“P-, please spare me…”
“If you believe in Jesus, you can live. All kinds of patients with incurable diseases and terminal illnesses believe in Jesus, I hear. If you survive, it’s a miracle, and even if you’re unlucky, you’ll still go to Heaven.”
“I was wrong, please forgive me just once… Kahk!”
“Hey, do you think Jesus is your buddy or something? How can you make Jesus wait like this? If you just believe, your life is fucking guaranteed. Do you understand what is chance this is, that all your worries will disappear and you’ll even get a free ticket to Heaven after you’re dead?”
“I’ll believe! I’ll believe!”
“Then come sit over here.”
I sat that one thug in front of me and opened the Bible I’d got from Father Sung.
I didn’t know much about the priestly duties like exorcism, baptism, or confession, but didn’t all those Jesus’ believers have a foible of opening a Bible like this?
‘Or I could start carrying a cross.’
Thinking that either one of the priestly regalia should suffice, I squatted down and placed my hand on the head of the bastard who was busy sniffling his runny nose.
“Before you can believe in Jesus, you have to first confess your sins.”
“… What?”
“Tell me the sins you’ve committed so far, you idiot.”
“So… that is… I stole cash from my parents’ wallets!”
I could see the shimmering black energy emanating from him. Those who did not truly confess their sins before Jesus deserved punishment.
“And, and, aaaaaaaaa!”
“Jesus doesn’t even see a child stealing candy as a sin. Same for you stealing from your parents’ wallets. I will tell you again. Confess your sins.”
“Okay! I get it, so my head…!”
“Do you think this is the worst pain you will ever experience? If you don’t goddamn start believing in Jesus, you will suffer far more than this. Your entire life is going to be a journey bound for Hell’s abyss. Nothing you do will work out. Fall sick with just some minor illness, and you’ll see the gangster[1] bros with horns on their heads politely ushering you in at the entrance to Hell. And they’ll say that the hellfire is hot today, so you’ll get the authentic full course experience.”
“A friend… I harassed a friend!”
Ppak!
As if unconsciously, I slapped the foolish man, who still confessed only a part of his sins before Jesus, again in the face.
“Harassed how?”
“Ugh… kh! Beating, stealing money, burning with cigarette butts, taking off pants in front of girls!”
“That’s not the most important part.”
The black aura that I felt was not at a level that could be accumulated from such petty sins. I could see it with my own eyes.
I, who had been the subject of persecution since childhood, knew the gravity of such sins better than anyone else.
“I filmed her naked and posted the video on the internet… aaaaaaaaaaah!”
“You’re still leaving out the most important part.”
My fist once again smashed into his face and his cheekbones, this time twisting the nasal bones properly, and blood spurted like a fountain.
“I really didn’t mean to… ugh!”
“If you want to confess your sins in front of Jesus, you must hide nothing. If you don’t, he won’t forgive you.”
Confess all your sins. And repent. In the end, you shall be be forgiven.
Then, will Jesus care for you with infinite mercy and love, be you a sick motherfucking bastard or a parentless wretch?
The victim’s ‘feelings’ won’t be a consideration at all.
“She… I made her commit suicide! Uhhhhhhhhhh…!”
“Yeah, well done. Even after killing a person, you couldn’t come to your senses and kept wandering the night streets with these fucking bastards and doing others harm. But if you sincerely repent and ask for forgiveness anyway, Jesus will not send you to Hell.”
I gently stroked his head, as you would to a sobbing man, and closed the Bible.
“Even though I am not a priest who claims to be Jesus’ agent or servant, I hereby swear that I will admit to accepting your confession as a stand-in subcontractor, and I will be a witness guaranteeing your journey to Heaven. Even if you mess up your life again, you will eventually be able to break through the gates of Heaven as long as you believe in Jesus and follow Him, and you will have the right to confidently go to Jesus and say that although you took the lives of your friends and family, you still returned to His arms in the end. Amen.”
“A–, Amen…”
“Now you are the living Son of Jesus, and you must pray to Him all your life and live faithfully. Like I swore as your witness, will you also swear that you will live that way from now on?”
“I swear… I will.”
“Well done. Now let me instil in you an unbreakable faith.”
I took all the personal information from his wallet and smartphone that I’d stolen from him.
“On the day you break the oath you made to Jesus here today, I will pay a visit upon you.”
When I returned the wallet and smartphone, he gasped and trembled.
“My oath, your oath, and the unshakeable faith that Jesus desires. You must never betray any of them, yes?”
“No, that’s right!”
“Yeah. Let’s cast a magic spell to make you remember this moment forever. Follow along.”
Hrmmm! Clearing my throat once, I pronounced in a slightly hoarse voice.
“Ab-raca-dabra.”[2]
“… Ab, raca, dabra.”
“Don’t let this spell be broken. For the rest of your life. Pray to Jesus every time you eat. Even if you don’t visit the church in the weekend, never forget to send tithes and offerings to the pastor’s bank account.”
“…”
I made my way out of the dark alleyway, past the bastards strewn around on the ground.
I felt refreshed because this was my first time sending a stray lamb experiencing life’s turmoil to Jesus, shipped fast and cash-on-delivery.
I had to admit that it felt rewarding, but more than that, my hands and feet felt like they were running on automatic, as if I had been born to do this kind of thing.
Most subcontractors end up taking a dim view of their lives because they feel like redundant cogs in the wheels of the large and mid-sized corporations, but today I realized that even subcontractors have their own way of life.
‘But I’m still not good enough.’
When I think of the exorcism that Father Sung and Deacon Johann performed on me, I feel that I still have a long way to go.
They were ardent devotees who had truly dedicated their lives to the destruction of evil for the great Lord Jesus and His Father in Heaven, and they had faith that even if they offered an option steeped in compulsion, salvation still waited in the end.
I wouldn’t understand those types even if I died, but I have no choice but to acknowledge their abilities and their faith.
What I need is professional knowledge, skills, and experience.
The exorcist was not born an exorcist, much like I, who became an orphan at the tender age of eight, was not born an orphan.
‘I learned the basics of religion and history from the library, but I need to go through an in-depth course to get into this industry.’
What should be my process?
I went to a nearby PC room, paid for a subscription, sat down in a corner, and threw myself into the sea of information that was the pride of mankind.
From haunted places where ghosts appeared, to absurd cases where people were actually possessed by a spirit, to all sorts of mysterious phenomena presumed to be works of the Devil.
Exorcism, Buddhist edification, talismans, amulets, witchcraft, curses (shamanic), necromancy, spiritualism, spirit and demon languages, how to tune into spiritual frequencies, how to distinguish between possession and mental illness, hypnosis treatment, qi treatment, self-suggestion, sign interpretation, divination, astral projection.
I even searched the sites that were domestically censored, as long as there was a way to bypass the restrictions using a proxy server or similar means, for relevant information.
Sitting at a desk working on a PC was such a familiar task for me that I simply kept on collecting information endlessly. Until the night shift part-timer at the PC room gave way to the daytime shift, and then changed to the night shift guy again.
The night shift part-timer, after the day had passed, came to my cubicle to clean up and asked if things were fine.
If the person you saw the day before, still sits in the same position the next day, with the same posture, and just keeps staring at the browser window instead of playing games, it’s only natural to get worried.
That led me to suddenly realize that I hadn’t gotten any food or drink in me for over two days.
After a big fight with those wannabe gangster kids, I came here to sit in the PC room covered in rags, so the part-timer was likely just worried about me, not for me.
‘A weird customer who stinks, looks like he’s about to keel over any moment, and sits in the corner of the PC room all day – who’ll care about such a guy? Even I would’ve wanted to shoo me out right away in his position.’
A good man who faithfully performs his duty shall also go to heaven, so I finished calculating the overdue charges and said goodbye to the part-timer after paying.
“Jesus’ Heaven and Unbelievers’ Hell. Be sure to believe in Jesus and go to Heaven.”
“… Ah, yes.”
After swimming in the sea of information for dozens of hours and indulging in all kinds of rumours, noxious information, and possibly even some garbage that might actually turn out to be true, I finally decided on my future career path.
I stopped by a convenience store near the hospital to buy a set of incense sticks, and then got a pot and ladle that could stand some moderate beating from a nearby Daiso[3] store.
Finally, I stopped by the night market to buy some red beans and coarse salt.
I put everything in a small sack and took a taxi to the redevelopment area.
It was a ruin that had been earmarked for redevelopment a long time ago, but the process had been stuck halfway due to some wild troubles between the various companies, politicians, and civic groups involved.
The taxi driver asked over and over if it was really fine to drop me off here, but I paid the taxi fare and got off without a word.
The chilly autumn night wind gently caressed my body, like it had done on the night of September 9th at 9:09.
Even if you arm yourself with theory, if you lack the practical skills, your boasts will only ring hollow.[4]
I walked through the gloomy ruins with my head high, and reached the front of a building where a construction company and a civic group once had a sharp confrontation.
The construction company had said that it would demolish the building since it had the requisite permissions from the government and the city, and the ‘fraudsters’ disguised as a socially conscious civic group had insisted that the building should never be demolished.
Digging deep into the sprawls of the internet, where all kinds of rumours abounded covering the kernels of truth scattered like grain, I had managed to find out why this building had been originally built.
“In the outskirts, far from the centre of the city that houses more than ten million souls, this place was being used as a spirit burial site.”
Just as humans need a graveyard to bury their remains when they die, I heard that there are places where spiritual beings that are useless or even harmful to human society are gathered together and buried like garbage.
Sages, high priests and shamans, who’ve picked up things they can’t handle, throw them away in such a place, calling it spirit burial.
Incidentally, the most popular spirit burial sites in Korea are apparently Mt. Jirisan[5] and some remote islands.
I can’t afford the long-term penance of the faithful devotees who have lived all their lives dedicating themselves to Lord Jesus and His Father, limiting their human desires and working themselves to the bone.
So, if I want to at least stand on the same starting line as them, I have to catch up to their degree of penance in a short time.
Jesus’ Heaven and Unbelievers’ Hell.
Starting from the front of the building, I walked, sprinkling red beans and coarse salt as I went, beating the pot with the iron ladle all the while.
Then, I lit all the incense sticks and threw them so the whole building could smell the smoke.
In a place like this, I’ve done something I shouldn’t have done, so I should get a bite soon.
Ududududuk.
My arm that had thrown the last stick of incense was bent at a bizarre angle, as if it had been caught by something in the air.
Editor’s Notes:
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[1] 깍두기 (lit. radish kimchi) is a cube shaped side dish, but here it’s used as a slang for gangster. Because many Korean gangsters have a flattop haircut resembling the dish.
[2] 수리수리느금마수리 (suri-suri-masuri, lit. repair, repair, repair) is a slang word with similar meaning as abracadabra.
[3] 다이소 (Daiso) is a Japanese 100-yen shop and retailer chain, and operates (although independently from the Japanese arm) in South Korea as well.
[4] 요란한 빈 수레 (lit. noisy empty cart), meaning is self-evident.
[5] Located in the southern regions, the second tallest mountain in South Korea.