I am a writer and as one, I narrate in words stories I heard, read or shared by an eager old lady who sat next to me in the bus; the reason I subscribe to public rides. Every face tells many stories. Locked in their vocal cords a soft voice sings, perhaps a nursery rhyme, an Aerosmith guitar riffs or a serious romantic ballad building to a crescendo loud enough to excite my fingers. My quiet heart listens.
What I am is a pen that scribbles, the ink that flows but never the words that steal the glory. Because I am a mere conduit in most occasions unless I recount from my experiences of let’s say a visit to the dentist to fix my teeth, then I dare claim ownership of the pain. However the dentist’s affair with the nurse remains their business and if it ends up in my novella, it is an observation. The wisdom to write with passion and detachment creates a world that is real and yet surreal because it very much reflects the reality we live in. Thus giving rise to multiple heroes like Harry Potter, Superman, Batman and Jamal from Slumdog Millionaire.
This tale is about how I met Connie. You see, I am drawn to many appropriate places because of certain peculiarities I have. If I needed to visit a restroom while I am outside, I’d prefer the sparkling ones at five-star-hotels. Due to my unabashed habit, I strolled into a particular lobby and whizzed to ease myself. Feeling lighter, I plan for lunch but the pouring sky stop me from leaving. My umbrella sits sixty five kilometers away on the bed and my clothes refuse to get wet.
What now brown cow?
Frustrated, hungry and not attracted to hotel food, I surrender to the comfort of the over-worked, over-sat and yet loving white cushion; whatever will be will be. It is when I allow the softness of the sofa to envelope my being that company came without invitation.
She is tall, slim and colorless, about forty five of age. Her skin is nearly transparent with no blood underneath. A pleasant odor frisk about in her blonde hair and that’s when I notice her folding blind cane. I clumsily move my bag to the floor, reach out to help her, jump to my feet, sit down again, kick the bag nearer and adjust my butt all within ten seconds. Mission accomplished. She smiled and said thank you. By the way, she is not Connie.
Her name is Joy and she is from Nevada. She is in a Kuala Lumpur to visit her healer-friends and to host some healing sessions for the right people.
“Healer?” I asked.
“Yes. I appear to those who call and need my services.”
By the sound of it, she is surely one appealing soul to talk to. I am curious.
“What kind of healer are you?”
“I heal humans, animals, plants and at times the planet.”
“That’s interesting,” I pause to consider if the rain is a better option. The conversation is not so appealing after all.
Joy turned to stare at me and in that silence her green eyes seem to have found mine. They open the latch to a part of me that I didn’t know existed.
“We all heal humans, animals, plants and the planet in our own ways. Some choose to be doctors, psychologists, surgeons or vets to help themselves and others get rid of the illusions – this thing we call pain. And even you, when your friend is crying and wants you to be there you’d probably give her a hug. She allows you to help her heal,” Joy said. Her voice is persuasive but kind. “And animals, you have pets?” she asked raising an eye brow.
“Yes, I have a cat and two hamsters.”
“They ever fall ill or your cat ever feels moody and you try to cheer her up?”
“Sure. She is cranky whenever I don’t let her scratch the walls. But I play ball with her.”
“There you go, writer. You nurse your pets that are sick and you cheer your sad kitty up. She responds by purring and twisting all over your legs. She likes what you do. You also heal your pets. You make them feel better if they want it. And I know gardening is not your thing. But have you seen how someone shapes and nurtures a bonsai? When the plant is sick, they have a million ways to bring it back to health. Isn’t that healing?”
“Yes, I guess so,” I said awestruck by her explanation. “But wait a minute, how did you know I am a writer and that I don’t like gardening?”
Joy ignores my questions and continues with her talk. “Mother Earth, she needs all the loving and healing we can give her. We recycle, we plant trees and we come up with all the eco-stuffs that we can think of. You recycle, yes?”
“I do more than that,” I replied. “But how do you know I am a writer? Do I know you from somewhere before this?”
Again, my inquiries are of no interest to her. “I just choose to heal on different levels. Because my experiences have changed my understanding of what everything is, I see differently from you. And most important of all, we constantly heal ourselves and that’s what we must be doing.”
“I am sure you see things in a whole distinct perspective,” I said only to regret lashing my sharp tongue too soon. “Oh! I mean, you must have a plethora of mystical experiences in your field of work.”
“I don’t have very much in me to be offended, dear friend. One day you will know that there is really nothing to take offense to. In fact you do know.” She appears almost saintly as she clasps her frail hands together.
A certain part of me grasped the depth of her statements like a lodged diamond in carbon. Although an obnoxious voice reminds me to apologize, this is something that I do whenever I am afraid to hurt another person. I react to the carbon but ignore the diamond within.
“I am sorry, Joy” out came the auto-respond. “I should be more tactful in my speech.”
“You said sorry because you are scared that you’d made me feel bad? Because I am blind?”
“Yes,” I said out of guilt. “No, I mean not because you are blind.”
Joy takes my hand in hers and at that moment I wonder if her eyes could see more than I expected.
“Dear writer, you didn’t apologize because you are afraid that you’d hurt my feelings. You can’t hurt my feelings. You just don’t want to feel bad yourself and are terrified that a blind stranger like me will dislike you. You want to be loved by others. So it is about you and not me.”
Whatever she said flooded the sewers and tanks in my body. A huge command flushes through and I was swept along by the current. She is spot on. Joy releases her hand and puts them on her lap. She chuckles to herself.
“Fifteen years ago, I was like you, young, energetic, foolish but passionate. Until one day, my sight decides to go on permanent vacation. Retina detachment and a whole lot of internal bleeding slowly clouded light from coming through. I was going blind, gradually. The thought of waking up one day and not being able to see frightened the life out of me. Imagine not being able to see my children, my husband and all the beauty in this world.”
I absorb the sadness in her tone but also detected a tiny point of intense light tied to every syllable like a floating balloon. “Until I met Connie,” she continued after twitching her nose a couple of times.
“One day I woke up getting a call from Reno. I bought a bus ticket and went there without knowing where I was heading. I packed a few change of clothes, left a note on the kitchen table and then off I go on my adventure.”
“Who is Connie?”
Joy angles her head to the left and then to the right with skills of an Indian dancer. I am not sure what prompted her erratic reactions; whether it was my interruption or the mention of Connie’s name.
“The lovely healer who told me I will meet you,” her reply dry and prompt. I take the bag from the ground and hug it like a koala bear clutching a tree. I require time to process the information and holding something familiar provides the fuel that runs the engine.
“I don’t understand. How can Connie know you will meet me and how do you know it is me when you are blind?” I asked gripping the bark with the strength of a grizzly bear.
“It started to drizzle when I was sitting at the bus station having absolutely no idea what to do next. But the thing is, I wasn’t scared or worried. I knew someone was waiting for me and I had to come to meet this person,” her account is caving into Alice’s wonderland and she yet again shreds my questions into oblivion.
“That time I can still see, maybe about thirty percent gone. And so like moving shadows, I saw this child-like figure dragging her feet as she walks to me. She was tiny. I don’t know. Maybe about four feet. She had a very serious look. Although she was very kind, I just sensed it. She said she called for me and that she is glad I was stupid enough to come.”
“She called you meaning she has your number? But you don’t know her at all?”
“Connie telepathically called me. You know, two minds zap zap?”
“Ok.”
“Cut that scientific thinking crap, at least until after I finish my story,” Joy said. “Anyway where were we? Yes. She asked me to follow her home. Crazy, don’t you think? Follow a stranger to an unknown place. But I did. She stayed at downtown Reno in a neat little house with a huge garden with rows and rows and rows of lily and pink rose. Behind her house was a room, some sort of a hut that she used as a healing place.
The rain becomes a thunderstorm, it impedes my escape plan. I am not rude but the heaviness and credibility of our casual talk are challenging my wellbeing.
“I am not going to take up very much of your time. So, just bear with me.” At this point, I totally accept that she is psychic and I’d better not put out another negative thought.
“She knew of my conditions before I can explain. But she said it is not up to her to heal me. I was completely devastated. I don’t know why she made me come all the way to tell me that there is no cure. It took me years to get it until the first of the three events she told me happened.” Joy pauses as if it is time for a commercial break.
“Connie was a psychic surgeon. She puts her hands into your body to remove all the bad stuff and tumors inside of you. Amazing, eh? I think so too. No cutting, no anesthetic. You won’t even know it is over. All you see when you wake up is buckets of blood. I saw her do it to two people in that holy place of hers. She said I could watch and this can heal me. I thought she meant I’d not go blind but alas! Darkness caught up one afternoon. And the strange thing is I got the vision almost the next day.”
“Vision? Something that Connie predicted?”
“Yes. She said I will see the most extraordinary things. I did but at first I resented it because they were different.”
“What did you see? What are you seeing now?”
“A splendid energy blob known as the physical Wendy. You are like a kaleidoscope, continuously changing colours, patterns, shapes as your thoughts change and as you interact with all around you, including bacteria, chairs, tables, cars, air, trees, people, stones – everything. The only shit is that I can’t judge distance. I am not very good at it. That’s my blind spot,” she laughed.
“Do you feel cheated? I mean, you no longer see. Connie could have healed you,” the journalist in me pressed for sentimental details.
“Just say that from what you call vision 2020 you can now see like an owl. Do you feel cheated or blessed? How would you slant your story?”
I searched for a reply that I am accustomed to.
“You have to give up something to gain this. You lost something precious,” I defended my position.
Joy stretches her arms over her head and yawns. “Then dear friend, it is your choice to curse and swear like I did. This is how you’d tell this story and it is not wrong, you know. There will be readers out there who will agree or disagree with you whichever path you take. But is this all you can write?”
Speaking disappears.
“Connie has been ill all her life,” Joy broke the silence. She passed on in 2001. Bless her great soul. She has had fourteen major operations and had nearly every organ cut up and sewed back. But she so wanted to serve others and to help though she was sick. The only thing that was intact was her hands. She went to the hut behind her house, locked the door and started praying. She asked that her hands be used for whatever they could do. She repeated her prayers again and again. ‘Use my hands. Use my hands. Use my hands.’ And then one fine day, when her husband came home from work, she touched him and her hand went through his body. She was so scared that poor Connie hid in her room and cry and cry and cry. Until she got to accept the strange feat, more of a miracle, I’d say. And learn how to use her talent to help others.”
I did not know what to make of Joy’s bizarre narrative. I can easily discount it as a pack of metaphysical lies, which anyone in the right mind might do. But maybe I didn’t believe what logic dictates because many times I too asked for my hands to be used; that words surged and messages conveyed. I prayed for stories to be told from every aspect of the world, that we share cross-cultural tales to inspire and demystify.
“Use my hands, use my hands, use my hands,” I pray not knowing to which God I send my pleas to. It doesn’t mater because there is only one God and this God resides inside of us. It doesn’t matter because when I truly accept my God, I will equally accept and respect your God. It doesn’t matter because when I truly love myself, I equally love my brothers. I truly love myself when I love my anger, hatred, jealousy, codependency and every idiosyncrasy – I no longer judge and pick on my flaws found in my brothers. “Use my hands. Just use my hands,” I pray.
Joy didn’t tell me why Connie said we will meet. In fact it was redundant to ask as on some levels I understand our odd acquaintance. It is as if William Shakespeare meets Florence Nightingale in Mars when one is going to England and the other to America. We never saw each other again although our story carries on in different regions. As we parted ways when her friend came, she left in me a new pair of eyes.
The sky is clear. It is time to let the stomach decide on my next destination. Sushi followed by ice cream; a perfect combination.
Note: This short story is inspired by an ACIM session with Dr. T. Aaron Lim.
What I am is a pen that scribbles, the ink that flows but never the words that steal the glory. Because I am a mere conduit in most occasions unless I recount from my experiences of let’s say a visit to the dentist to fix my teeth, then I dare claim ownership of the pain. However the dentist’s affair with the nurse remains their business and if it ends up in my novella, it is an observation. The wisdom to write with passion and detachment creates a world that is real and yet surreal because it very much reflects the reality we live in. Thus giving rise to multiple heroes like Harry Potter, Superman, Batman and Jamal from Slumdog Millionaire.
This tale is about how I met Connie. You see, I am drawn to many appropriate places because of certain peculiarities I have. If I needed to visit a restroom while I am outside, I’d prefer the sparkling ones at five-star-hotels. Due to my unabashed habit, I strolled into a particular lobby and whizzed to ease myself. Feeling lighter, I plan for lunch but the pouring sky stop me from leaving. My umbrella sits sixty five kilometers away on the bed and my clothes refuse to get wet.
What now brown cow?
Frustrated, hungry and not attracted to hotel food, I surrender to the comfort of the over-worked, over-sat and yet loving white cushion; whatever will be will be. It is when I allow the softness of the sofa to envelope my being that company came without invitation.
She is tall, slim and colorless, about forty five of age. Her skin is nearly transparent with no blood underneath. A pleasant odor frisk about in her blonde hair and that’s when I notice her folding blind cane. I clumsily move my bag to the floor, reach out to help her, jump to my feet, sit down again, kick the bag nearer and adjust my butt all within ten seconds. Mission accomplished. She smiled and said thank you. By the way, she is not Connie.
Her name is Joy and she is from Nevada. She is in a Kuala Lumpur to visit her healer-friends and to host some healing sessions for the right people.
“Healer?” I asked.
“Yes. I appear to those who call and need my services.”
By the sound of it, she is surely one appealing soul to talk to. I am curious.
“What kind of healer are you?”
“I heal humans, animals, plants and at times the planet.”
“That’s interesting,” I pause to consider if the rain is a better option. The conversation is not so appealing after all.
Joy turned to stare at me and in that silence her green eyes seem to have found mine. They open the latch to a part of me that I didn’t know existed.
“We all heal humans, animals, plants and the planet in our own ways. Some choose to be doctors, psychologists, surgeons or vets to help themselves and others get rid of the illusions – this thing we call pain. And even you, when your friend is crying and wants you to be there you’d probably give her a hug. She allows you to help her heal,” Joy said. Her voice is persuasive but kind. “And animals, you have pets?” she asked raising an eye brow.
“Yes, I have a cat and two hamsters.”
“They ever fall ill or your cat ever feels moody and you try to cheer her up?”
“Sure. She is cranky whenever I don’t let her scratch the walls. But I play ball with her.”
“There you go, writer. You nurse your pets that are sick and you cheer your sad kitty up. She responds by purring and twisting all over your legs. She likes what you do. You also heal your pets. You make them feel better if they want it. And I know gardening is not your thing. But have you seen how someone shapes and nurtures a bonsai? When the plant is sick, they have a million ways to bring it back to health. Isn’t that healing?”
“Yes, I guess so,” I said awestruck by her explanation. “But wait a minute, how did you know I am a writer and that I don’t like gardening?”
Joy ignores my questions and continues with her talk. “Mother Earth, she needs all the loving and healing we can give her. We recycle, we plant trees and we come up with all the eco-stuffs that we can think of. You recycle, yes?”
“I do more than that,” I replied. “But how do you know I am a writer? Do I know you from somewhere before this?”
Again, my inquiries are of no interest to her. “I just choose to heal on different levels. Because my experiences have changed my understanding of what everything is, I see differently from you. And most important of all, we constantly heal ourselves and that’s what we must be doing.”
“I am sure you see things in a whole distinct perspective,” I said only to regret lashing my sharp tongue too soon. “Oh! I mean, you must have a plethora of mystical experiences in your field of work.”
“I don’t have very much in me to be offended, dear friend. One day you will know that there is really nothing to take offense to. In fact you do know.” She appears almost saintly as she clasps her frail hands together.
A certain part of me grasped the depth of her statements like a lodged diamond in carbon. Although an obnoxious voice reminds me to apologize, this is something that I do whenever I am afraid to hurt another person. I react to the carbon but ignore the diamond within.
“I am sorry, Joy” out came the auto-respond. “I should be more tactful in my speech.”
“You said sorry because you are scared that you’d made me feel bad? Because I am blind?”
“Yes,” I said out of guilt. “No, I mean not because you are blind.”
Joy takes my hand in hers and at that moment I wonder if her eyes could see more than I expected.
“Dear writer, you didn’t apologize because you are afraid that you’d hurt my feelings. You can’t hurt my feelings. You just don’t want to feel bad yourself and are terrified that a blind stranger like me will dislike you. You want to be loved by others. So it is about you and not me.”
Whatever she said flooded the sewers and tanks in my body. A huge command flushes through and I was swept along by the current. She is spot on. Joy releases her hand and puts them on her lap. She chuckles to herself.
“Fifteen years ago, I was like you, young, energetic, foolish but passionate. Until one day, my sight decides to go on permanent vacation. Retina detachment and a whole lot of internal bleeding slowly clouded light from coming through. I was going blind, gradually. The thought of waking up one day and not being able to see frightened the life out of me. Imagine not being able to see my children, my husband and all the beauty in this world.”
I absorb the sadness in her tone but also detected a tiny point of intense light tied to every syllable like a floating balloon. “Until I met Connie,” she continued after twitching her nose a couple of times.
“One day I woke up getting a call from Reno. I bought a bus ticket and went there without knowing where I was heading. I packed a few change of clothes, left a note on the kitchen table and then off I go on my adventure.”
“Who is Connie?”
Joy angles her head to the left and then to the right with skills of an Indian dancer. I am not sure what prompted her erratic reactions; whether it was my interruption or the mention of Connie’s name.
“The lovely healer who told me I will meet you,” her reply dry and prompt. I take the bag from the ground and hug it like a koala bear clutching a tree. I require time to process the information and holding something familiar provides the fuel that runs the engine.
“I don’t understand. How can Connie know you will meet me and how do you know it is me when you are blind?” I asked gripping the bark with the strength of a grizzly bear.
“It started to drizzle when I was sitting at the bus station having absolutely no idea what to do next. But the thing is, I wasn’t scared or worried. I knew someone was waiting for me and I had to come to meet this person,” her account is caving into Alice’s wonderland and she yet again shreds my questions into oblivion.
“That time I can still see, maybe about thirty percent gone. And so like moving shadows, I saw this child-like figure dragging her feet as she walks to me. She was tiny. I don’t know. Maybe about four feet. She had a very serious look. Although she was very kind, I just sensed it. She said she called for me and that she is glad I was stupid enough to come.”
“She called you meaning she has your number? But you don’t know her at all?”
“Connie telepathically called me. You know, two minds zap zap?”
“Ok.”
“Cut that scientific thinking crap, at least until after I finish my story,” Joy said. “Anyway where were we? Yes. She asked me to follow her home. Crazy, don’t you think? Follow a stranger to an unknown place. But I did. She stayed at downtown Reno in a neat little house with a huge garden with rows and rows and rows of lily and pink rose. Behind her house was a room, some sort of a hut that she used as a healing place.
The rain becomes a thunderstorm, it impedes my escape plan. I am not rude but the heaviness and credibility of our casual talk are challenging my wellbeing.
“I am not going to take up very much of your time. So, just bear with me.” At this point, I totally accept that she is psychic and I’d better not put out another negative thought.
“She knew of my conditions before I can explain. But she said it is not up to her to heal me. I was completely devastated. I don’t know why she made me come all the way to tell me that there is no cure. It took me years to get it until the first of the three events she told me happened.” Joy pauses as if it is time for a commercial break.
“Connie was a psychic surgeon. She puts her hands into your body to remove all the bad stuff and tumors inside of you. Amazing, eh? I think so too. No cutting, no anesthetic. You won’t even know it is over. All you see when you wake up is buckets of blood. I saw her do it to two people in that holy place of hers. She said I could watch and this can heal me. I thought she meant I’d not go blind but alas! Darkness caught up one afternoon. And the strange thing is I got the vision almost the next day.”
“Vision? Something that Connie predicted?”
“Yes. She said I will see the most extraordinary things. I did but at first I resented it because they were different.”
“What did you see? What are you seeing now?”
“A splendid energy blob known as the physical Wendy. You are like a kaleidoscope, continuously changing colours, patterns, shapes as your thoughts change and as you interact with all around you, including bacteria, chairs, tables, cars, air, trees, people, stones – everything. The only shit is that I can’t judge distance. I am not very good at it. That’s my blind spot,” she laughed.
“Do you feel cheated? I mean, you no longer see. Connie could have healed you,” the journalist in me pressed for sentimental details.
“Just say that from what you call vision 2020 you can now see like an owl. Do you feel cheated or blessed? How would you slant your story?”
I searched for a reply that I am accustomed to.
“You have to give up something to gain this. You lost something precious,” I defended my position.
Joy stretches her arms over her head and yawns. “Then dear friend, it is your choice to curse and swear like I did. This is how you’d tell this story and it is not wrong, you know. There will be readers out there who will agree or disagree with you whichever path you take. But is this all you can write?”
Speaking disappears.
“Connie has been ill all her life,” Joy broke the silence. She passed on in 2001. Bless her great soul. She has had fourteen major operations and had nearly every organ cut up and sewed back. But she so wanted to serve others and to help though she was sick. The only thing that was intact was her hands. She went to the hut behind her house, locked the door and started praying. She asked that her hands be used for whatever they could do. She repeated her prayers again and again. ‘Use my hands. Use my hands. Use my hands.’ And then one fine day, when her husband came home from work, she touched him and her hand went through his body. She was so scared that poor Connie hid in her room and cry and cry and cry. Until she got to accept the strange feat, more of a miracle, I’d say. And learn how to use her talent to help others.”
I did not know what to make of Joy’s bizarre narrative. I can easily discount it as a pack of metaphysical lies, which anyone in the right mind might do. But maybe I didn’t believe what logic dictates because many times I too asked for my hands to be used; that words surged and messages conveyed. I prayed for stories to be told from every aspect of the world, that we share cross-cultural tales to inspire and demystify.
“Use my hands, use my hands, use my hands,” I pray not knowing to which God I send my pleas to. It doesn’t mater because there is only one God and this God resides inside of us. It doesn’t matter because when I truly accept my God, I will equally accept and respect your God. It doesn’t matter because when I truly love myself, I equally love my brothers. I truly love myself when I love my anger, hatred, jealousy, codependency and every idiosyncrasy – I no longer judge and pick on my flaws found in my brothers. “Use my hands. Just use my hands,” I pray.
Joy didn’t tell me why Connie said we will meet. In fact it was redundant to ask as on some levels I understand our odd acquaintance. It is as if William Shakespeare meets Florence Nightingale in Mars when one is going to England and the other to America. We never saw each other again although our story carries on in different regions. As we parted ways when her friend came, she left in me a new pair of eyes.
The sky is clear. It is time to let the stomach decide on my next destination. Sushi followed by ice cream; a perfect combination.
Note: This short story is inspired by an ACIM session with Dr. T. Aaron Lim.
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