The Healer
When Benedict Tolson applied for acceptance into medical school, he did so with only the most altruistic motives in mind. He hoped to become a healer, ease pain, combat death and improve his patients' quality of life. It was neither the money nor the comfortable lifestyle being a physician would afford him that tempted young Benedict. He was not a materialistic man and did not need a five-bedroom house or luxury condo in an upscale neighborhood, a late-model Mercedes, exotic vacations or a membership in the country club.
What he had not expected was that he would eventually become a doctor in a hospice care facility. As the chief of staff of Mercy Hospice, his role was mainly administrative in nature. Nearly all the patients suffered from late stage cancer, advanced Alzheimer's, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and other terminal diseases which required palliative care. It was a facility where no hope of healing existed; all that could be done was to make the patient's final days as comfortable as possible.
As the years passed, Dr. Tolson became more dissatisfied with his career choice. Not only did he hate the long hours he had to spend on completing paperwork, preparing budgets and attending meetings, but he also disliked the fact that the prognosis for every man, woman and child that entered the hospice was the same. No one was ever expected to recover. Although he had tried to maintain a professional detachment where the patients were concerned, it was hard not to let the constant presence of imminent death get to him.
On those days when another father or mother slipped away quietly during the night, someone's sibling passed on, a grandparent breathed his or her last or a child predeceased its parents, Benedict stopped at the local bar on his way home from work. One drink often led to another.
When he eventually walked in the door of his house, his wife, angry at having to toss another home-cooked dinner in the trash, would give him the silent treatment. Eventually, there came an evening when he walked through that front door an hour and a half late and found the house empty. With his marriage over, there was no reason for him to leave the bar after only a couple of drinks.
Then one morning Benedict took a good look in the mirror and saw a stranger staring back at him. It wasn't just any day, mind you; it was his birthday.
I'm fifty, he thought with a profound sense of hopelessness. Half a century! I'm no longer a young man. Where did all those years go? When did I get so old?
He critically examined his reflection in the full-length mirror on the rear of the bathroom door. His waistline had widened considerably, and what hair he had was more gray than brown. The greatest change, however, was one that wasn't evident in his exterior appearance but on the inside. Once so full of dedication, hope and passion, he was now drained of nearly all human emotion. Dr. Benedict Tolson had become an empty shell of a man.
Years of suppressing disappointment, frustration and heartbreak erupted in a rare moment of anger. He formed a fist with his right hand and shattered the mirror with it. Afterward, he cursed and grabbed his bloody knuckles in pain.
Damn it! What was I thinking? I could have broken my hand.
After cleaning his wound, he bandaged his sore hand, swept up the shards of broken glass and got dressed for work.
* * *
"Happy birthday!" Lynette Eckerson, head nurse at Mercy, exclaimed when Benedict arrived at the hospice.
His office was decorated with black balloons and streamers, all wishing him a happy fiftieth. There was also a cake in the lunch room.
"What happened to your hand?" the nurse asked, spying the bandages.
"I cut it on a piece of glass."
Benedict headed for the employees' lunchroom where the rest of the staff was sitting at the table drinking coffee and waiting for a slice of birthday cake.
"Watch out with that knife," Lynette teased as the doctor prepared to cut the cake.
The impromptu birthday party lasted ten minutes. As Enzo Lombardo, one of the orderlies, cleaned up the mess, the nurses went to their stations. Morning visiting hours were about to begin, and friends and family members would soon be arriving to see their loved ones, some for the last time.
Oh, Christ! Benedict thought with desperation. How am I ever going to get through another day of this?
It was a day, however, that would change not only his life, but the lives of everyone at Mercy Hospice, and eventually everyone in the world.
* * *
At nine o'clock that morning—as he had the same time every morning since his wife was admitted into the hospice facility—Saul Mortenson walked, with some difficulty, to her first-floor room. Once there he took his usual seat beside her bed.
"Good morning, sweetheart," he said to a woman who had no idea he was in the room. "It's a beautiful autumn day out there, just the kind of day you used to like: sunny with a crisp chill in the air."
The husband affectionately took his wife's hand in his and looked at her face. He saw not the old, ravaged features of a dying woman but the beautiful, caring, intelligent girl he had married close to sixty years earlier.
Saul himself was dying, but the physical pain from his illness was nothing compared to the mental anguish of seeing his wife slowly slip away from him. Each day he wondered if it would be their last together.
At least when you go I won't be far behind, he thought.
"Remember that autumn when we bought our house?" he asked, reliving the happy memories for both of them. "We took a week off from work and drove through Vermont. We must have stopped at every antique store in the state."
As he spoke, a shadow passed the door. He turned and saw a man in the doorway. The stranger stopped briefly and turned toward the elderly couple. He spoke not a word, but continued on down the hall.
"Saul?"
When the old man saw his wife's eyes open and staring up at him, he momentarily feared that the end had come.
"Where am I?" she asked lucidly, looking around the room. "Is this a hospital? Why am I here? I feel perfectly fine."
Saul believed at first that the warm feeling that coursed through his body was simply the joy of seeing the improvement in his wife. He did not realize at the time, that his own terminal illness had miraculously been cured.
* * *
Lynette Eckerson saw a stranger heading down the hall toward the patients' rooms. She knew most of the family members, and his was not a face that she recognized.
I'll bet that's old Mrs. Gillen's son, the nurse thought. It's about time he came to visit his poor dying mother
He did briefly stop in front of the open door to the old woman's room, but he did not go inside. After a moment, he continued walking.
Guess it's not her son, after all.
The phone rang at the nurses' station, and Lynette reached for the receiver.
"Mercy Hospice," she announced. "This is Nurse Eckerson speaking. May I ...?"
It was all the poor woman was able to say before she became speechless with surprise. Ninety-three-year-old Mrs. Gillen, who was not expected to make it through the week, had walked out of her room and was standing in the hall.
"You there, nurse. What's going on here?" the cantankerous Mrs. Gillen demanded to know. "Where the hell am I?"
Lynette hung up the phone and called for Dr. Tolson.
* * *
The staff members of Mercy Hospice were at a loss to explain what was happening. Not even Benedict Tolson with all his medical knowledge could make sense of it.
"Mrs. Gillen's death was imminent," Lynette insisted. "She had cyanosis so bad that one nurse's aide thought she was wearing purple socks."
"Well, she's fine now," Tolson said with complete certainty. "I don't know what the hell is going on here, but every patient in this facility appears to be in excellent health."
"What do you mean 'appears to be'?" the head nurse asked.
"I don't know what I mean," the doctor cried with exasperation. "There are set courses to the diseases these people have, courses that don't deviate from their expected paths. Yet every person in this hospice seems to be miraculously cured—from Cosmo Burney's stage four pancreatic cancer to Florence Kitchell's ALS. There's not a single reason for this to happen."
"It's not just the terminal illnesses that have been cured," one of the nurses claimed. "Nor is this miracle—for lack of a better word—limited to the patients. I've suffered from eczema since I was a teenager. Now my skin has cleared up."
"So has my diabetes," Lynette said.
"Even my sinus headache is gone," another nurse added.
"It's a miracle straight from God!" the orderly exclaimed.
"I don't believe in miracles," Tolson declared. "I believe in science."
"Perhaps scientific discoveries are themselves miracles," Enzo argued.
The doctor was not about to get into a discussion on science, religion and miracles; he had stopped believing in God years earlier.
"There is something odd," Lynette said, "but I don't know if it has anything to do with these unexplained healings."
"What is it?" the doctor asked.
"There was a stranger here this morning. He walked down the hall, briefly looked into Mrs. Gillen's room and then continued down the hall. I don't recall seeing him leave, but I suppose he could have slipped out during all the commotion that was going on."
"Are you suggesting this man was some sort of angel who cured these people simply by looking at them?"
"I'm not suggesting anything. He might have been a family member or even a lawyer or a pastor. I didn't notice if he had a collar on or not. I just .... I don't know."
"That's just it," the doctor said. "We don't know anything."
"But you do have a decision to make," Maya Alford, the latest addition to Mercy's nursing staff, said. "Are we to keep the patients here or release them?"
"What a nightmare this is going to be!" Tolson groaned, speaking in his role as administrator. "There's no procedure for releasing patients. This is a hospice facility. Our patients are expected to die not to get better and go home."
"Well, we'd better establish a procedure—and soon. These people are going to start walking out of here on their own."
Tolson lowered his head into his hands. Word of this bizarre occurrence was bound to get out. Before they knew it, the press would descend upon Mercy, expecting a story. Even worse, religious fanatics would be flocking to the hospice and claiming it was the Lourdes of New England.
* * *
Thankfully, Mercy Hospice was a small facility of twenty rooms. That day there were only twelve patients. Benedict Tolson was able to convince all of them to remain a day longer.
"I just want to make sure you won't walk out that door and have a relapse," he explained. "I'll run a few simple tests, and if they come back negative, you'll all be free to go home and resume your lives."
"Better to be safe than sorry," Saul Mortenson told his wife. "And when you do get out of here, we'll take a little trip to Vermont. It'll be beautiful this time of year."
All I've really done is put off the inevitable for another day, Benedict thought as he went back to his office.
Lynette Eckerson knocked on his door ten minutes later.
"Yes?"
"We ordered pizza for dinner, if you'd like some, Doctor."
"It sounds great," he admitted, suddenly realizing he hadn't eaten anything since the slice of cake that morning.
The doctor followed his head nurse to the lunch room where boxes of pizza were scattered about the table and counter. The remains of his chocolate-frosted birthday cake, wrapped in cellophane, were next to the sink.
Had it really been less than ten hours since he walked into lunchroom for a cup of coffee and a piece of cake? It seemed more like an eternity ago.
Enzo Lombardo took a slice of sausage and pepperoni pizza from one of the boxes, opened a can of Pepsi and, out of habit, turned on the overhead television, tuning into Wheel of Fortune. Moments after one contestant correctly solved a prize puzzle and won a trip to Martinique, the game show was interrupted by a news bulletin.
Dr. Tolson and his staff watched in silent amazement as the newscaster told of the miraculous recovery of hundreds of patients at a major New England hospital.
"So we're not the only ones affected by this ... whatever it is," Lynette observed.
"Apparently not," Benedict said, relieved that his hospice was not about to become ground zero in the latest tabloid story.
"Why don't you turn on CNN and see if they've picked up the story?" Maya Alford, the receptionist, suggested.
Enzo flipped the channel. Anderson Cooper was in Massachusetts, reporting live from the hospital.
"We've just learned," the popular newsman announced, "that this isn't the only medical facility where patients have been mysteriously cured."
Oh, no, here it comes, Benedict thought with disgust.
"Both Massachusetts General and Boston Children's Hospital have also experienced this seeming miracle."
"Praise God!" Enzo cried.
The staff members at Mercy Hospice were not the only ones watching the news coverage. Most of the patients and their visitors were as well. Saul Mortenson and his wife left her room and went to the hospice's chapel—nothing more than a small room with an altar, candles, a crucifix and two long benches—to give thanks. Mrs. Gillen, meanwhile, went back on her promise to Dr. Tolson and phoned a cab to pick her up and take her home.
"Let her go," the administrator told his nursing staff. "In fact, let them all go if they want to."
* * *
Although the origin of the "miracle" was not known or its nature fully understood, what began in Mercy Hospice spread like ripples in a pond to all hospitals in the surrounding areas. By the end of the week, there wasn't a sick person left anywhere in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and by the end of two, this disease-free area encompassed all of New England.
Naturally, the media coverage was intense. Theories were posed by some of the greatest minds in medicine, but no one had a concrete explanation for the healings—no one that is, except for the major religious groups.
Just when people from around the world began flocking to New England, the "Anti-Plague," as one newscaster dubbed the event, spread north to Canada and south to the mid-Atlantic region.
It was not until people began recovering their health in states south of the Mason-Dixon Line and west of the Mississippi River that one investigative reporter linked the events with the appearance of a strange man who became known simply as "the Healer."
"He must be the one I saw in the hallway at Mercy Hospice," Lynette told Yuri, her husband, as they watched the news coverage.
"You mean the bastard that is putting doctors and nurses out of work up and down the Eastern Seaboard?"
"Now you stop that kind of talk," she said, giving him a playful slap on the arm. "You're beginning to sound like a Republican. Whoever or whatever that man is he probably saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people already."
"At the risk of sounding hardhearted ...."
"Wait, I want to hear what the reporter is saying."
"Thousands of people claimed to have seen this strange man immediately before they were cured, yet none can give a detailed description of him. Odder, still he has not appeared on any hospital security footage."
"That's some spooky shit!" Yuri exclaimed. "It's like an episode of The X-Files or The Outer Limits."
"Considering we're talking about the medical world, it's more like Doctor Who."
"Good one, honey."
Lynette was surprised that she and her husband could joke about such an earth-shattering event. Maybe when the mind is faced with a situation it cannot comprehend, it takes refuge in humor.
The vast majority of the people in the world, however, saw the coming of the Healer as deadly serious. On one hand, there were the half-full-glass optimists who saw him as an angel of compassion, who wanted only to end death, alleviate pain and restore people to good health. On the other, there were the half-empty-glass pessimists who saw his appearance as a sign of the End Times and a forewarning of the Apocalypse.
Benedict Tolson's reaction to the news was one of intense curiosity. What power or superior knowledge was at work? Was it the second coming of Christ as so many people now claimed? Was the stranger an angel? Or had a benign alien landed on planet Earth?
What preyed on the doctor's mind most was the fact that everywhere the Healer went, humans were not only cured of life-threatening diseases but were also, to use nonmedical terminology, reset to factory specifications. All manner of disorders from cancer down to dandruff, nearsightedness, dental cavities, mosquito bites and minor scrapes and contusions vanished. The Healer had walked through Mercy Hospice curing patients and staff alike, even removing the calluses on Enzo's hands, yet the cut Benedict had gotten when he smashed his bathroom mirror earlier that morning was not mended.
Why? the doctor wondered. Am I immune to the Healer's gift? If so, are there others like me?
* * *
Inevitably, the radius of the healings expanded to include countries on the other side of the Atlantic and the Pacific as well as South America. The Healer appeared not only in hospices, nursing homes and hospitals but also on battlefields. Men holding on to life by a slender thread after falling from enemy fire or torn to pieces by incendiary devices were made whole again without benefit of medical treatment.
"What's going to happen when all the sick in the world are healed?" Orenthal Venner, the President of the United States, asked his cabinet members.
It was obviously a rhetorical question since no one knew the answer.
"You know what I think he'll do next?" Venner asked. "I believe he'll raise the dead."
Winfield Hazard, the Secretary of State, rolled his eyes. He knew the current president was a born again Christian with strong and—in his opinion—outdated beliefs. Venner's rather narrow views on abortion, homosexuality and birth control were what gained him huge support in the red states and won him the election.
"So you think the Healer is Christ come back to Earth looking to raise up Lazarus again along with billions of other dead humans?" he asked.
"What other explanation could there be?"
"I don't know, but—in all due respect, Mr. President—this isn't the Dark Ages. We don't know the cause of these healings, so they must be the work of God. That's ludicrous! I believe there is a scientific answer for what is happening; we just haven't found it yet."
The Chief Executive didn't like his Secretary of State, a die-hard liberal. He had only appointed him to win support from the Democrats in Congress.
"According to the head of the CDC," Venner continued, "no one has died in the areas where the Healer has appeared since this whole business started in Massachusetts."
The president shook his head and smiled.
"Why is it always Massachusetts where trouble starts? It's been that way since the American Revolution. What in the hell is wrong with those nitwits in New England anyway?"
Secretary Hazard, who was from Maine, quickly defended his region.
"We Yankees have always been more liberal minded than you good ol' Southern boys, Mr. President."
"You call it liberal minded; I call it—never mind. As I was saying, in all the areas where the sick have been cured, no one has died. People in fires, car crashes and war zones, have all walked away without so much as a scratch."
"So not only did this mysterious man heal nearly all the people on the planet, but he left them indestructible as well?" Winfield asked.
"And most likely by the end of the week his mission will be complete. Those small pockets of civilization at the far reaches of the globe will fall under his influence."
"That does pose a problem," the Secretary of State said—for the first time in his political career in agreement with the president. "We know people are going to continue to have children, so even if he doesn't raise the dead, the world will never be able to sustain such a large population."
"Precisely."
"I don't believe this is a problem we can solve here in Washington," Hazard concluded. "I think every nation needs to band together to find a solution."
"Of all the fears I envisioned when I took office," the president said, "all the worst case scenarios that ran through my mind, I never dreamed the biggest threat would be from honest, hard-working, loyal citizens."
"If it's any consolation, Orenthal, as a liberal I was always pushing for universal health care. I sincerely believed it was every American's right to be in good health. What's that old saying? 'Be careful what you wish for.'"
* * *
Benedict Tolson sat at a bar, nursing his fifth Scotch and soda. He knew his drinking problem was out of hand, that he was an alcoholic and had been since shortly after his wife left him.
Alcoholism is a disease, he thought as he downed his drink and signaled for the bartender to bring him another. Why didn't the Healer cure that when he strolled through Mercy Hospice?
"You were a doctor, weren't you?" the barkeep asked, using the past tense verb.
"I was."
"You and all your colleagues must want to put a contract out on this Healer guy?"
"Nah," Benedict replied with a drunken laugh. "If the Healer gets whacked, it will be by one of the pharmaceutical companies. Besides, I have hope of getting another job."
"You know what Alec Baldwin told Mark Wahlberg in The Departed?"
"No, I never saw the movie. What did he say?"
"'The world needs plenty of bartenders.'"
"I couldn't agree with you more!" Benedict said, taking a gulp of his drink. "Especially with so many former doctors and nurses taking to the bottle these days."
"Like you?"
"No, not like me. I started long before the Healer appeared."
The bartender then went to wait on another customer, and Benedict was left alone to finish his drink in brooding silence.
After two more drinks, Benedict foolishly got into his car and headed toward home, despite the fact that he was far too drunk to drive. He made it only two miles before he crashed his Jaguar into a tree. When he came to, he knew he was seriously injured. The steering wheel had broken several of his ribs, and one must have punctured his lung. Still, he was lucky. A large branch had shattered his windshield and missed his head by mere inches.
He reached for his cell phone but stopped his hand.
Who can I call? Are there any more hospitals in the area? Any ambulances?
"You don't have to call anyone," a voice said to him from the passenger seat.
Benedict turned his head, but the branch blocked his view of the person in the seat next to him.
"Is it you?" he asked hopefully. "Are you the one everybody calls the Healer?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to heal me this time? You ignored me when you came to the hospice."
"I am not able to help you."
"Why not? You cured everyone else in the world. Why not me?"
"As it is written in the Bible, the gospel of Luke 4:23, 'Physician, heal thyself.'"
The branch suddenly shriveled up and withdrew from his car, giving the doctor an unimpeded view of his passenger. It was though he were looking into a mirror, or more accurately a window to the past, for the Healer was a younger version of Benedict himself.
"I am responsible for all of this?" he asked.
"It was what you always wanted out of life: to heal people."
"So you're not Christ or one of his angels come down from heaven?"
"No. I don't even have a physical form, which was why I could never been captured by security cameras. I am every unfulfilled desire you ever had, building up for fifty years. When you punched your reflection and shattered the bathroom mirror, you set me free. I was able to do what you couldn't: heal the world."
"That's because you didn't have to deal with HMOs," Benedict said with wry humor.
"It's now up to you to heal yourself," the passenger declared.
"And how am I supposed to do that?"
"You must want to live."
"And if I don't?"
"If you die, then I will cease to be as well. The world will return to the way it was. People will get sick again, they'll get injured in accidents, they will be killed in battle and their lives will end."
Pneumothorax brought about a shortness of breath, and the other injuries were causing Benedict severe discomfort. He wanted to heal himself.
"How do I do it?" he asked the Healer.
"Clear your mind of all other matters and wish for it."
As Dr. Tolson tried to follow the Healer's instructions, random thoughts crowded his mind. He saw images of millions of people crowded into city slums. They had no money, no place to live, no warm clothes to fight off the cold weather and not nearly enough food to fill their bellies. Many of them got down on their knees, folded their hands and prayed for death to a God who either didn't exist or was blind to their suffering.
A smile crossed the doctor's face.
"I can heal their pain," he said. "How ironic that I, an atheist, have the power to answer their prayers."
"Perhaps that's what you wanted all along," the Healer suggested.
"What's that?"
"To play God."
"Maybe you're right. I will therefore do my best to live up to the part."
He leaned forward slightly, grabbed a jagged piece of the windshield and plunged it in his throat.
As the blood gushed from his self-inflicted mortal wound, Benedict Tolson thought, I will ease their suffering and my own.
Just the mention of going to a veterinary hospital scares the Friskies out of Salem!
