Imagine if Cronenberg had written
and directed The Exorcist. In it,
Father Damien Karras is not a psy-
chiatrist but a psychic, capable
of reading thoughts and moving objects
with merely his mind. This superpower, he believes,
is the Power of Christ, and it compels him
to study the art of exorcism under Father Merrin,
who trains him to become a “Scanner” — a psyche-soldier
in the Christian Army, capable
of not only sensing a sinner’s guilt
and truly knowing the nature of their crimes,
but also able to circumvent confession altogether
and directly absolve them, should they genuinely
regret their sin and seek psychic purity.
This, at first, is what exorcism means for Karras.
But then he meets Regan,
body scraped and raped from the inside out,
possessed by the demon Pazuzu,
who reflects and projects his scanning powers
right back at him:
she seems to be able to read his mind as well,
calling to him in the voice of Mother,
shaming him for abandoning her in the nursing home.
He shakes with rage, while Regan cackles quietly,
curled up in puddles on the bed,
knowing his wishes, cajoling him
to beat her to bruises
with his boxer’s fists.
And then her head pivots impossibly backward
on the child’s shoulders, puking green soup
spraying the stream like a garden sprinkler,
sloshing goop right into his face.
He blinks and screams and shudders
and as Regan’s head spins around
it progressively begins to swell with boils
and puff up like a blowfish
stretching open its scars
till it explodes in a burst of green gore
that splashes across the bedroom,
getting into his eyes,
now red demon eyes,
while Regan’s bloody, exposed spinal cord
is all that remains above her shoulders
spinning, still spinning,
like a forgotten whisk
in some sick cotton candy machine
as Damien summons the psychic power
needed to telekinetically
hurl himself toward
the bedroom’s open window.
***
I read this poem at DogCon2, as part of a poetry challenge with Stephanie Wytovich, who also wrote and delivered a Scanners-inspired poem called, I believe, “Head Helmet.”