Stories: All-New Tales

Those fictional legends and superstitions were largely the result of the inability to explain nemes scientifically in the past. As often happens, until a phenomenon is rationally explained and quantified, folklore fills the gaps. The old belief, for instance, in spontaneous generation—that life could arise from inanimate objects—was accepted for thousands of years, supported by apparently scientific observations, for instance, that maggots and other infestations appeared in rotting food or standing water. It was only when Louis Pasteur proved via controlled, repeatable experiments that living material, like eggs or bacteria, had to be present for life to generate that the old view fell by the wayside.

Same thing with nemes. Framing the concept in terms of ghosts and possessing spirits was a convenient and simple fiction. Now we know better.

Growing up, I’d never heard of these things that would later be labeled nemes. It was only after a particular incident that I became aware: the deaths of my parents and brother.

You could say that my family was killed by one.

When I was sixteen we went to one of Alex’s basketball games at our school. At some point my father and I hit the hot dog stand. The father of a player on the opposing team was standing nearby, sipping a Coke and watching the game. Suddenly—I can still remember it perfectly—the man underwent a transformation, instantly shifting from relaxed and benign to tense, distracted, on guard. And the eyes…there was no doubt that they changed. The very color seemed to alter; they grew dark, malevolent. I knew something had happened, something had possessed him, I thought at the time. I felt chilled, and I stepped away from him.

Then the man suddenly grew angry. Furious. Something on the court set him off. A foul maybe, a bad call. He screamed at Alex’s team, he screamed at our coach, at the ref. In his rage, he bumped against my father and dropped his soda, spilling it on his shoes. It was his fault but he seemed to blame my father for the mishap. The men got into an argument, though my father soon realized that the man was out of control, consumed by this odd rage, and ushered us back to the bleachers.

After the game I was still troubled but assumed the matter was over. Not so. The man followed us out into the parking lot and, screaming, bizarrely challenged my father to a fight. The man’s wife was crying, pulling him back and apologizing. “He’s never behaved like this, really!”

“Shut up, bitch,” he raged and slapped her.

Shaken, we climbed into the car and drove off. Ten minutes later, driving down I-40, we were sitting in troubled silence when a car veered over three lanes. The man from the game swerved right toward us, driving us off the road.

I remember seeing his face, twisted with anger, over the steering wheel.

In court he tearfully explained that he didn’t know what happened. It was like he was possessed. That defense didn’t get him very far. He was found guilty of three counts of first-degree manslaughter.

After I got out of the hospital following the crash, I couldn’t get out of my head the memory of what had happened to the man. How clear it was to me that he’d changed, in a flash. It was like flipping a light switch.

I began reading about sudden changes in personality and rage and impulse. That research led eventually to the writings of Dr. Pheder and other researchers and therapists. I grew fascinated with the concept of nemes, considered a theory by some, a reality by others.

As to their origin, there are several theories. I subscribe to one I found the most logical. Nemes are vestiges of human instinct. They were an integral part of the psychological makeup of the creatures in the chain that led to Homo sapiens and were necessary for survival. In the early days of humanoids, it was occasionally necessary to behave in ways we would consider bad or criminal now. To commit acts of violence, to be rageful, impulsive, sadistic, greedy. But as societies formed and developed, the need for those darker impulses faded. The governing bodies, the armies, the law enforcers took over the task of our survival. Violence, rage, and the other darker impulses became not only unnecessary but were counter to society’s interests.

Somehow—there are several theories on this—the powerful neuro impulses that motivated those dark behaviors separated from humans and came to exist as separate entities, pockets of energy, you could say. In my research I found a precedent for this migration: the same thing happened with telepathy. Many generations ago, psychic communication was common. The advent of modern communication techniques eliminated the need for what we could call extrasensory perception, though many young children still have documented telepathic skills. (However, it’s interesting that with the increased use of cell phones and computers by youngsters, incidents of telepathy among young people are dramatically decreasing.)

But whatever their genealogy, nemes exist and there are millions of them. They float around like flu viruses until they find a vulnerable person and then incorporate themselves into the psyche of their host (“incorporate” is used, rather than a judgmental term like “infest” or “infect,” and never the theologically loaded “possess”). If someone is impulsive, angry, depressed, confused, scared—even physically sick—nemes will sense that and make a beeline for the cerebrum cortex, the portion of the brain where emotion is controlled. They usually avoid people who are emotionally stable, strong willed, and have high degrees of self-control, though not always.

Nemes are invisible, like electromagnetic waves and light at the far end of the spectrum, though it’s sometimes possible to tell they’re nearby if you hear distortion on a cell phone, TV, or radio. Usually, the host doesn’t sense the incorporation itself; they only experience a sudden mood swing. Some people can outright sense them. I’m one of these, though there’s nothing “special” about me. It’s simply like having acute hearing or good eyesight.

Do nemes think?

They do, in a way. Though thought is probably the wrong word. More likely they’re like insects, with a sense of awareness and instinct. Survival is very strong within them, too. There’s nothing immortal about nemes. When their host passes away, they seem to dissipate also. I myself don’t believe they communicate with one another, since I’ve never seen any evidence that they do.

This isn’t to minimize the damage they can do, of course. It’s significant. The rage, the impulsive behavior that arises from incorporation leads to rape, murder, physical and sexual abuse, and more subtle harm like substance overuse and verbal abuse. They also affect the physiology and morphology of the host’s body itself, as a series of autopsies several years ago proved.