Did… Did It Work?

This is a story my colleague told me about his uncle. His uncle is rather superstitious and believes in a lot of weird things. When he tests positive for a certain rapidly spreading illness, his first reaction is to go to a bomoh — Malaysian witch-doctor — for an exorcism. For various reasons, my colleague is stuck accompanying his uncle to the bomoh.

Bomoh: “Okay, I can exorcise you. Hold still, please.”

Uncle: “Okay.”

Bomoh: “Begone, evil spirits!”

He pulls out a toy laser gun and points it at [Uncle]’s head.

Bomoh: “All-laaah!”

Typing this out does not give it justice. The way my colleague repeated it, it sounded like a mix of singsong, bombastic, and high.

He pulls the trigger and the gun lights up.

Bomoh: “Fire, fire, fire! Pew, pew, pew! Fire, fire, fire!”

My colleague’s jaw drops, [Uncle]’s jaw drops, and they sit there, stunned.

Bomoh: “Not enough? Okay. Duaaal wieeld!”

He says that last bit the same way he said, “Allah!” previously.

He pulls out another toy gun and fires it at [Uncle].

My colleague didn’t tell me what happens next, but when the exorcism is over…

Uncle: “Uh, maybe we should go to the hospital.”

Colleague: “You think?”

Once he finished his quarantine, my colleague returned to work and told me all about it.

Colleague: “Like, the man was hip. I didn’t think that bomohs were so advanced these days.”

Me: “He sounded like he was high on something.”

Colleague: “Oh, he probably was. But that was just silly, man.”