A Fight for a Soul

One of the occupational hazards of this sort of work is disrupted sleep. A few hours here, a few hours there, and priests pop out of bed like an overly wound-up toy, head echoing with messages.

Five hours of sleep and I’m up, angry. Someone I will initiate, I helped a little last night, which lead to me dreaming of the dead on them. That dead, feeling me help that person, got agitated and invaded my dreams with vague, horror-move style threats to snatch her away from me. It was trying to scare me away, to scare me enough to stop helping that person.

A word about vodou priests: we don’t scare easily, we don’t shy away easily, and a dead is definitely not enough threat to make one of us sweaty.

One of the first things out of my mouth when I popped up in bed was “try me, hoe.” That is a dead who does not have enough spiritual sight to see what it’s dealing with.

We go through fire, we go through water, we go through death to become priests of life and living.

That response is about right, for a vodou priest. The people the spirit would have us care for, we are zealous protectors of. First in the fight, last to leave. Bloody, exhausted, laughing in rage.

I pop out of bed ready to fight, swearing at the lingering numbness of the dead and sleep, reaching for spiritual perfume.

My lineage and house are clear: we serve our people.