Read Online The Healing by David Park - Free Book Online Page B

your mum. Don’t be frightened. Trust me.’
    She opened the door and went out.
    The white page stretched in front of him like a sheet of ice. His fingers cautiously touched its coldness then pulled away. The pens bristled like arrows in a quiver. Above his head the sharp-beaked birds hovered menacingly. He looked at the page again. It gently called himon, inviting him to skate across its surface, and he could hear her voice in his head urging him to trust her. He imagined her standing on the other side of the desk with her arms outstretched, enticing him forward. Step onto the ice. Just a little step and she would reach out and catch him if there was any danger. He took the top off a pen. Trust her. Step out across the ice. Just one little step – that was all it would take.
    Suddenly the wail of a passing siren filled the room and his whole body was shaken by doubt. It was a trap. He would step out and the ice would crack beneath him, plunging him into the dark waters below. He would plummet into its black heart and then the ice would close over again above his head, trapping him in its frozen depths.
    He took the black marker and scored it feverishly across the page, obliterating as much of the blinding whiteness as he could. He did it until his wrist was sore and the smell of the ink soaked his senses, and as he did so, the glass eyes smiled down at him and the birds rotated gently once more. Outside, he could hear the doctor talking to his mother.
    â€˜. . . suffering from post-trauma stress disorder. A bit of a mouthful, I know, but not uncommon, I’m afraid. We can help him, but it will take time and careful therapy.’
    He put the cap back on the pen. Inside the filing cabinet, something creaked. The leaves of a plant fluttered then fell still again. The tone of his mother’s voice was changing. She sounded weary and suddenly full of doubt.
    â€˜I know you mean well, Doctor, and I know you canheal many sicknesses nowadays, but only God’s peace can heal my son now.’
    He rose from the chair, pushed it under the desk and went out to his mother. He stood beside her and she placed a hand on his shoulder. They both wanted to go and he closed his ears to the doctor’s voice which followed them out of the office and down the long corridor with its polished floor, and doors with names on them.
    A week later, on a Sunday night, his mother took him to God. It wasn’t the new church they had started to attend, but a large tent on playing fields close to where the river curved its ponderous course. They walked along the embankment where young men jogged past breathlessly, and young couples strolled hand in hand, to where the tent squatted large and white.
    Two men standing at the entrance gave them hymn sheets as they entered and a third guided them to seats. On a tiered level, a choir sat grouped around a pulpit. They were much younger than the choirs he was used to, and when they sang they clapped their hands and swayed gently from side to side. People in the congregation clapped along with them and there was a feeling of expectancy which he did not associate with church. He looked up at the roof of the tent where ropes and poles connected like the spokes of an umbrella. His mother bowed her head in prayer, her lips moving silently, synchronized with her soul. He wondered if small birds ever found themselves trapped inside the dome of the tent.
    Then the clapping grew louder and the singing became more insistent. A couple of rows in front of where they were seated, two girls stood up and raised their arms in theair as if they were surrendering to something. Their heads dropped back onto their shoulders and their faces searched upwards. More and more people filed their way into the tent until all the seats were taken, while some people stood in clusters at the back.
    The evangelist appeared from somewhere behind the choir, gripped both sides of the lectern and bowed his head solemnly,