The Vacuum

The Vacuum

The woman thought of herself as a cold, scaly lizard perched on a rock, trying to absorb enough energy from the bright sun to continue. Her hands were withered and dry, her frame shrunken from the constant drain of vital fluids from her deep wound. She sat quietly, shaken from the short walk from her friend’s home just around the bend. This was her last hope, her last day to live in misery. Her friend had mentioned that the Healer was coming to the village, if you could dignify a handful of families with that name. The Healer, she thought to herself angrily, surely he was a quack like all those others who had sucked up all her family’s money over the years, put her through endless probing and tearing and shame only to leave her more wounded than before.
As the sun restored her feeble strength, she thought again of her family – her dear strong John who must be in agony not knowing her whereabouts and cursing himself for not being able to cure or protect or even hold her close; her dear children who over the years and been concerned, then bored, then repelled by the constant weakness and smells and crying; her mother and sisters long dead with the same bloody wretchedness; her friends at first sympathetic but as the long years dragged on, grew tired of her same sad story and moved on to more cheerful pastimes.
As the woman saw that her family shunned her more and more she acted out her final gift of love. Taking a small sum of money she had hidden, she fled to a distant relative in a far town to spare them the grief of seeing her waste away. The money was almost gone, she only ate enough to keep her body from crying out as she waited for death, which would be a welcome end to her suffering. Unless the Healer… if she could just talk to him quietly, explain her problem and hear his advice…it was too much to hope that he would examine her privately since she had nothing to offer him…
She was startled out of her musings by the noisy crowd approaching, surround-ding a tall man striding down the road – the Healer was about to pass her by and she could barely see him for the throng of people. With renewed strength she jumped to her feet and began to push her way through the mass of people, desperate to get close, to touch his clothes at least. Knocked about by stronger bodies, she stumbled and as she fell to her knees managed to grab the hem of his robe.
Astounded by the shock of energy that charged through her she sat in the dust, feeling life surging from her fingertips to every part of her body, swirling joyfully in all her bones and coursing through her blood, drying her wound and renewing her youth. Oblivious to her surroundings, she didn’t notice the crowd had grown silent around the Healer, who had demanded, “Who touched me? I felt my life force go out in healing, who drew it out?”
Looking around He saw her sitting in the dust, entranced with her now strong hands and arms. His quiet gaze finally broke through to her as he repeated, “Who touched me? “
She who had spent years hiding her shame, blurted out her wounding, her anguish, her hopelessness, even as her body inside her rags and dirt shouted out health and vitality. The Healer smiled that sweet smile as he replied, “Go in peace, your suffering has ended. Of all those hundreds who jostled against me, only you had the desperation and faith to draw out my healing power. Go back to those who love you, bearing gifts of strength and dignity and joy.” And she did.

Gerry Gutierrez, Oaxaca, Mexico 1996