The Medicine Man

         The pain was huge, intense and overwhelming. If it weren’t for the pain, David Myers would have known that he was already dead. He thought he would never see his wife and child again. In his groggy state of mind, he prayed. “Dear God. Please help me. Please tell me what to do.”

         Looking to see what was causing this horrible burning in his arm he eyed a rod sticking out of it. Feeling light headed, darkness began to fog his mind. He tried to remember what had happened. That’s right, he thought. I swerved to miss the deer and hit a tree. Who will ever find me way out here in the middle of nowhere?

         The pain was so fierce; his circle of vision began darkening, narrowing until it dimmed to total darkness. The relief from the pain was overwhelming and he no longer fought to stay awake. He dreamed. Remembering the day he got married, Jennifer was such a beautiful bride. Her brunette hair flowed from beneath the veil. The long white wedding gown accented the luscious curves of her body. As she gracefully strode down the aisle, the full cathedral train shadowed her, flowing like a low-lying fog.

         The dream overlapped to the birth of their precious Mary. The happiness he and his wife felt the first minutes, while the baby lay peacefully on her mothers’ breasts, was as new to him as their newly born daughter. The love during that moment was stronger than he had ever known during his twenty-four years of life.

         That love took him to a time when his mother was still alive. There was nothing to see but a little old lady, crawling down the street bent over her walker. How he wished he could tell her how much he loved her, just one more time. Suddenly, he was sitting next to her at the kitchen table. She thanked him for how much he had done for her in those last few weeks of her existence. How she was comforted just by his presence at her bedside although she was not able to respond. “I love you son.” She said, and then disappeared.

         Now standing in front of him was an old Indian man dressed in a full deer hide garment. His cheeks and forehead were painted with red and white stripes. There was a lone eagle feather held to his head by a thin leather strap. He felt the wisdom in the old mans wrinkled face.

The table morphed in to a blazing fire and the chairs became a group of old Indian warriors. The medicine man began chanting unknown words while circling around him. The warriors echoed the words growing louder in Dave’s head. The old man swished a smoldering pouch around in front of him. He thrust it at Dave and he again felt an excruciating pain in his arm.

         Teetering between wake and sleep, Dave opened his eyes and saw an old man hovering over him. Maybe he was hallucinating. He was confused. He was now sitting cross-legged on a dirt road. The fire in his mind grew brighter and hotter.

The chanting was now roaring in his head. The pain in his arm vanished. In his wakening state, he could see everything around him: the trees, the wrecked car, the roaring fire that was still stuck in his mind. The chanting was loud and deafening in his ears. The old man was slowly walking away. As he turned and disappeared in to the forest, everything was suddenly quiet. The silence buzzed and rang in the aftermath.