DIOSES Y DEMONIOS

It is a Saturday night in Lima in 2008. The freedom before the crash is still fresh in the air. Nebula, one of the most classic night clubs was popping. My mother is course out and about. God bless her soul, she tried her best, but she could not get that wild child out of her. Either she just never met the right one to get that out of her, or that is why she never met the right one.

The interior of club is lit of course. Green lasers flying everywhere as the D.J blasts hits from the 80s and 90s. For some reason, I am hearing Shadows of The Night. Fits well in a venue like that. I can see illuminated tables filled with bottles and lines of cocaine. People dancing, poorly. But everyone is of course too gone to even care.

My mother is sitting down at a table, drink in hand. She is enjoying a Tequila and Cranberry. Not sure what brand that she had in there. Definitely not the house. Never house. Mother was not a heavy drinker. But when she did drink it might as well be something good. Even if it’s expensive.” That is what she would

always say.

She is wearing the same sleek sparkly black dress that I’ve her wear going out so many times. And those shiny red shoes that I never understood why she would wear them with that dress. Don’t get me wrong, they look nice. It was just that I had always envisioned silver dress shoes to go along with that dress. At least, that is how I have always wanted to put the outfit together.

While sipping on her drink, a man comes by. A man who is way more dashing than even the time period Nebula was throwing back to was not calling for. Turns out, that man is Walter Sorenson. It might as well had been Walter Disney to mother. Right away she is impressed with Walter. Most guys in town did not appear to know how to court mother. Howls and cat calls were the norm. That

would be fine if my mother were looking for some cheap thrill. But alas, that was not my mother. She is looking for something that would to be more everlasting. The older that I got and watched her chased this ambition to her death, I could see how she never lost sight of that quest.

“Darling.” Walter said to mother, effectively getting her attention. “He isn’t coming back.”

A puzzled face comes across mother’s face. You can call it a mixture of confusion and intrigue. She does not quite understand who Walter is, what he just said any why did he just said it. She does not quite understand why he is even talking to her in the first place. She has sent no choosing signals in his directions. It made no sense for him to waltz up to her as though they were supposed to engage. Might have been what drew mother to Walter the entire time.

“Who are you?” Mother asked.

“Sorenson. Walter Sorenson.”

“You can only introduce yourself like that if you have a cool first and last name.”

“What? You don’t think that Walter Sorenson isn’t a cool first and last name?”

“It’s alright.”

“Alright, then what’s your name?”

“Sanchez. Alessandra Sanchez.”

“Your first and last name does sound cool.”

“My father thought so too.”

That line makes Walter more intrigued with mother. I do not know what it is with men, but they seem to be always wanted to either make us the moms or be the dads. I get that there is an emotional, healing aspect to sex and all. It’s just so odd to me.

The music shifts towards something with a funkier feel to it. The kind that makes you want to get out and dance around. While mother certainly was no JLO, she had her own moves in her heyday. She once told me that she took hip-hop classes in high school when everyone started going out dancing. She said that once she got her fake I.D that it was “over”.

“Shall we?” Walter asked, extending his hand. Mother sat there, not feeling the need to rush into anything or anyone’s arms.

“Why do you like coming here?” Mother asked.

“I would say that it reminds me of when I was young, but even in the eighties, I was old.”

“How old are you?”

“81.”

“Holy shit.” Mother blurted out, feeling terrible for pointing out the obvious.

“I know. But hey, I feel young inside. In the end, that is all that matters, wouldn’t you agree?”

Mother sits there, sternly looking at Walter. He is good. Very much. In fact, he is much better than what she had sized him up to be. For a man of such “advanced” years, he had a lot of energy and vitality. Most men would have grew frustrated with mother’s lack of empathy. However, Walter appears to only be amused.

“Are you just playing, or are you afraid to lose?” Mother asked.

“I like having fun. Walter said with a big smile.

Sliding through the flashes of the disco and pyrotechnics show, mother and Walter are showing everyone how it was done. Walter has a whole array of moves that he must have stolen from watching Saturday Night Fever on repeat. Every move feels outdated, yet authentic.

Smooth by Santana, a go to crowd pleaser, begins to play. I can feel mother putting up some resistance. Not wanting to so easily become a cliché. All the while, Walter has a look of “this was puddy in my hands.” In a lot of ways, it was. The drinks, lights, dialogue, dancing, music and the loss of self that came along with it has my mom primed for decisions based on more sensual needs.

Grabbing onto his shoulder, mother and Walter are in the back on the limo that Walter has rented for that weekend’s stay. I have no doubt that this sealed the deal. Had to. Nevertheless, Walter has her in his old man clutches. I may be being too hard on him. After all, he is dead. Might be why I find it easier to damn his name a bit.

Walter is staying at the Belmond Miraflores, a five-star hotel in Lima. The building itself is a piece of art, towering beach side. The viewpoints directly into the blue ocean as palm trees swayed side to side, allowing the gentle breeze to guide their motions.

The presidential suite is where Walter is staying. Judging mother by the expression on her face, she had to had felt that she hit the jackpot. At that point it was just mother and I. Struggling along in life. Mother did not go to college. She had me when she was only 16 so you do the math. She was working as waitress in a diner. A.M shifts only. Could not afford to mess with her night life.

Moving on, the room is decked out galore. A large window is facing towards the ocean, creating another amazing view. The sheets are made of satin. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling, each costing more than mother’s mortgage point at the time. The mini fridge is not a mini fridge at all. It’s a full-on fridge filled with the most expensive snacks that anyone could ever purchase. Five- dollar mini cans of pringles. Seven-dollar bottles of Coca Cola.

“Want anything?” Walter asked?

“Ahhh!” That was me, waking up from that weird dream. I am sleeping inside one of the bedrooms for the nuns. A painting of Jesus Christ hangs on the wall with a cross mural above me on the ceiling. This creates an eerie feeling that I can only associate with a horror film. I hate horror films.

“’Is everything okay?” Father Baldomero asked as he rushed in. Matthew was tailing, not too far behind.

“Yeah. Just a bad dream.”

“Ah. Today was a bit of an experience, as it were.”

“That’s putting it mildly father.” Matthew interjected. “Today is making me question my life.”

“Matthew, if you need confession, I will be at my post 7am sharp. Have been for decades.”

“Thank you, father.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Anyway.” I started, beginning to wonder why these two were just standing around and talking. “Thanks for concern. Have a good night.”

“Nothing that needs to be expressed child?” Father Baldomero asked with such genuine and gentle kindness.

“Honestly, no. I feel fine. Just…tired.”

“Understood.” Matthew acknowledged. “Have a goodnight.”

“Goodnight Fiorella.”

Once they both leave, I lie there, getting a feeling of what my life has become in the last 24 hours. I have gone from a single mother of two children to that with the baggage of possibly being a Demon. I’m sure that if you can find a way to put yourself in my shoes that you would not be flying high.

Needless to say, I am not feeling too good about things. Not that I even have the slightest idea on how “things” were going to out. That is the real scary aspect of it all. Just lying in bed at God knows what hour, wondering what is to become of me. Wondering what will become of my children.

Trying to push these thoughts away, I force myself to go back to sleep. That in it of itself is a test. I have excited myself so much from my “dream” that I am not even tired anymore. I can feel daybreak coming soon and there’s no point in forcing the issue.

Getting up, I see some books on the self to my right. I walk up to them and pull out one that reads “Paganism, simple truths.” Paganism is like witchcraft I believe. Wasn’t expecting to see that in a nun’s bedroom. But why not? Idecide to open it up and give it a look. Scanning through I find myself becoming engaged. Paganism comes across like ancient witchcraft to me. Witches seem more like people who can manipulate energy versus people who go into battle with the students of Hogwarts.

The book then goes into discussing Demons. Its description is honestly nothing out of the ordinary. They were calling them evil “entities” and whatnot. It isn’t until the very end that my mind gets a stirring. A line reads that there is a question of whether the pagan gods are demons.

This can easily be me getting caught up in all the noise. Even with that in mind, there’s no way I’m ignoring that. No one, at least from how the news is making it out to be, has a clue as to what these demons are and where they come from. It’s something that does not feel natural to us. I believe that anyone will agree that this would not feel like a natural explanation. And usually that is what it

takes

I read on a bit more, looking for something to not make me feel so bad. I then stumble upon this passage:

There is a tendency for us to simplistically dismiss the gods of the ancient world as mere figments of human imagination, but the biblical approach is a bit more

complex than that.

To be clear, at no time in the Scriptures were these gods ever acknowledged to be gods in any true sense of the word. There is only one God and He is the LORD.

Consider the following text by St. Paul:

For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed

there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the

Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus

Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist (1 Cor 8:5-6).

It is a bit unclear whether St. Paul is affirming the existence of these gods or simply rescinding from a debate about that topic. For example, if I were to say to you, “Look, even if you may be right about that particular detail, it still doesn’t change the final answer,” I am not necessarily affirming that you are right about that detail, I am saying that I don’t really want to discuss that point, but rather, move on to the more fundamental point and conclusion.

So, St. Paul may not necessarily be affirming that these gods actually exist, but neither is he outright denying that some beings exist that the pagans wrongly call gods.

In the Old Testament a similar stance is evident. There are repeated references to the gods of the pagans or Gentiles. The gods are not usually declared to be nonexistent, but rather it is said that if they do exist, they are of no avail and far inferior to the one, true God of Israel: the LORD. There is even a passage in the Book of Psalms that seems to presuppose God in the midst of these gods:

God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds

judgment: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

… I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men

you shall die, and fall like any prince” (Ps 82 1-2; 5-6).

It is a complex passage. The context seems to be God rebuking princes and leaders of the people. But then why are they called gods? And why are they told that they will fall like princes?

The Scriptures do not tend to deny that entities called gods may in fact exist among the pagans. Hence, they may not merely be figments of imagination.

Yet if they do exist, they are powerless before the True God of Israel and none of them is a true god in any proper sense of the word. They are called gods but are not.

But if they do exist, what could they be? The frequent biblical answer is that they are demons posing as gods, deceiving the nations. Consider some of the following texts:

They did not destroy the peoples, as the Lord commanded them, but they

mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols,

which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters

to the demons; they poured out innocent blood (Psalm 106:34-38).

Note here that many of the psalms are written in a poetic manner. But here the poetic structure is based on the correspondence of the thoughts, not the similarity of the sounds. Thus, the parallel in this psalm is between “They served their idols” and “They sacrificed their own children to demons.” The gods of the peoples and nations around them are called demons.

They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they

provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods

they had never known (Deut 32:16-17).

The attestation here is pretty straightforward: the strange gods are demons.

For you provoked your Maker with sacrifices to demons and not to God; You

forgot the eternal God who nourished you, and you grieved Jerusalem who

nurtured you (Baruch 4:7-8).

While in this passage the term “gods” is not used along with the reference to

demons, the echo of other texts referring to the idols and gods of the heathen

seems clear.

What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is

anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not

to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink

the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of

the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are

we stronger than he? (1 Cor 10:20-22)

St. Paul says here that the idols and gods of the pagans are no gods at all but are in fact demons. The sacrifices that the pagans think they are directing to their gods are really being directed to demons.

Thus, the Biblical approach to the gods of the pagans is not as simple as mere scoffing and consigning them to the realm of fantasy. The reality was often more tragic and harmful than mere fantasy. The Scriptures hold forth the fearsome possibility (and likelihood) that many of these gods were in fact demons in disguise. They were the deceiver, mockingly assuming his place as a god among the deceived nations.

Early Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr and Tertullian held similar views (that the gods were actually demons). We do well to remember that when people turn away from God today, it is usually not that they believe nothing, but rather they believe in something (in fact, some believe in almost anything). And in turning to their modern idols, they may not merely be embracing an idea, but far worse, a demon. Our task is not just to summon people away from bad ideas, errors, ignorance, or false doctrines. In many cases we must also rescue them from demons.

Beware the doctrines of demons and their very presence. Scripture’s stance on the gods of the nations is not merely to dismiss them as nonexistent. These gods may in fact be pernicious enemies who are very real, who are not fantasy. As it was then, even so today.

Reading all of that would have made anyone sit down due to the sheer volume. For me, I have to sit down to ponder what this all means for me. Mother used to tell me stories about witches. Well, not so much stories as much as she said that anyone could be a witch. That the neighbor could be a witch and you wouldn’t even know it. When she would say such things, I just wrote it off as religious dogmatic talk. The only witch that was real to me was Sabrina. As it were, there may be two.

The next morning, I sit outside of the church, waiting on father Baldomero andMatthew. Alois and Angelica are playing right in front of me. The amount of carefreeness within them is inspiring. It makes me loose myself and long for those days that I did not care about what would happen. Though, when I think about it, there has never even been a time where that was the case.

For as long as I can remember, resistance has always been there, pushing for my demise. In a way, the way things are going should not be a surprise to me. Deep down, not even deep down, on a surface level I knew that I was different from everyone around back then. When the girls in my grade were listening to Shakira, I was listening to Sia.

Nuff said.

Matthew walks out of the church, takes a look at my kids and walks over with feeling a nostalgic expression on his face. The ease and flow that naturally oozes out of Matthew impresses me. He has this earthy touch to him that can only be explain only through some birth chart.

“How did you sleep last night?” Matthew asked, sitting right next to me.

“I didn’t end up sleeping the rest of the night.”

“Hey, that happens. The topsy turbies get the best of us.”

“Yeah, I guess so. This is all so, weird, ya know?”

“Yeah, I’m sure from the outside perspective it is all weird.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“As humans, we have all been indoctrinated. I don’t care if you are from Tennessee, Taiwan or Timbuktu, we have all had our brains sufficiently washed. So, until you are afforded the opportunity to cleanse yourself, you’re stuck thinking like the rest.”

“Damn.” Was all that I could say.

“Yeah, sounds like a bit much. But when you think about, what do you really know anything that wasn’t told to you by someone else? How you dress, speak, what you like, what you don’t like, the type of guys that you go out with, all come from outside sources. Very few, if any originate from you.”

“Are you still like that?”

“That’s why I’m here. I’m piecing together the shards of my dream.”

Striking a “chord” as people like to call it, that does cause me to pause. When I sit on it, everything about my life in a way has very little to do with me. From where I lived, the shows that I watched, and even how I thought. It was all from other people. Other people who felt that they knew how to live my life.

“Matthew.” I started, feeling odd for what I was about to ask. “What if I am really a Demon?”

Looking at me with serious eyes, for half a moment, Matthew’s at a loss for words. For all of us, well, unless you are into purging, this is new. To have to question whether you had been infected and had become a Demon. For me, it’s not a question of becoming infected, it’s a question of has it been here all along? And if so, what is the truth?”

“Angels and Demons.” Matthew started. “When I was a child, I never believed in them. Didn’t even like watching that kind stuff on T.V or when I went to the movies. Then as I went to college, my mind opened. Traveling to Rome helped. Down there, it is never been a question of Angels and Demons existing. It’s more of “how do they make their way into your life?”

“Well, what do you think?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. What only matters is what you think.”

While I appreciate his answer, that’s sure as hell not what I am looking for. I know next to jack shit about anything mystical. Matthew might as well be a master compared to me. At this point, I trust him with what to think more than I do myself.

“I mean, yeah, I guess so.” I responded.

“Sorry if that wasn’t what you wanted to hear. But in time, I’m sure it will ring true for you.”

“Yeah, maybe. It’s hard to say. Right now, nothing makes sense.”

“But isn’t that the best part? When you can admit that you are confused?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because that’s when everything opens up.”

“Why do you talk like that?”

“Ha, I guess I try to be light is all.”

“You don’t try, you are.”

Smiling, it’s hard to not look into Matthew’s eyes. When he knocked on my door you can say that I was confused back then as well. Yet, I continued to find myself swayed by his behavior. The only way that I could describe it I that I have known a lot of assholes in my life. Could even say narcissists. And to be fair, I’ve known a lot of bitches as well. You can say that I have been lucky that way. The thing about Matthew, he did not emanate any of that. Only hope.

“Glad to see everyone is in good spirits.” Father Baldomero said as he came out of the church.

“That’s the only way to do it.” Matthew said. “Right father?”

“Right.” Father Baldomero confirmed. “After consulting with some colleagues of mine, there are really one group of people who can help you.”

“Great!” Matthew exclaimed. “Who are they?”

“The Yanomani tribe.”

“You mean, we have to got to the Amazon?” I asked, not being to hide the obvious fear that was laced over my voice.”

“Indeed. The Yanomani tribe are the only group in Peru who are, for lack of a better word, “equipped” to handle these situations. I was studying more about them and the tribe essentially predicted the issue that the world is having with the Demons. They will be able to guide you Fiorella.”

When he said guide me, a light bulb flashes on in my head. Or at least it feels that way. All my life that is what I have been lacking. A proper guide. Guidance. If I have had that guidance when I was younger maybe I would not have gotten with that asshole in high school who left for Los Angeles and left me with two kids. Maybe I would be happier.

“I understand that a trip like that may be asking for too much.” Matthew acknowledged. “Especially with two young children. So…”

“Let’s go!” I let out. Matthew and father Baldomero stared at me as if I were crazy.”

“Not that I want to change your mind.” Matthew started. “But, are you sure?”

“Like you said, it doesn’t matter what you think. What only matters is what I think.”

“Alright then.” Matthew said with a calm smirk. “Guess we’re going off father.”

“Very well.” Father Baldomero said. “Fiorella, you are in good hands. This young man knows what he is doing. I have a friend who have visited many tribes in the Amazon. I’ll get a hold of him and see if he can come with you. He does owe me a favor so expect a call.”

“Thanks for your help father.” I replied.

It looks like what Matthew said did ring true after all.

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