“And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain, for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces, and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and cutting himself with stones.”                                                                                                              Mark 5: 2-5

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I was driven into this place by my family. The burden on them was too great, and so they released me. I live here among the dead because the dead do not disturb me. I am too disturbed already, and their silence is solace, unlike the living. Too many voices in my head. Too many. Too many. The voices of my family, of my old friends were loud amongst the chatter within me. The great multitude of being who have taken residence inside me.

I used to sit on the shore when I was boy, looking out across the water, wondering if I would ever see what was on the over side. That great chaos, full of wonder, mystery. And monsters. I don’t know if this was what invited him in. My curiosity. Stupidity! Or if it was something else- something I said, or did not say, or a curse placed upon me. Or perhaps the wrong person found out my name. Perhaps the one who calls himself Legion knew he was more powerful than me. And he came, and now I belong to him.

I was walking along the seashore when he came. He was a darkness on the deep, he movement barely noticeable, but his presence like a brewing storm. I flinched, convulsing as I went down. I do not know who found me. Perhaps a stranger. Perhaps my mother. I was just a boy. Small boy. So small. Too small for this. Weak. And made weaker by Legion.

I cried at night. My mother thought I was sick. She called physicians and magicians and healers and spirit workers from everywhere. They tied me when I thrashed, when I foamed at the mouth, when I lost my mind with rage. I felt inhuman. But my mother never looked at me like I was anything but her son. I am not. I am not. I am not. Not anything anymore. She kept me in the house against my father’s wishes.

“Throw him into the sea,” my father said. “Put the demon inside him back where it came from!”

The demons. The demons. There are demons. Many. Too many.

“No,” she said. My mother was kind to me. She believed I could be healed. She believed that someone would come to heal. She believed. I don’t believe anything anymore.

My father died. He grew ill after cutting his hand on a sickle. His hand withered, rotted. Then one day, he was dead. We mourned. The demons laughed.

He would have killed me. They all would have killed me if not for her.

“What do we do with Dositheus now?” asked my brother, as if I could not hear him from where they had tied me in the corner of the room. They had not let me out of the house to attend the funeral procession, or to mourn. Too wild. You have become inhuman. I stared wild eyed, crying, wailing. My father was dead. I was as good as dead.

My mother wrung her hands. “Untie him,” she said.

He did as she said. It was nightfall, and the demons always tormented the most when the sun was sinking. Sabbateus untied me, and I thrashed on the floor, wailing and pulling my hair. “Mother!’ I cried. “Mother!”

She held me, but Legion was too strong. I hurt her, pushing her over hard. I ran from the house. The little house by the sea where I lived. Until I came here. I don’t know how long I have been here, among these tombs. I will die here. I am already dead.

Sabbateus came for me, found me rolling on the seashore. I was hungry and thirsty but I could not ask for what I needed. He led me home. They bound me again. My mother fed me. Legion was calm sometimes when my mother was close. She quieted the chatter, the banter, the constant fighting within me. I loved her. She loved me despite what I had become.

“You are my son, Dositheus,” she said, wiping my chin. The cool water she offered me had been dribbling down my chin. “You are my son, and I love you.”

But love could not heal me. Love could not keep her safe from me. When she untied me, I hurt her, though I didn’t want to. It was Legion! It is always Legion who does it.

I grew, and the demons inside me grew stronger as my body matured. They found a blacksmith to bind me with chains. They shackled me in the house. Legion used to beat my hands against the floor until they were bloodied, trying to break the chains apart. He always did. And when we escaped, he always took me by the seaside, looking out over the water. But he never let me die. I wanted so badly just to die.

My mother still comes to see me. She can’t stay away, when my wailing drifts through the night air. She leaves me food. I eat sometimes, especially if she is near. Legion likes my mother. He leaves me less clouded when she comes near. I let her touch me, although I am afraid to touch her. She strokes me cheek and my hair as if I were still a small boy. She leaves me clothes, but I don’t need them. I am dead. I am waiting to die.

The stones are my only friends, as are the dead. No one comes but Mother. No one will ever come for me here. I am alone with Legion and his many minions.