for him.
Then he kept sending me reminders of romantic moments we'd shared. He was pulling those memories up, showing them to me, and saying,
"...and you think it's obligation."


I am now convinced that over the next few days I must've been the victim of an insidious demon attack. Even after everything that had been revealed to me and explained, I found myself still going back and forth about whether or not there was actually a saint, named A, who loved me and wanted to marry me, or whether the entire relationship had all been an elaborate demon trick. I had to remind myself of the evidence, and I had to remind myself that one of the most compelling pieces of evidence I had was the fact that demons kept trying to make me doubt this. That is the sort of reverse-psychology and inverted logic that often has to be employed when dealing with demons. It has helped me to retain my sanity. Journaling has helped also. It's good to have notes to refer back to, in case you forget exactly what and how things happened; or in case the memories should happen to change.

I was still missing part of this story, however. I still had questions, and I could no longer rely on A to answer them, because it had become a crapshoot as to whether Right-A or Wrong-A would be the one to respond to my messages. The recent vision, in which he'd told me that the only way we could communicate was if I didn't know whether it was coming from up or down, had caused me to suspect that both of them were A, and that he was playing both characters for some strategic purpose, but I still didn't know what his angle was.

I was definitely getting the impression that he was either having to pretend to be a demon still, in order to continue communicating with me; or that he was actually a double agent. I still received thought-transferences that I believed to be from Right-A. I felt that I could occasionally trust my demons too, but they were subject to the influence of real demons. As ever, I had to take what they told me with a grain of salt; and by that point, I was having to treat any messages from A with the same scrutiny.

The animation of Wrong-A increasingly abused me. He'd transfer the thought to me,
"Hurry up and write that, and get up here,"
and then he'd explain, along with obscene gestures and pelvic thrusts,
"...so we can fuck."
When these sorts of messages came in, I would tell him that I am determined to remain in my skinsuit until after all my pets have gone on before me. He'd invariably act pissed off by that answer. I got mad at him sometimes too, but then I'd remind myself that he was Wrong-A, and merely communicating rubbish.

Even the concept and guided thought messages I'd occasionally receive from unknown sources, which had seemed helpful at first, seemed to have been usurped. For example, one day, I got an idea in my head which had to have been a demon-implanted notion. It was that the heart with the keyhole, which had been on my chest in the first vision, meant that A had sold me to Satan; that he had gotten out of Hell for it, because now I would have to take his place.
I wasn't about to believe that; but, just in case, I guess, immediately following that, I received a corrective thought-transference from A,
"No, no. That's not what it meant. It meant that ever since I first met you, I knew I wanted that on lockdown."
Some of the messages I received, however, were tougher to discern. Some of them still could have been from allies. For example, on another day, someone sent me this:
"It's not the rings, or the book, or any particular thing you did; it's openly being with him. You went to his grave, and you also put on the rings. Now you're writing the book. All of those things are openly being with him."


On November 27, I recovered more lost memories about my initial possession and torment, because A was transmitting that information. I finally figured out that he had been the reason I had been recovering those memories all along. He was playing them back to me. I sensed that, in this case, his recovery of my memories was more than a benevolent use of dumpster diving. I felt that this time they were his memories too, because he had been present while they were taking place. I was remembering specifically the parts where Psycho Jesus was saying,
"We have your husband here..."
I sensed that this information was a further confession from A. He was admitting that he had, in fact, been one of my torturers. I still had the events out of order in my mind, but I'd recalled enough to understand that he had witnessed those events, and that it had gone on for far longer than what I had originally remembered.

I remembered bits and pieces from sometime between when I began to hear him speaking, and the wedding. I remembered him sitting beside me on the porch, while "God" was yelling at us. "God" had told me that I'd go to Hell for what I had done. After that, I remembered praying, and asking for my pets to be able to go to Heaven even if I couldn't. I remembered saying,
"They're innocent. Don't hold my mistakes against them."

I recalled that at some point, A had made me say that I didn't want to go to Heaven when I died. That had occurred after a lot of torture, and "deals" which I still didn't quite remember the details of, had transpired. I knew I hadn't agreed to say that straight away; I had been driven to it. I also remembered that eventually A had taken over my torture, and then he had been the primary one who was bossing me around, with "God" checking in once in a while. I realized that phase of the experience must have gone on for days.

I was definitely getting the impression that, although it might've seemed otherwise, taking charge of my torture had been A's way of standing up for me. He had taken over, so that he could go easier on me than the other demons would have. That was when I'd been commanded to clean the house and stupid shit like that. He didn't explain it in words, but I was getting the impression that he had been ordered to torture me into obeying his every command; but he'd shown mercy, by only ordering me to do harmless things that I needed to do anyway. That way, when Satan asked for a progress report, he could say,
"She's doing exactly what I told her to do. I told her to clean the house."

I also remembered him being very jealous. He had made me go through all the pictures on my laptop and delete any photos of myself that he deemed to be too sexy, as well as any pictures of men who were not family members. He had also made me delete the fiction novel that we had been writing together, but I had a backup copy saved on my Google Drive. It's funny now to realize that he, as a mind reader, had to have known that I still had a copy, but he didn't say anything about it. He didn't really want our book deleted.

He also reminded me of a time before that, when I had enjoyed having a ghost in my house. It was when I was first becoming able to hear him speak out loud, but I couldn't hear him very well yet. He had talked to me through a long mailing tube for a poster that I had lying around, using it as a megaphone. He'd asked, repeatedly, like that old Verizon commercial,
"Can you hear me now?"
I had laughed and laughed when I figured out what he was doing.

"Well, there you have it," Demonasty commented, once A's playback of those memories had ended. "He was one of your torturers. He did hand you over to Satan."
"When you marry a demon, you marry Satan," another one said, "Can you forgive him for that?"

It was true, I supposed; but it was also abundantly clear to me that Satan's influence had made him do it. Aside from that, it was obvious that he'd now switched sides, and was taking full responsibility for the mess he'd made of things.

I thought that he was not entirely to blame for our current circumstances. I also thought that I'd done him some wrong too. Maybe not that much wrong, but wrong, nonetheless. My guilt had more to do with when I knew him before his death. I felt that I hadn't been there for him like I should have been, and that ultimately, even though it hadn't been my intention, I'd abandoned him.

Sometime later, he would agree with that assessment, saying,
"When we were younger, we each thought the other was out of our league; too good to want anything serious with us. We had lowly opinions of ourselves because we were both damaged. We were exactly the same. That was the first time this Satanic world interfered with our love."

I thought to him,
"I forgive you."
And then, just in case, because I knew he read my journal, I typed a message there, as well:
I forgive you. Forgive me, too? ♡