When she pulled the needles from my back, I understood that people would use any form of evil to further their dark objectives
There were noises from geckos, and some roosters in the chicken house behind the shack’s plywood walls. In the moonless night, a generator rattled in the distance. I sat in the middle of the living room. A big yellow jacket was humming up around at the ceiling, above a carpet depicting the Kaba at Mecca. My daughter had fallen asleep in an old armchair, next to a big friendly reddish-white striped cat. In the candle-light my wife and her sister watched the Egg Lady. A woman in her fifties, she projected the image of a a simple, earthy and good person. She sat down on the ground behind me, and put some ointment on my skin. Then she mumbled a prayer, and rubbed a village farm egg over my right shoulder.
I tried to sit as straight as I could on the ground, and tried to avoid sneezing in the stale air of the room that smelled chicken manure and fermented Durian. It was a little uncomfortable.
When the lady gently rubbed the egg against my right shoulder, I felt a strong heat rising from inside my body toward the egg, as if someone was lighting a cigarette just off my skin. The heat became painful, and we heard an egg-shell cracking sound. In concentric circles, she moved the egg over my skin, now to the other shoulder, right behind my heart. On that spot the heat became unbearable, and we heard several crackling sounds.
This story had started a while ago when I discovered unfamiliar pains in my body, behind my lungs and heart. Medical scans down in the clinic had not yielded any result, and doctors and us were at a loss. Then, once visiting our good friend Jafar, a man who can see things others don’t, he advised me to go and see the Egg Lady.
“People have done harm to you, and you carry objects in your body that will slowly kill you if not removed swiftly,” he had told me. “Far out in the outskirts of town lives a woman, who can take objects inserted by black magic out from your body. This is a gift God gave her in a dream.”
I followed his advice and now we were here, in this primitive farmland shack somewhere behind the airport. On the way we stopped and bought a couple of village farm eggs, as we were advised to do. Eggs from the supermarket wouldn’t work properly, I was told. I didn’t believe much of it, but me, always curious, tries to explore some interesting learning in most situations.
The egg on my back made a final loud cracking sound, and the Egg Lady mumbled, “that’s it.” She put the eggs on a newspaper, and handed me a long, rusty knife. It was an old Chinese newspaper, full of almost naked girls. Funny coincidence, I thought. She mumbled something to my wife Maureen sitting next, who translated for me: “Don’t touch the egg with your fingers. Take the knife and cut it right in the middle.” I wondered what kind of mess I would cause in the living room, whilst cutting and splashing the raw egg, but patiently followed her advice. Swiftly, I cut through the egg.
To my utter surprise, the egg was hard cooked, and quite smelly. Three needles stuck out from the middle, stainless steel with golden color at the edges. I cut one more time through the egg, and hit three primitive blackened phosphatized nails. “Oh my God,” mumbled Maureen. “These are already so many years in your body.”
I dissected the egg and recovered a few more needles, in total seven, plus the three rusty nails. After a while, the Egg Lady said: “ The nails are from a black woman in Africa. She had put the nails into your shoes, and when you stepped on it, it vanished into your body. These were very close to your heart, already. The others come from a Chinese girl in America. She also wants to kill you since she wanted your money that she couldn’t obtain from you, long ago. Wrap these objects in a newspaper, and throw it into the next river, without looking back.”
We drove back in silence, through the dark night, on unlighted roads. My back hurt. On the spots, where the needles had been extracted, it felt like a wound or a minor surgery. Down on the bay, it was windy and raining. We threw egg, needles and nails into the dark fast-flowing water.
After a good sleep, and our usually busy life, this strange event was almost forgotten. A bright sunshine above a healthy breakfast can chase any sinister nightmare away. I nearly forgot, or wanted to forget, what had happened to me. Me, like many others, try to forget things one cannot reconcile oneself easily with, hence these not-so-easy-to-digest experiences end up on a mental parking lot. Four weeks later, however, I felt a very strange pain in my liver. An inner voice told me that my invisible clinch with bad entities wasn’t over yet. “Better let’s visit the Egg Lady again,” said Maureen. “I believe the old Bougis, the guardian’s wife father did something bad to you in our garden.”
She referred to an incident that had occurred a few days before. On a weekend, I had visited my farm that lies in a remote valley at the edge of the Lambir jungle, and is guarded by a family, who are parented to my wife. The guardian’s wife is from a low-class Southern Philippine immigrant family, and these people gave me a bad feeling right from the begin of their physical presence on my land. I didn’t however have the spiritual strength to impose my view on Maureen. She’s a compassionate woman, and she has not given up helping the poor, even though they are often extremely wicked, merciless, selfish and devoid of any thankfulness. I knew these people were trying to take roots on my land – and bring their extended and impoverished family.
The idea of having a fast-breeding village forming on my farm gave me the creeps, and I knew I had to stop this from happening at all cost – once squatters establish themselves, one cannot get rid of them easily. But as everywhere else it is nowadays difficult to find honest people for whatever job – other ones may even be worse. The smiles these people sported on their faces – where theses smiles reflections of love or was it perhaps the joy of sending someone to the grave?
That day I caught the guardian’s in-law stealing fruit from my land. He had, together with one of his many sons filling up his decrepit car with my durian fruit right to the top. This was too much, and I couldn’t take it. You never meet these people when it is planting time, the time one might need a hand for cutting the grass or pruning the trees. However, when the fruit season is on, they come to sneak in your garden and take as much as they can carry. Even down in the village they are like this. Perhaps this is why Islam imposes cruel laws, simply more gentle laws are not understood by selfish people of moderate intelligence and limited compassion. Frankly I hate this kind of people – not really good, not really bad, but rather dumb and perhaps useless parasites of Planet Earth.
On that day, I lost my temper, shouting at them and expelling them from my farm. So-far I never saw these people again, but this didn’t necessarily mean our relationship was over, too.
“You shouldn’t have done this,” commented my wife later. “You have insulted them and broken their pride. These are poor people and life has little sugar for them to offer. Don’t be surprised if something bad will come to you, the old Bougis, the wife’s father, is reputed for his black magic skills.”
I just nodded and shrugged my shoulders. Until now I always refuse to be afraid of something, believing that it is better to do what seems rightful and to fight for it if necessary. In Asia, however, where human relations are very complex and laden with pride, my approach is not so common.
As the pain became stronger, we visited the Egg Lady again. We followed the same protocol as the last time: fresh village farm eggs, prayers, a bit of oil, rubbing and finally followed by the egg massage. This time pain and heat were truly unbearable. Some blood appeared on my back. The Egg Lady had to use her hand to help pull something sizeable (she told me later that she is very reluctant to touch cursed objects, but that sometimes she would take risks in order to help people). The egg cracked right in the middle, as it tried to contain a large object a 1.5 inch fish hook.
“It’s from an old Bougis,” the Egg Lady commented. “He placed the fish hook made invisible on the stairs of your farmhouse, and you stepped on it. Then it followed the blood stream to your liver. You could have died rather quickly from this.”
Since then, I had to visit the Egg Lady several times – my collection of objects now encompasses three types of needles, nails and fish hooks.
Whenever I fight with people, dark consequences come back to me.
Most recently it was the lady finance manager of our company. A greedy, stubborn Chinese accountant in her forties, single, once possibly pretty, clearly sex-addicted and with dark ambitions. Not only that I had refused her sexual advances, I also transferred accounts away from her authority, and she might have had some creative ideas about how to spend that company money. Now I had become her hidden and public enemy. Our Egg Lady extracted some 12 needles (of cheap Chinese production) that seemed to have originated from her black magic.
Well, more then physical pain, these events were darkening my mood. Is it not terrible to be surrounded by people who want to kill you for a bit of money, or a bit of broken pride? Or simply because I thwarted some corruption, or some sinister plans?
Be it as it may, these events, bitter and dark as they appear, gave me an uncomfortable view on the darker side of human nature. It feels like standing on the edge of consciousness, and having a glimpse into an abyss of dark emotions, a mental and emotional jungle, where people follow their egoism and prey on each other, regardless how much suffering such behavior would cause to others. There are girls who crave for a rich boy friend, whilst possibly breaking and destroying a family. Neighbors cursing neighbors, motivated by jealousy. How could I reconcile myself with this abyss of human existence?
Gradually I’m learning to separate shiny surfaces from the bitter content. Quite so often, behind a smiling face, beneath a beautiful female skin might lurk some most ugly monster.
Perhaps, by luck or if you want, divine protection, I keep on living – life itself being a happy or bitter triumph against all odds.
Similar phenomenon as what you described was related to me by my old folks in the Philippines and by friends in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. In central Philippines, the affliction is called "barang" and "healers" also use eggs to remove the objects, usually metallic, from the body of the afflicted person. They also identify the evil person who put those objects there.
The fortunate inherit riches, prestige, positive notoriety. Those not so lucky bear legacies filled with poverty, infamy or, worse yet, the unhinged insanity and murderous urges of their ancestors.
Did you ever wonder what happened after the Archangel Michael through the demons out of heaven? Let one of them guide you through the origin of evil in the world.
