DAPPLED THINGS

The next day when George woke up, still in the village, he had a terrible fever, and he could not move his shoulder around where his father bit him. There was an obvious swelling there as well. He managed to get up from his bed, took his bath and made his way to the clinic. At the clinic, the two nurses on duty refused to attend to patients until the doctor came around. After about two hours of waiting for the doctor to come in from the general hospital in the capital, George got some attention. The doctor examined the wound and almost scolded him for not coming as soon as he was bitten. He prescribed two injections for George but they were not available in the clinic’s almost non-existent pharmacy, as well as every other tablet and capsule that he prescribed for George also. George did not go to the clinic with enough money to get the prescriptions; he had to get home first. By the time he got home, a heavy rain started and he couldn’t go out to get the drugs anymore. He ate dinner and slept off with severe pains on his shoulder. It rained all through the night. When George woke up the next morning, it had stopped raining and he was healed. It was strange. The pain, the swelling, all gone; even the bite wound had healed. All that remained was teeth mark on his lower neck. He did not mention it to anyone, and he did not buy the prescriptions also. He went to see his father in the mental home. As he got to the mental home, one of the nurses who was on duty the previous night but stayed back to work her friends shift, called George aside and sounded really serious as she advised him to seek spiritual help for his father. She said his father was up all through the night reciting what seemed like incantations, and every attempt to shut him up yielded nothing. She did not expect him to understand, yet she emphasized that the sooner the better. His father never spoke a word again from that night until he died fifteen years after.