# Healer



## Abita (Jan 24, 2016)

I'd been living with Group B for six years when they left. They were a group of locals who believed in self-sufficient living and had organized this experiment, the Separation, living as a colony off the land, in the woods not far from the rest of town. 


     I fell asleep one night, the rest of the group talking in hushed tones nearby, and woke up alone. I walked around our campsite in concentric circles, further and further out until I wasn't sure I'd find my way back. I waited dumbly for four days, thinking surely they would return, not even contemplating the alternative. They never did, for reasons I still don't understand.  


     I walked aimlessly for hours before my foot landed on a cylindar that nearly sent my flying, and I recognized it immediately, picking it up by the mud-caked handle.

**


     I had made the mug for my mother's birthday, years ago as a kid, long before I left. It was rough around the edges and the handle didn't rest where it should, but I'd put quite some time into the project, researching the right kind of clay, asking a neighbor to show me how to glaze it, firing it in their kiln. When I'd presented the finished piece to my mother, along with a folded sheet of paper with “happy birthday mom !!” scrawled through the middle, she said “Hm,” and walked away. I sat there holding the weird handle I'd made, much too big for my hand, and watched her go on performing whatever task I'd interrupted. I checked the mug for a few days to see if she would acknowledge it, if maybe she'd put it in the cabinet with the rest of the cups, but it didn't budge. Eventually I put it in the cabinet myself, and saw her throw it away a few months later.


     She was militant about throwing out anything she deemed unnecessary, which was everything: furniture, gifts, art. She couldn't empty the house fast enough. It started the day my father died, and had continued every few months since. She'd borrow the neighbor's pick-up truck and load it up to the brim before carting it off. I'd look down from my bedroom window at the shelves and books and picture frames jutting from the bed of the truck, material evidence of our life, our existence, soon to be expunged.   


     Our possessions dwindled. Every time, I wondered if she would find enough things to fill the truck. Every time, somehow, she did.   

**


     Group B invited me to join the Separation because I am a healer. Or I'm not really, but people believe that I am and that's enough to make it work. I had a friend in gradeschool who who had a rare cancer that he had almost no chance of surviving, and when he got really bad, I stayed at his house and sat next to him for days on end until one morning he just started breathing easier and easier, and got up and walked around, even went outside, and two months later the cancer was gone.  
     Anyway, the story spread and soon we had strangers turning up at our door, tired and fragile and hoping. And how can you turn them away?  


     Funny how even after coming all that way, and we both knew why, nobody wanted to come out and ask me to help them, like they had made this journey with a goal in mind but once they actually saw me, this unfamiliar person in front of them, I was an unwanted interloper; each visitor like a todler who knows you have the remedy but hides his wound anyway.

     So I always waited. I waited for them to find their way of asking me. Everyone has their own language for it – sometimes literally, they spoke words I didn't know but understood. Sometimes they offered gifts. Sometimes they just sat down with me, along with their family who'd traveled with them, told me about every leg of their journey, brought me into their pain, and that translation couldn't be more clear: Can you help me?  


     And I would rest my palms over the backs of their hands, my fingers wrapping around the pulse in their wrists, just like I did for my friend all those nights. They would visit me every day for weeks, sometimes months, and eventually they would almost always start to feel better and stronger, and I didn't know if it was really me or just knowing that someone was trying to fix it, but either way something worked.  


     My mother's pain couldn't be touched, and anyway she would never ask me for help. Come to think of it, she never asked me anything; it was always me asking the questions, especially when I felt her getting restless and knew the next purge was coming up.  
     “Can I keep this?”
     “For now.”
     “Why won't you just tell me? Tell me why.”
     “Because nothing is indispensable. You may as well learn that now.”


     She showed no reaction when I told her I was leaving with Group B. I never said goodbye.  

** 



     When I found the mug, I walked around the woods until I found the rest, and eventually there it was: a heap of rusted metal and moldy wood, materials that just barely disclosed their former use: bed frames, mirrors, a child's swingset, a men's rubber work boot, a cast iron pan, bookends shaped like pellicans made so the right one's tucked-in head would fit into the left one's sloping neck, curtain rods, a sewing machine, a tool box, a headboard; all piled into one somber, jagged skyline, her pile of pain, her question that I'd heard so many times.  


     When I finally came home, I opened the unlocked door to our old house, my mother's house, and stepped through a threshold into a space I didn't recognize. The room looked devastated, gaunt. I searched for signs of life: a sauce pot in the sink, a dirty washcloth, a set of tarnished silverware resting in a half-open drawer, as if she didn't bother closing it anymore. I looked at this space that should be a kitchen, now just a few plaster walls holding together a person that could at any moment disintegrate, grains of sand forming a castle before the pail is lifted. She sat in a chair that used to be one of four, looking up at me, impossibly thin. I found wrinkles where there had been none before.

I pulled up a chair, the only other one she owned now. Her eyes glistened for the first time since my father had died, silent, waiting.   


Now I understood all the reasons why, and I placed my hands over hers, her skin as thin as a butterfly's wing, and started to heal.


----------



## Matador33 (Jan 24, 2016)

Hi Abita,

I really liked this story. Something resonated within me when reading the paragraph about giving the mother the mug. It reminded me of a time when I was a child and was disappointed in myself for not making something good enough rather than being disappointed in my mother for not appreciating it enough. I'll admit the ending kind of lost me, is the mother's eyes glistening because the Healer came back? Or am I just missing something else altogether? I really really like the metaphor "grains of sand forming a castle before the pail is lifted," but to me it seems just a little forced or strangely placed in the sentence it is in. I think I would personally try to rework it in a different way, but that is just my opinion!  I hope to read more of your work soon!


----------



## H.Brown (Jan 25, 2016)

Such a deep and thoughtful piece. I found it to be a fantastic look into how people grieve after losing a loved one. I felt that the confussion of the narrator came through nicely, emulating the seperation between child and adult. You rounded the story of nicely with the narrative voice finally understanding her mother's pain and detachment. Nicely done, can not wait to read more


----------



## 20oz (Jan 25, 2016)

That was really good. It was touching and well told. Best of all, it has a gratifying beginning, middle and end.

Good job.


----------



## Abita (Jan 25, 2016)

Thank you, Matador, for the thoughtful feedback! I'll revisit the ending (and the sand castle thing - may have been a bit forced!) I appreciate your time! 

Abita


----------



## Abita (Jan 25, 2016)

Thanks, H.Brown! I guess it is sort of a coming-of-age in a way. Glad you enjoyed it


----------



## Khalid M (Jan 26, 2016)

First let met tell you that your prose flows really well, the fact that it's simple and to the point makes it comfortable to read. I also like how this piece is self-contained (a rarity for excerpts) while raising interest for what happens next. The structure is a bit disorienting at first but afterwards everything makes sense. Good job Abita!


----------



## voltigeur (Jan 26, 2016)

I'll echo earlier sentiments the piece is well done. 

Two extremely minor issues. 

1)How far away from the camp site is the house? Or is she camping next to the dump where her mother got rid of their stuff? 



> I walked aimlessly for hours before my foot landed on a cylinder that nearly sent my flying



2) Chairs; You said her mother kept only one chair yet there was a second chair? Technically you didn't way there were only one; but that way it is worded it gave that impression. 



> She sat in a chair that used to be one of four



Any way very minor.

Great job you have all the emotional hooks in the right places to keep the reader going.


----------



## Bard_Daniel (Jan 30, 2016)

This was quite good. I liked all aspects of it and found that it had an intriguing ending as well. Perfect ending to a gratifying piece.

Cheers! : D


----------



## Abita (Jan 31, 2016)

Thanks, Khalid! At this point I'm undecided whether to parse it down into a flash fiction piece or expand into something longer... I'll see where it takes me. Thank you for your input.


----------



## Abita (Jan 31, 2016)

Voltigeur, both good points. The distance issue is something I've thought about, I'll need to re-look at it to make things clear. I'm always a fan of cleaning up the details! 

Daniel, glad you enjoyed it!


----------



## Olly Buckle (Jan 31, 2016)

Some minor nits:-



> living as a colony off the land, in the woods not far from the rest of town


Commas after 'colony' and 'woods' ? It is a sort of list.



> the shelves and books and picture frames


 I would put a comma in place of that first 'and'



> each visitor like a todler


 Toddler.



> with their family who'd traveled


Travelled.



> a men's rubber work boot,


 I would make it a "man's", there are issues with possessive plural inverted commas that most people are aware of without necessarily understanding, singular removes the chance of a 'glitch' for the reader.



> bookends shaped like pellicans


  pelicans.



> a dirty washcloth


 wash-cloth.

If you write in 'word' spellcheck would catch most of those. I really like the style, clean sparse and on the money, good piece.


----------



## sambot79 (Jan 31, 2016)

Abita,

I really enjoyed your story. I thought you did an excellent job of introducing your nameless character. It made me want to know more about who she was, why she joined this colony away from civilization and why did they abandon her. To me , the character's discovery of the material objects around her further symbolized the feeling of abandonment she felt as well as a past she left behind. It was amazing how every object the character discovered represented fragments of a past life filled with pain and memories. Endowing the character with the power of healing is an excellent dramatic device. Keep it up!


----------



## DATo (Apr 30, 2016)

I like the narrator's voice in this story as well as the story itself. Thanks for sharing.


----------



## BeeGee84 (May 1, 2016)

I thought this was a great piece. It really had a strong impact on me. I think with it being self-contained and not leaving any kind of loose ends made the ending very satisfying. Great work for a short piece. I loved the last line:



> Now I understood all the reasons why, and I placed my hands over hers, her skin as thin as a butterfly's wing, and started to heal.



Maybe lose the 'and' I think it will read a little better without it. Just my opinion.


----------

