The Blind Healer

Many would cower and cry if they had to face up to the events that took place in Fiona’s life since she had been born. People she knew, and some she didn’t, had been nagging at her to write a book, her autobiography or even just the things she knew or had experienced with natural treatments, the animals she rescued or how she dealt with her rare genetic condition that took away most of her eye sight.

Fiona had been so busy with her life to write about it. She attempted her autobiography a couple of times but so many people and animals needed her help and her focus had to be on them. After all, that’s what God wanted for her to do. She was ok at writing, although others, of the sighted world, doubted her ability to do much at all, let alone write a book, even though they were begging her to write one, they assumed someone else would type it up for her. Fiona had completed four years of university study and more years doing massage and body work training, she could heal things that were beyond the ability of doctors and modern medications. Yet the sighted world still thought she simply couldn’t carry out daily tasks unaided, much less write.

Sitting upon her hard, well made bed, in a cold, barely lit room she reflected on the most recent events that led up to her arrival at this, terrible place, this place filled with broken people that hardly wanted to heal, this prison of low security, for women who had committed drug, theft, prostitution and other crimes along those lines. Fiona had simply continued to help people through her hands and herbs, even after she had been de registered, fined and bribed to keep quiet, by the big pharmaceutical companies about botched trials that had made hers and other herbal healers’ jobs, almost impossible as they tried to ban the use of every useful, natural, treatment there was.

She shared a room with an extremely thin girl, Bec, who was already sound asleep. Bec was a new prisoner, on remand for something that Fiona wasn’t aware of, but it didn't matter, the women didn’t know what each other had done to wind up there. Fiona was vocal about her reason for being thrown in there, so they all knew her as the, Blind Healer, a name she delighted in.

After, what seemed like hours, sitting, then laying upon her new bed, Fiona drifted off to sleep, rudely awoken, what she thought was mere seconds later, by some announcement about a morning cell check. She rubbed her eyes and dragged herself to stand at the cell door for a procedure that would happen every morning, at stupid o’clock, for the next six months of her life.

Prison was extremely boring for a girl with low vision. No one believed she could contribute. Fiona was keen to help in the kitchen as she loved to cook but she was shoved in a corner with two elderly ladies, while the other women worked. The ladies played cards with each other and while they were polite, they mostly ignored Fiona, so she found herself talking to a tall, golden skinned, toned, guard whom a lot of the women had tried their luck with, unbeknown to Fiona. She couldn’t see his good looks but his voice was masculine and velvety and his energy seemed to be kind rather than aggressive like some of the other guards.

“This must be a boring part of the day for you. There isn’t much excitement around here.” Fiona started, after the initial hellos were done.

“Well you never know what old gals and a blind Lass might scheme together.” Fiona pictured his cheeky smile as he teased, almost playfully.

“Well I wanted to cause trouble at work, but they think I’m useless, so I’ll have to make your time interesting here now, won’t I?”

“I wouldn’t suggest that, the slot sucks, word gets around that you do massage though and I reckon that’s pretty useful.” His mood shifted as he spoke. He went from playful to pretty serious in a second. Fiona had sensed that this guard was in need of healing, but she had no idea what for.

“Extremely useful, you know, before I got here, I thought I would be healing these women all over the place. I told the judge they could take away my herbs by sending me here but they couldn’t take away my hands. She told me I couldn’t bring my white cane in here because these women would take it and use it to beat me or each other. I think she was dodging my statement, but I don’t know why she thought I would bring it anyway, I’d already thought of that. Anyway I’m pretty much ignored here, which is good in a way because I’ll probably not get bashed, but it’s so boring and I’m starting to feel a bit useless. I mean I’m teaching myself to use the old, I mean ancient Braille stylus that my mother brought in for me when she visited. But it’s slow, I would rather type on a computer.”

“We have computers, they have limited internet access but we have them. They’re Apple Mac computers. Tell you what, I’ll do you a deal, I have a bad back and terrible neck pain, I’ll bring you a laptop in here every work day in exchange for massages.” Fiona thought for a moment, she could finish the book while she had nothing else to do, and treating him would help her feel useful.

“Could this deal get you into trouble?”

“I doubt it. The laptops are one of the rewards we give to women who behave themselves. You’re behaving yourself and treating a guard, the risk is more yours than it is mine.”

“Well I guess it’s your lucky day.” Fiona stood up from her chair and instructed him to sit sideways on it, so she could easily access his back, without the back of the chair blocking her.

The old ladies, who sat at the other end of the room from Fiona and the guard, out of earshot almost, paused their game as they saw Fiona begin to work on the guard. This was an outrage. The prison bitches would punish any woman who involved the guards in fights, treated a guard with unnecessary kindness or was seen as the guards’ pet. Fiona could be in huge danger if they spread the word but they knew better than to involve themselves in anything, so they just watched, both in ore of Fiona’s ability and bravery, and in fear of another prisoner catching Fiona in the act, which would be bad news for all of them.

The guard drifted in and out of a meditative state as Fiona worked, her fingers dancing on the points of his nerves, removing pain and tightness as they went. This was different to any massage he had experienced before. It was so light and not painful much at all. Sometimes he would almost fall asleep. Well, he knew what he was going to do now, this woman shouldn’t be here, she should be treating people out there.

Fiona started her writing once the treatment was done. There was no way to save the work she did so each day she would print it out and stick the pages in her, little, black, notebook, her mother had given her to write Braille into. She had to fold down the A4 pages to tuck them in but it was manageable.

Weeks went buy and some of the women were starting to come to Fiona for treatments after she healed Bec’s migraines. The guard suffered no more and he had been working on his plan to free Fiona when he wasn’t working. He told everyone about her and a journalist heard him talking about her at the local pub one evening. She wanted to get Fiona’s story out there. Things were not good in the outside world and the journalist had been finding brick walls as she tried to get her writings published, speaking out against corruption. But the papers and the news agencies were trying to keep their sponsors happy, most of them were the very companies behind what she was speaking out against. She was granted her request to visit Fiona.

They met in a private room that smelled like mould and polish to Fiona. She sat in an old, peeling, leather, chair, at a big, wooden, desk, with a large, red head, woman with glasses, seated at the other end. Fiona held her notebook with pieces of printed paper sticking out of the sides.

“Fiona, I’m Jane and you’ve got a lot of support on the outside. I’m an independent journalist and I’d like to share your story. I’ve got a group of people who have raised $20000 for you to be able to publish your story and I’d like to put a publication out there of our interview today, with your permission. I have heard you’re working on other women in here now and you would like to continue doing so once your time is served, I’m sure the money will assist you with your mission.”

The woman sounded educated and ordinarily Fiona didn’t like people who spoke like they had a plum in their mouth. Still, the woman wasn’t appearing to look down upon her like others had in the past, so Fiona agreed and had her story published.

“The Blind Healer” was a raging success and changed the way people perceived both disability and natural medicine. Fiona never took credit for any of these things and all of the money her book made was put into her mission. She travelled around, going to places that most would shy away from, and she served the people there with a listening, ear, a massage or a herbal concoction to aid their healing.

Fiona’s own afflictions began to become less of a problem for her. She had overcome the physical aching of her joints and bones, she healed her inflamed liver and she had no room for bitterness. In healing the ailments of others, Fiona, had healed herself.