Daily Prompt: Eerie

In response to the Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Eerie (and based on an actual event that occurred in my office).

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I stepped out of the office into the corridor and heard a woman’s voice wailing and a man reciting the Quran. I walked towards the lifts and saw a crowd had gathered outside the stairwell door where the voices originated from. I went to the washroom located in the other stairwell then quickly returned to my desk. My colleagues asked me what the sounds were and I declared that I didn’t dare look. So, they went.

Several minutes later, they returned and told us that it was Sumi, the lady who cleans our office, she was possessed. Ten people had to hold her skinny and frail body down as the cleric recited verses from the Quran. In our office, we could hear Sumi’s voice – at times, she wailed, then cackled. Her voice altered from a sweet tone to a deep baritone. The hairs at the back of my neck were standing on end as I tried to shut out what was happening just meters from us.

After half an hour, we heard another voice, another cleric and this time he was shouting “Out! Out! Out!” My colleagues rushed to see what was happening now. There was silence, then I heard a loud thud followed by a high-pitched cackle. My colleagues, their eyes wild, marched back into the office. The spirit tricked the cleric, they told me. Inside Sumi’s body, it went limp. Success, everyone thought and Sumi was offered a bottle of water. Sumi became alert and flung out her hand, the bottle flew and she laughed. The recitation continued.

Another half an hour passed, when silence descended yet again. My colleagues, curiouser and braver than I, went out to find out what was happening. There was no one in the stairwell. They went to the other offices to ask what had happened and was told that the spirit inside Sumi didn’t want to leave her body. This was where it belonged after all, and where it was strongest. The cleric decided that for the exorcism to work, it had to be done outside the building and so they brought Sumi away.

Three days later, Sumi was back. She entered our office, her behaviour normal as if not several days before, she was wailing, cackling and jeered at the cleric while he recited the Quran telling him that the recitations were unpleasant to her ears. Before she entered my cubical, she asked if I had any rubbish for her to collect. I felt the hairs at the back of my neck stand and replied “No.”