෴Dr. Ramit Patel෴
෴Raz෴
෴Fidel෴
෴Ingrid*෴
෴Fenny*෴
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
Refugees: Africa Confidential Part 3
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
{{Interviewee info: Dr. Ramit Patel is a medical doctor, hailing from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He’s an average-looking middle-aged man with streaks of silver appearing in his black hair. He has the deep tan of someone from South-East Asia, who has spent quite a lot of time in the sun. He met me dressed in jeans and a scrub shirt. His overall bearing is somewhat tired, and the sort of stress you see in driven people. He has been part of MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders), for many years. The refugee camp, known simply as R1996 after the year it was established, houses well over a million displaced people from the surrounding regions. Dr. Patel is not the only doctor in the camp, but is the only full-time doctor on site. His English is good, with a hint of British or high caste Indian education in his accent. He speaks fast, with little gap or pause between his words.}}
{{Interviewer Note: I am 1.75m tall, the doctor is a bit shorter than myself.}}
{{Interview begins:}}
{{Dr. Patel, thank you for agreeing to this interview.}}
No problem no problem. It’s the least I can do. I assume you want to talk about Raz Owens.
{{I’m hoping you’ll talk about the events of his time here, in however much detail you’re willing to give.}}
Yes, of course. When they arrived, I assumed they were military deserters or mercenaries. Both can be trouble for us out here.
{{Rather than ask questions, I allowed nearly a minute of silence to stretch out, until Dr. Patel resumed.}}
I remember it clearly. It was still in the heat of the day. I’d just completed another back-to-back set of palatoplastys. That’s cleft palate repair. I’m not in charge here, but being the only doctor here, and the only full-time surgeon for hundreds of miles, we get people dropping in, and they frequently need my services.
When those people are deserters or mercs, they don’t always ask nicely. We have camp security, but we’re set up for minor disturbances or hostile wildlife, not local warlords. When I saw them get out of that military truck, I took one look at her blood stained clothing and assumed the young lady had been shot. Well, that’s not exactly true. It looked more like someone else had been shot, and she was wearing that person’s clothing. They had a small white dog with them, but it was extremely skittish. I don’t think I saw it come out of the shadow of the truck even once in the daytime.
The woman stayed by the truck, and the two men walked toward the administrative tent. I’d love to say I knew she was trouble, but if I’m being honest, she’s a very beautiful young lady, and her staying near the truck, or even remaining hiding the whole time, wouldn’t have struck me as weird out here. I’m not sure I can claim to have seen past her appearance myself. I warn my staff when they rotate in, this isn’t a safe place to be too attractive. I don’t like it, it’s not fair or good or right, but that’s the reality.
Neither of the men was armed, which I took as a sign they weren’t there to start trouble. The buff Slavic-looking guy didn't say much. He seemed to take his cues from the other guy with the unusual-looking blonde roots growing out. They introduced themselves, and Mr. Owens asked me if he could use the radio or sat phone to call for assistance. He made it clear that he wouldn’t tell me how or why the three of them came to be driving across the southern edge of the Sahara without much in the way of supplies, and no communications.
I agreed to let him use our communications equipment. Then disaster struck.
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
“Ok ok gentlemen, I get it. You don’t want to say too much about your situation. If you don’t mind working to pay your way, we can use the help around here, and we’re happy to help you call your people,” He scrawled a quick note on a scrap of paper and handed it to a passing staffer. They spoke about the details of lodging and food for a moment while Dr. Patel waited for the staffer to let him know the radio was ready.
“You sound American,” Dr. Patel pointed at Raz, “and you sound and, no offense, look Russian. Even now, so many years after Perestroika, I’m glad to see East and West working together.” Ramit was suspicious of this small group, but up close it was even more clear that they carried no weapons, and seemed friendly enough.
Fidel nodded, “Da, is right.”
Raz shrugged, “I probably do sound American, and he definitely sounds Russian, no idea why anyone would be offended by that. Perestroika was the thing during that fall of the USSR?”
Fidel turned to him, his expression aghast. “You need learn history.”
Raz half shrugged, “Ok, you can tell me all about it later. Ancient world history was always way more interesting to me,” he turned to Dr. Patel, “Where’s your radio gear?”
A teenage boy sprinted up to the doctor, speaking fast and pointing behind him. One of the tents a few rows down was releasing great belches of smoke.
“No!” Ramit ran toward the smoke. Raz followed him. Fidel glanced around, then jogged after them.
The tent was fully engulfed in flames. Several people were using shovels and fire extinguishers to subdue the blaze. The three men joined in the firefighting effort, bringing the flames under control within a few minutes.
Raz sniffed the air, “Hmm,” he flashed a quick glance back toward their truck, “burned insulation, burning plastic, a lot of diesel. Do you store fuel here?”
Dr. Patel sank to his haunches and shook his head. “No, no diesel should be here, this is the communications tent.”
Raz sighed. “I’m sorry about this. I hope it’s just a terrible coincidence. In the meantime, what can we do to help out around here?”
One of the other staffers came up to Dr. Patel, “Was anyone scheduled to make a call just now?”
The doctor shook his head no. “No, we’ll need to check-in and put in a supply order tomorrow, but no one should be using the radio or phone today.”
The staffer shook his head, “That doesn't make sense. The phone antenna has a short DTMF message going out, it looks like right before the fire started.”
Fidel perked up at this. “Can see message?”
The young man shook his head again, “No sir, the cache shows the last few tones sent for diagnostics, but it doesn’t track the message. That part is done in—well, was done, in there,” he pointed at the smoking tent.
Dr. Patel looked at the two men and threw up his hands. “Nothing to be done about it now. A small stroke of luck on the timing I guess, they’ll send someone out with communication equipment when we don’t check in tomorrow.”
Raz glanced upward then focussed on the doctor. “Well, what can we do to help out around here?”
“Well, what can you do?” Ramit countered. He suspected that these travelers wouldn’t have much to offer, but he appreciated the willingness.
Raz looked like he was about to speak, but Fidel beat him to it.
“Construction, some repair. What you need built or fix?” The t-shirt clad Russian pantomimed rolling up his sleeves.
Dr. Patel smiled widely, “That’s great! I’ve got some people to put you in touch with. I’m sure we can use your skills! Always something needing to be built or fixed,” he pointed out a tent a few rows down, “Go there, tell them I sent you to help,” he looked to Raz, “What about you?”
Raz shrugged, “I can do a little, of a lot of things. You said you’re the only doctor. This place looks huge. I can help you.”
Ramit smiled, “Not the only doctor, just the only full-timer. We rotate medical staff. Are you a doctor? You should have mentioned. We can—” he trailed off as he saw Raz shaking his head.
“Well, the nursing unit would be happy to—” He stopped as Raz shook his head again.
Ramit frowned, “Ok, well what is your medical training?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I don’t have any medical training beyond some first aid, but I—”
The doctor’s expression hardened. “Look, I know this place doesn't look like much to you, but these people deserve real medical care as much as any other patient. I don’t know what you’re thin—”
This time Raz verbally cut him off, “Whoa, hold up. I don’t expect you to just believe me, but I have a catalyst ability that lets me heal. I just need to know that you’ve got camp security in place. The ability has a bit of a side effect of calling in monsters.”
Dr. Patel spat on the ground between them, “I don’t have time for your nonsense. Just help your friend with whatever they assign him.
The doctor stormed off, already worried that these two would be more trouble than they were worth.
Later that afternoon, Dr. Patel found Raz in the infirmary. Seeing Raz sitting next to a patient, eyes closed with his hand on the old man’s chest, anger surged in him.
Ramit grabbed the charge nurse by the elbow and took him outside. Once outside, he began to dress the man down about allowing a random person into the patient care area. The nurse broke his arm free from the doctor’s grip.
“He’s working through the hospice tent! Whatever he’s doing, it’s working! It’s real!” the nurse insisted.
Ramit growled in anger, “The last thing these poor people need is a damn faith healer raising their hopes only to have them sick again tomorrow when the endorphins wear off!”
“With respect Dr. Patel, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve seen my scar from that IED right?” the male nurse asked.
The doctor nodded. Without another word, the nurse lifted his scrub shirt, revealing a hairy, but otherwise unmarred expanse of skin on his abdomen and chest, “I had a 17-inch scar that hurt every time I bent over. Now the only evidence it was there is my chest hair is shorter in that spot” he let the shirt fall. “He got rid of that scar in seconds. You know there are people with healing powers from that stuff. Why are you trying to stop him?”
Dr. Patel looked at the man’s skin where he knew a scar had been, “Yeah, but they all stay home and rake in the money for working once or twice a month. Why would someone with a healing power be out here?”
The nurse pointed at Raz, then swept his arm over the room full of patients. “Who cares? He’s here, he’s willing to help, let’s just let him do it until he gets tired.”
The doctor was off-balance, grasping at straws. “But, what about the long-term effects? That stuff, catalyst, that's the word, those powers are unproven. What if there are side effects?”
The nurse shook his head, “He started in the hospice tent, those people don’t have long-term prospects. Why not have a look at some of them that he claims to have healed. You’ll be the perfect person to verify his work.”
The doctor threw up his hands. “Fine, let him continue. Tell him to meet me in my tent when he’s done with people in immediate danger. But if even one patient worsens under his ‘care’, you shut this down!” With that, he stalked off toward the admin building.
A few hours later Raz found him in his tent as he was flipping through patient records. The doctor kept him waiting for a moment before he acknowledged his visitor. When he finally looked up, Raz was pouring a dollop of viscous fluid onto his palm and rubbing it into his hands and forearms.
“Is that hand sanitizer? You shouldn't be wasting it. We’re dangerously low on that!” He snapped at Raz.
The younger man shrugged, “It’s not hand sanitizer,” he showed Ramit the shiny metal flask, “Even if it was, it’s mine. So what did you need, or were you just looking to yell at me again? I can use the break, but I don’t need the yelling.”
“Have a seat,” Ramit gestured to the chair on the other side of the table from him.
Raz sat.
“So you say you can heal the sick. Can you also heal wounds?” The doctor asked.
Raz leaned forward and rested his arms on the table, “I haven't found anything I couldn’t heal yet, but that doesn't mean there aren't limits. Most of these people don’t have enough catalyst in them to get the job done, so at the very least, I’m blowing through a precious resource to do it.”
Dr. Patel leaned forward, his right hand awkwardly under his left. “But you do maintain that you can heal injuries? Even to yourself?”
Raz nodded, “That’s right.”
Dr. Patel lashed out with the hidden scalpel in his right hand. As he saw his quick slash catch nothing but the air, he also saw something he didn’t understand.
Raz moved inhumanly fast. Rising to his feet, waving his arms to keep balance as he stepped back, something about the light, and the speed made him look as though for an instant, he had four or even six arms.
The doctor sat there dumbfounded. “How did you? What?! How?”
Raz pointed at him. Ramit had the sudden intense sensation of being crushed under an intangible weight.
“Do not try that again. What was your intention?” The younger man demanded in an imperious tone.
Ramit sagged in his chair. “I was aiming for a superficial laceration to your forearm. I wanted to see you fail at healing it.”
Raz let out a sharp bark of laughter, “Oh, is that all? Fine, but a better test would be to cut yourself. I might have a way to fake it or even a self-only regenerative power.”
Ramit looked at the scalpel, then at his own left arm. “You’re right,” without stopping to let himself overthink, he lightly drew the blade along the back of his arm, creating a long shallow razor cat that began to bleed freely. “Ok, do your thing.”
“It’s funny that you say you don’t believe I can do it at all, but also believe that if I can, I will, even after you tried to cut me.” Raz stepped forward, and plucked the scalpel from his grip in the blink of an eye, “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you bleeding there. Ok, here we go.”
A sudden infusion of warmth and euphoric well-being flooded through the doctor. All too soon, the feeling faded, and he only then thought to look at the wound. It was gone. Not scabbed, or scarred, gone as though it had never been, with only the fresh blood to mark where the cut had been.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Raz dropped his hand, “So, we good? Are we done here? I’d like to help as many of your people as possible before my ride gets here.”
“Yes yes! Of course! I’m so sorry for doubting you. Please, will you join me for dinner this evening? I’d love to learn more about what it’s like to have a power like yours.” Ramit tried to form coherent words, confronted face to face with a power he’d only heard rumors of, and only partially believed in.
Raz nodded casually, “Sure, I gotta check on my people, and make sure all the parasite removals I already started kept going well. Did you know you have a major problem with roundworms here?”
Dr. Patel nodded. “Yes, Ascaris and Hookworm are quite common around here. Are you saying you can remove parasites as well??
Raz stopped at the tent flap, “For sure. From what I can tell, a lot of these people wouldn't even be sick if they didn't have the parasites. I’ve still got a lot to do while I can. I’ll catch you later doc. By the way, you don’t need to worry about that pancreatic cancer anymore.”
He sat there speechless, thinking about the ramifications if what he’d just heard was true.
The doctor headed to the main infirmary to schedule a panel of oncology tests for himself. He knew he’d need to leave the camp to get that kind of lab work done, something he preferred to avoid.
Afterward, he’d took the time to swing by the maintenance tent, where he found Fidel working with the crew. The language barrier between them didn’t seem to matter. A few hours in, and they were working together like old friends. After Raz’s display, seeing Fidel drive in nails with his index finger didn’t have quite as much impact as it should have. The doctor just nodded and smiled, then continued his rounds.
At dinner time, Raz was nowhere to be found. Fidel ate with gusto, and the blonde with them managed to show up when it was time to eat, but the man he’d been hoping to talk to was nowhere to be found.
Dr. Patel checked the infirmary, then the nearly empty hospice unit. On his way back, he heard something from the triage tent that caught his ear. He slipped inside to find Raz wearing a rear-fasten surgical gown over his clothing, holding a tiny newborn. Ramit didn’t expect to see an infant here. The obstetrics tent was halfway across the camp. Just looking at the minuscule baby, and the oddly proportioned head and limbs told him this baby was no older than 24 or 25 weeks from conception, born a full trimester early.
“What,” he cleared his throat, “What happened here?” Ramit asked.
The man’s gaze snapped up at him, eyes blazing with force. As he took in the doctor, the tangible power in his gaze died down, “Hey doc, they’re looking for you. You might want to get scrubbed in. Got an emergency cesarian finishing up right now over in your operating room.”
Ramit nodded thanks and rushed off toward the OR. As he left the tent he heard Raz speaking to someone, “How? What can I do? How can someone so small possibly survive?”
Several hours later, on the heels of his third surgical procedure of the day, he found Raz and the baby gone. Dr. Patel staggered toward the cafeteria, hoping there was still some food left from dinner. He stopped by the privacy-divided tent he’d found for the guests. Fidel and the woman were there, having a heated discussion about ethics or morals, Raz wasn’t there.
Thinking through what someone carrying around a tiny premature birth baby would need, he headed to the area set aside for new mothers.
Without any common language, the young man had managed to persuade several young mothers to help feed the preemie. He arrived just in time to see the tiny girl with a full belly being passed back to Raz. He leaned back and placed her there resting against the skin of his chest, supporting her with one arm wrapped protectively around her diminutive form. Both man and baby lay there relaxing, eyes closed. Ramit struggled to get a read on this man, but by his tight posture and pinched expression, he looked to be suppressing a lot of pain.
Ramit hated to do it, but he realized he’d need to set the young man straight on the harsh reality of the situation sooner rather than later.
Raz somehow knew he was coming. Without opening his eyes he spoke up, “Sorry to stand you up doc, this little lady couldn’t really wait. I didn’t realize it, but I can’t directly use my healing on a newborn. I’d forgotten that catalyst won't bond with anything too young. Not something I usually have to think about.”
Dr. Patel sat down next to him. “Mr. Owens, I clearly came at you the wrong way earlier. I’m sorry about that. We’re all very grateful for your efforts in the hospice unit.”
Keeping his eyes closed, Raz reached out and gave his knee a single perfunctory pat. “It’s all good. Everyone makes mistakes. I make ‘em all the time. Paying for one right now.”
“Look,” Ramit glanced around to make sure none of the young mothers were within earshot, “You need to understand that this baby has no chance to live. In a real hospital, in a first-world country, I’d give a kid this small maybe 30% odds. Maybe if you could use that power on it, you could change that, but you just said you can't. You’re new to this healing ability, aren't you? I’ve seen this with new doctors. You need to be able to let go.”
Raz pulled the edges of his shirt a little tighter over the infant, keeping the child close to his chest. “We’ll see.”
Dr. Patel closed his eyes, shaking his head, for a moment forgetting that Raz had his eyes closed, “Did they even do an APGAR?”
A barely visible flash of light seemed to pass between the man and the baby. Raz grunted and stiffened as though something had abruptly hurt him, “No idea. I don’t even know what apgar means.”
Seeing this brought a tear to the old doctor’s eyes. He knew how hard it was to lose a patient. He didn’t want to imagine having his first patient lost, be a child. “You have to realize. You can’t save everyone. No one can.”
Raz didn’t answer, just kept breathing slow and deep.
“Listen, you gotta hear me on this,” The doctor’s Dhaka accent became more pronounced as he felt old emotions welling up, “This kid can’t make it. She’s not going to be able to breathe. So many heart and lung problems, in general, are in her immediate future. We’re not set up to handle an extreme preemie. If the radio wasn’t ashes, I could request some NICU equipment, but even so, she’d be dead before it arrived.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it covered.” Raz mumbled, sounding like he was moments from sleep.
Ramit carefully placed his hand on the infant’s back for a moment, finding surprisingly steady and strong breathing. “Look, my man, I read the files. As far as I’m concerned, you performed 104 miracles today, 105 if you count this child’s mother. I heard you stabilized them both before the emergency C-section.”
Raz rubbed at his temples with his free hand, then pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. “That's great. Glad to help. Sure it’s a drop in a damned ocean of suffering out there, but who’s counting?”
Ramit realized it was much worse than he thought, this young man felt the weight of the world rested on him because of his power to heal. “You can’t take that on yourself. You must know this! To heal wounds, or an illness, removing parasitic infestations, this is all amazing! You can do things I could never do. If I could—”
Raz cut him off, “Actually, if you had my ability, you could probably do even more than I can with it. If you’ll excuse the idiom, what I do is a very direct and manual process. Classical medical training would go a long way with this ability.”
Ramit tore his gaze away from the child and looked at Raz’s tired face. “Is that why you can do so much? I know of five people with a healing ability other than you in the entire world, and you’ve just put them all to shame. As far as I know, they’re all basically hired healers for the ultra-rich and politically connected, and most of them take days to deal with anything serious.”
“Nah, that's a whole other thing. It’s an ability with tradeoffs, that's for sure.” Raz muttered. Throughout the conversation, the arm cradled around the tiny infant stayed constantly in contact with the baby.
Ramit whispered a prayer to Dhāt, repeating a mantra of healing and hope he’d not thought of in years. “I know it’s hard, but the sooner you accept reality, the easier this will be. Extremely premature babies need an entire natal intensive care unit to have a chance at survival. We have nothing like that here. We don’t even have the basics. No bili lights, no cpaps, all our medical equipment is too large for preemies. We don’t even have needles small enough to deliver medications or take blood samples.”
Raz didn’t reply, just lay there breathing deeply.
Dr. Patel could tell his reasoning wasn’t reaching Raz at all, “I know it’s rough, you have no idea how much I know it. Right out of medical school, I had to take a job in a clinic that specialized in–certain procedures that are considered taboo where I lived. It was horrible. The one thing I learned there, was that the best thing to do sometimes, is just get it over with,” he reached out to lift the child off Raz’s chest.
Eyes still closed, Raz’s other hand blurred into place and interposed itself between his grasp and the child. An abrupt, powerful sensation of danger suffused Ramit’s entire being. It reminded him of the feeling of imminent death he’d felt the day he’d slipped and nearly fallen off a high cliff as a teenager. The sudden irrefutable knowledge that the hand of Yama rested on his soul, ready to tear it free at the slightest misstep.
“Doc? You seem like a good guy. I know you think you’re trying to help. But if you so much as touch this child with ill intent, it will literally be your last action in this life.” Raz spoke very calmly, as though delivering death threats was a normal part of his day.
Ramit lurched back and sat down again a few feet away. The sense of mortal peril subsided, mostly. “I’m not going to hurt the baby, what kind of monster do you think I am? I’m just hoping to ease your burden a little. I’m just trying to tell you we don’t have any of the things she’ll need to survive. I heard you, you know. ‘How could someone so small possibly survive?’ Those were your words, and I don’t have an answer for you.”
Raz finally opened his eyes. An oppressive wave of some kind of energy rolled off him. Ramit suddenly found himself struggling to breathe, barely able to keep from falling over. Raz didn’t look at Ramit, just dug into his pocket for the flask of not-hand-sanitizer, and dribbled a gelatinous blob of the red-brown liquid onto his chest a few inches from the child. Ramit watched the gel vanish before his eyes. When Raz closed his eyes, Ramit finally took a long shaky breath, only then feeling how light-headed he’d become.
Raz rested his head back against the camp chair, “I get you. You don’t have an answer. I do. If you’re not here to help, then just leave me alone. I’m tired, and this little girl, she’s going to be fine.”
Ramit felt like whatever was happening here, he needed to be a good devil's advocate to help this young man avoid the trauma of vesting too much hope in a hopeless patient. “You do know, that even if she lives, she’ll probably have cerebral palsy, a host of learning disabilities, and problems all through her system, and probably never even be able to walk or talk.”
Raz looked Ramit in the eye, another wave of some invisible force all but shoving the doctor backward. “No. I said she’ll be fine.”
“What will you feed her?” he pressed.
Raz let out a small laugh that came out completely incongruous with his death threats a moment before. “Oh, that’ll be no problem. Turns out dialing a few boobs up to eleven was the easiest thing I’ve done all day. Getting these mothers to understand what I was offering, now that was awkward.”
Dr. Patel blinked, and decided not to think too much about what that meant. “Ok, I’m dropping the subject. I deeply hope you’re right. Let’s shift topics. I brought some dinner.”
Raz’s free hand snapped out in his direction fast enough to make the doctor flinch. “Gimme! I’m starving.”
“Here you go. While you eat, maybe you can tell me why you’re here,” he handed off the plate to Raz.
“Well, a long time ago, my mommy and daddy loved each other very much. Why are you here?” Raz retorted.
Ramit suppressed a similar witty response and started to talk about his childhood before Raz stopped him.
“No no, I get it, but why are you here? You speak excellent English, you’re an experienced surgeon. You could have a nice easy gig in the states, or the UK, or back home. So specifically, why, are you here? Choosing to live in conditions not much better than the refugees you’re helping.”
Dr. Patel sighed and looked to the stars for a moment. “You should know, I wouldn’t take that question from most people. But I suspect in some ways, you and I have a lot in common, so I’ll give a shot at a succinct answer that’s true.”
The doctor shifted in his seat, and spent some time thinking before continuing to speak. “There are a lot of answers, but sometimes you find your life at a crossroads. I spent too much time practicing medicine I didn’t morally agree with. Sometimes the choice facing you is one between good living, and living good. I was taught to make the decisions the man I want to be would make.” Ramit replied.
Raz chuckled, “That sounds too much like a practiced soundbite, but I’ll allow it, since I was taught the same thing.”
“What about you? You’re clearly no one typical. What’s next for you?” Ramit asked, glancing at his watch.
“Oh, probably just going to get the next tier of White Fire before bed, then get started on Might, since apparently, it takes a while. Kinda depends on how much time and catalyst I have left.” Raz muttered drowsily.
Ramit had no idea what that meant, but it was getting late. “Ok, my young friend, let us get you and your charge, back to your tent.”
“Nuh-uh. Have to stay close, she’s already getting hungry again. She's gonna need a lot of milk tonight.” He muttered as he carefully sat up.
The doctor held up both hands in a halting motion. “I don’t think they’ll let you sleep in there with them. It’s not a good idea anyway. A lot of the children in this area, or the mothers, are sick.
“Were” Raz grunted.
Ramit continued, “This here is the quarantine area for newborns,” he pointed at a group of tents a few hundred feet away, “That over there is where the healt—”
Raz cut him off, “Were! Yeah, past tense. They were sick. Now they’re not. I also got the other cleft palate kids taken care of, so you can take them off your docket,” He shifted his arm around the infant as he stood on unsteady legs, each movement causing a rictus of pain to cross his face. “They all gathered around and watched me do it. Not to sound crude, but I’m pretty sure I could sleep wherever I want in there at this point,” he opened the tent flap, revealing a small light glowing by an empty cot before stepping inside.
“Well, aren’t you just making friends all over,” the doctor muttered to himself as he made his way back to his tent.
{{Did anything else happen that day?}}
If anything else happened, I didn’t hear about it. I was dead to the world until late the next morning. The next day, things were much the same. The most notable change was that the baby girl was reunited with her mother, who he’d apparently given some additional care first thing that morning. That isn't the notable part. That baby that the obstetrician had logged as 730g, was now 2.9kg, and looked almost ready for early solid foods. Yeah, I know. I’m well aware that it’s impossible for a baby to grow four times its size in the first night of its life. I’m very aware of that, and when I asked him how he did it, when he’d already told me he couldn’t use his power on her directly, he just said, “I cheated.”
His cheat must not have come without a cost, because he only managed to do a little healing the second day, and mostly laid around like he had the mother of all hangovers. At least until camp security came to get him.
The most important thing he did for the camp that day was taking a walk around the camp, and marked where to dig to find water. That doesn't sound like much, but water is always a potential problem here. Even looking like death warmed over, he wanted to be involved, wanted to help.
Oh right, another notable thing I almost forgot, he did something to that water in the well. It didn’t last, but as far as I could tell, for that day, the water was completely clear of microbial and parasitic life, everyone that drank from that water that day, it was like that night, they suddenly got a month's worth of bodily recovery and rest.
You don’t look impressed, so I don’t think I’m describing that very well. You might not know this, but out here, if you drink water that hasn’t been boiled, and treated with calcium chlorite or otherwise sterilized, you should assume you’re going to get parasites. It’s almost a certainty. I mean, just walking in the water here can give you parasites. I don't have a clue how he did it, but for that day, the water in that well was clean of infectious life and everyone who drank some, which turned into pretty much everyone in the camp, woke up the next morning feeling amazing, and any small injuries were just gone.
{{IN: I try to keep a neutral expression during interviews.}}
On that note, I suddenly had a lot less on my plate, so I helped him stay busy. I think he needed that, far more than even he knows. I served as a field surgeon in the Bangladesh Army. I’m not a counselor, but that boy has clearly been through some things. I’d say he needs therapy, maybe even PTSD treatment, but he doesn't seem to have the kind of life that has room for two weekly appointments with a psychologist. One of the things he did was draw up this document, or picture. Then he stared at it, studying it as though he hadn’t just written it himself. We quickly discovered that some people would kind of twitch, and feel a strange sensation when they first saw it, and others had no reaction.
He left that paper with me when I mentioned my friend who studies ancient languages. I still don’t know what that was about. My friend has since gotten back to me and said it had to be a fake, or a hoax. It has characters from many early written proto-languages, from all over the world. Mr. Owens sure thought it meant something.
He and Fidel did a lot for us. One thing is for sure, by the end of that second day, I don’t think there was a person in that camp that didn’t know who Raz Owens was, and what he’d done for them. Do you have kids?
{{I do.}}
So maybe you can understand what it would be like to know that your kid will never walk right, or at all, or any of many birth defects that are common here. Or knowing your child would go to bed hungry or thirsty again, or just not live out the week. It’s hard to even think about it, so imagine it being your inescapable reality. Then imagine how you’d feel if someone came along, asked nothing of you, and, well, didn’t make all those problems go away, but made some of them go away, and the rest of them take a big step back, pushed those problems out of your face for a while. I was there, and I still don’t think I can truly imagine how they felt about him. He gave me back the rest of my life, but that’s still nothing compared to what he did for some people in the camp.
{{IN: I felt like he’d skipped something important here if the camp security was taking Mr. Owens into custody.}}
{{The rest of your life? Also, why did your camp security get him?}}
Oh yeah, I should have mentioned. My stage four pancreatic cancer is gone. He gave me a new lease on life.
{{IN: He sat there, looking at his hands for nearly a minute. He seemed lost in recollection, so I finally prompted him.}}
{{And the camp security coming to get Mr. Owens?}}
Ah yes, well you see, most of the camp security is made of up the same refugees that we house. Which means that they’re also the same group he’d already helped. So, despite him looking sick and exhausted, the camp security guards took his lack of weapons as meaning he needed help defending himself.
Between you and me, I don’t think they would have thought that if they’d felt what I felt that night when I reached for the child. In any case, they took it upon themselves to spend some time teaching him to fight. I wasn’t there for that, but I know they have a shooting area a few hills over, and I’m told he was quite the prodigy with a rifle. I didn’t hear them shooting for long, so they must have spent most of the time with sticks. I don’t really follow it myself, but I know the stick and club based martial arts are big in this area, and Africa in general. We have a lot of stick based fighting styles where I come from as well. Before he left, they presented him with a polished, metal-reinforced, spiked war club. My understanding is that they’re quite coveted weapons, made by a small group of fine craftsmen here. They told me presenting one of these clubs is a sort of top-level graduation gift.
{{Is this something they do often? Perhaps an honorary gift?}}
Good lord no. I asked those exact questions! It’s the first time an outsider has earned a master club. I assumed it was mostly because of how much he did for the camp, and said as much. They were quite offended at the idea. Several of them were quick to correct me on that account. According to them, he was the ‘perfect student’, whatever that really means.
As I think about it, after they arrived, a lot of the day-to-day problems in the camp got better. They’re still better. People working together, helping each other. He gave them hope in a way I never could. He only directly worked with a few hundred people, but somehow that man affected a lasting change on a million-plus people in a couple of days. I’m not sure how, but he inspired a sort of loyalty to an outsider I didn’t think was even possible. If this is how he is everywhere he goes, then if he ever raised a battle standard, heaven help those he stands against.
{{And on the third day?}}
Well, on the third day, everything went to hell.