The Cure

They found the cure quite by accident. The band of island settlers had just recently arrived at the tropical paradise. They brought with them lots of different people—a farmer and his wife, a banker, several school teachers, a general store manager, an officer of the law, and a mayor. They even brought with them a doctor, but when the found the cure they sent him away. 

The island had skinny palm trees with thick green leaves, iguanas, and parrots. It had plenty of soil for farming and lots of room to build buildings, which they did in earnest. They even had basic utilities like electricity and sewage using a windmill and bamboo pipes. It always seemed sunny outside and the general-goods store was never able to keep up its stock of lemonade and hammocks. This island was like any other tropical paradise, except in one way.

It must have been a cold swell that chilled the island’s fisherman to the bone because he found he had a cough and looked pale after spending the day on his boat. He was on his way to see the doctor when he stopped at the general store to buy a net-repair kit. He made his purchase but didn’t shake hands. He didn’t want to get his good friend, the store clerk, sick. The clerk patted him on the back anyways, told him he hoped he felt better, and sent him on his way. This is the moment when they found the cure. 

In the exact moment the store clerk’s hand touched the fisherman’s back the fisherman felt better and the store clerk felt worse. The fisherman’s complexion immediately returned to a healthy shade just as the clerk’s immediately changed into a pale white. This trade in health was a surprise to both of them, and neither knew quite how to respond. The fisherman made as if to leave, but his sense of oddity at what had just happened wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t of the mystical sort, but he did trust his instincts, so he turned and patted his friend on the back. 

The fisherman instantly felt sick once more and the clerk better. The fisherman turned pale and the clerk’s complexion darkened. Although, both looked a little pale with their new discovery. They had just discovered that on this island and no other your neighbor could take your sickness from you with just his hands. With this new discovery they ran to find the mayor. 

The mayor did not believe their story until they convinced him to try patting the fisherman on the back. He did and began to look sickly right away. The clerk took the mayor’s sickness with a pat on his chest, which did the trick as well. They passed the sickness around the office and soon noticed the symptoms began to grow milder and milder. It was as if each of their immune systems fought of the sickness just a little bit better than the last. This led to the disappearance of their symptoms altogether. 

The cure wasn't in the transference of the sickness, but in them. With ten or twelve swaps of the chest cough they found it went away entirely and there was nothing else to pass around. The news spread quickly that they had discovered the cure. The mayor called a village meeting and announced that he had found a way to keep them all from getting sick. 

At first the villagers didn't believe their mayor, but their mistrust soon evaporated when their local farmer said he had also recently come down with a cough and was planning to see the doctor the next day. With that the mayor boldly showed in front of them all that this man's sickness could be fixed. The only person not at the village meeting was the doctor. This news didn't bother the mayor because he didn't much like the doctor. Not many did. He reminded them of sickness and so at this meeting the mayor, with the support of the settlers, decided to send the doctor away.

The mayor and his village kept the island’s mystery a secret. They knew if the word got out, thousands would come, and they didn’t want that. They kept the island to themselves and went about happy and content with their now sickness-free lives. Their island life was pleasant as no one had that much to do. They made improvements here and there. They built white-picket fences, cobble-stone paths, and constructed anything that made their life easier.

On occasion a villager would come down with a cough, cold, bee-sting, or other ailment, but they went right away to the mayor. He was considered by most to be the strongest and healthiest man in town, so he and his officer of the law would fight off the sickness together. They quite enjoyed the sense of power that accompanied laying their hands on the sick patient and taking their sickness upon themselves. Even the mayor’s secretary was intrigued enough to watch a rash disappear off the villager’s arm only to reappear on the arm of the officer of the law for a short while. They were willing to take on their neighbor’s ill health, if only for a moment. 

Several years later something changed on the island. At first it had only taken the mayor and his officer to cure a sickness. But the two of them soon noticed they were more and more tired after each session, so they asked the mayor’s secretary and the village banker to join in. Together the group of them successfully fought away ailments for a short while longer. 

It had only taken ten to twelve touches for the sickness to fade from among them in the beginning, but now it was beginning to take longer. One day a local farmer caught a particularly bad sinus infection. He went like everyone else to the mayor's office for healing, but his healing didn't happen as easily as the rest. His case took twenty-five passings of the sickness among the mayor and his team before the cure came. By the time the farmer went away well they were all went to their homes silently. No one had the courage to ask why the island wasn’t working the same way it had before. 

No one spoke of that day’s events until a week later when the next case of sickness came by the office. This sickness, unlike the farmer’s, was a simple migraine. It was nothing special but it didn’t go away until the thirty-third passing. This bothered the mayor a great deal, but he waited to call the villagers until he had more time to collect data. At his request, the mayor’s secretary began tracking the number of cures along with the number of times required to pass around the sickness before it disappeared. She soon discovered an alarming trend. Each ailment, no matter how serious, was taking longer than the previous ailment to heal. 

The numbers were climbing and the word soon got out that the cure was weakening. The mayor considered himself a teachable man, at least in public, so he called a village meeting. Together the village decided to change their method for dealing with island sickness. Instead of being so quick to pass around the sickness, they would each keep it for a day so their immune systems could fight the sickness longer. This seemed agreeable to the villagers, especially if no one had to be sick for very long. This was especially agreeable to the mayor as he and his people were tired of bearing the sickness of their fellow island inhabitants. 

The next time a patient came to see the mayor, his secretary came up with a schedule to manage their sickness. Each villager would take a turn being sick for a day before the next person in line took over. When the banker came in with an ingrown toenail, the general-store manager took it the first day, the school’s principal the second day, an electrician the third day, and by the fourth day the barber’s toe felt much better. This method, though slower, seemed to work well enough, so the mayor came up with a village registry. No one had to be sick for more than a week or so of the year, and that seemed to keep everyone happy enough.

This cure lasted about the same as the first cure, a few quick years, but not long enough. Just like it took more times passing the sickness around once before, it happened again. For no particular reason, it began to require more days for a sickness to go away.

The island was a special place, but it didn’t seem consistent as the cure was taking longer and longer to work. There was also a shorter and shorter gap between each sickness. No longer did it take a month for the next villager to become sick. Soon it was a couple weeks, then a week, and before they knew it someone was sick all the time, and they had to keep passing around the same ailments day by day. They could still exchange their colds and coughs with each other, but they didn’t go away permanently. The cure was gone.

The mayor with the enforcement of his officer created a new system with added benefits. They reasoned it wasn’t so bad to be sick for a week straight before receiving relief, so they worked out a longer rotation. Now everyone had their turn to be sick, but for a week instead of a day. Whoever was sick that week became a type of martyr, a town hero of sorts. He or she, whether adult or child, got discounts at the grocery store, a free haircut, and a premium investment rate at the bank. This was pleasant enough, but not the same as before.

At first there had been no more than one or two sick people on the island at a time. They still thought they had discovered the cure, but that changed when more and more people began to be sick at once. The whole system began to crumble. Soon it wasn't just two people that were sick at the same time, but four. This meant that everyone in the town was sick twice as often.

That's when the villagers began to call the cure the curse. They could only take so much sickness cheerfully. The villagers didn't want to be sick with their neighbor's disease anymore. Soon all free days were sick days and all work days were spent in dread of getting sick. No one wanted to get sick and would often skip out when it was their turn to become sick.

A month later the sickness multiplied again and then several times more. Now two thirds of the island was sick all the time. Those who were healthy were in the minority and they began to resist the officer of the law and the mayor, especially since both of them seemed to be sick less often than the rest of the village. No one wanted to abide by the now broken system.

The first crime the island ever saw was the forced sickness of a farmer. One evening a half dozen villagers ambushed him in his barn and forced him to place his hands on their chests and arms to take their coughs and rashes. He turned sick so fast he nearly perished. He would have if his wife hadn’t found him in time. The farmer was so feverish he couldn't remember who attacked him. 

The mayor’s investigation came up with no results but he did put an end to the sickness exchange system. He decided it was best to outlaw the transference of sickness altogether so as to keep the villagers safe. A few islanders thought he had planned the attack on the farmer, since he was healthy when the wellness program ended, but they had no proof.

This didn’t matter for long because the sickness multiplied once more and now everyone was sick all the time, even the mayor. The island was no longer a paradise. The villagers didn’t even touch each other anymore. They didn’t want their neighbor’s sickness along with their own. This reduced their day-to-day business to the sparsest of interaction. Everyone just wanted to get well. A black market soon sprang up, with the stronger villagers taking advantage of the weaker villagers. This led to the island's first fatalities.

One evening a dozen sick villagers snuck up on the same farmer on the edge of the island. He had a hunting rifle with him at all times since the first attack. He saw them coming through the underbrush as he sat coughing on his porch. He didn’t wait to ask questions but opened fire. He would have fired again if it hadn’t been for his chest congestion giving him shaky hands. 

The dozen villagers didn’t even scatter when the farmer shot one of them dead. They simply ran straight for him. They had no regard for their lives, just their health. They got to him before he could reload. He couldn’t handle their sickness along with his own. His wife hid in the farmhouse until they scattered. She tried to save her husband but he passed quickly.

The mayor and his officer of the law found the first victim dead in the woods. She was a school teacher. When the townsfolk heard the news they were surprised, or at least acted surprised. They were sorry about the school teacher but nobody seemed that sorry about the farmer except for his wife. Most hadn't liked him much since the mayor had often blamed him for making the island worse with his sinus infection.

The black market only grew after this. People ambushed each other every other day and were willing to get rid of their sickness by any means necessary. Each time an attack happened the mayor and his officer investigated, but with no results ever coming of it. It was pointless to try and get healthy because new sickness sprang up so quickly. That didn’t stop people from trying. They wanted the cure, and were willing to do almost anything to get well, even if it was only for the walk home. 

The sun shined every day but the hammocks and lemonade were always in stock at the general goods store. The buildings began to look old and worn and the village unkept. The tropical air was pure and clean, but that didn’t help. Everyone had the cough, bruises, diseases, infections, rashes, and headaches. The villagers had forgotten what it was like to shake hands and give each other hugs. They wouldn’t touch each other anymore, unless by force. 

Through it all the fisherman and clerk had remained friends. They were both sick and dying and one of the few to admit it to themselves. Most thought their sickness would pass. Most thought that just like it had come upon them one day they would one day wake up well. The two of them met together to remember a time many years prior when they had come the island. They remembered the doctor and how he had left. They were as bad as everyone else who sent him away, and now they were all deathly sick. Now was the time, they believed, to call him back.

The clerk and the fisherman went to the mayor and asked him to send for the doctor. They expected him to listen but instead he ran them out of Town Hall. He was angry they would even ask to send for the doctor. No one had died except by accident and he believed no one would die. His people were out searching for a cure at that very moment. If all went well, they would find a new one in no time. 

The fisherman and the clerk thought the sickness must have gone to the mayor’s head, so they sent for the doctor anyways. Then they waited. They waited and hoped the doctor would come. They received a letter that he would indeed come, but they must take precautions as the mayor didn’t want him to return. 

The fisherman and the clerk rallied a few friends who they knew wanted the doctor to come. They told the farmer's widow, the principal of the school, the barber, and a few other villagers. The lot of them met the doctor at the dock the next week and smuggled him back to the general goods store. 

The doctor was a rough man, both in appearance and mannerism. He didn't speak much, but when he did, he spoke as one who had seen much sickness. He did not tell them they had been wrong to send him away, which they knew very well, but that they could not cure themselves. He told them only he could cure them if they would trust him. They expected him to bring out medicine bottles and bandages but he carried nothing but an extra pair of clothes. Instead, he had each one come up and show him how they were sick. 

The fisherman came forward first and showed him the long cut he had received on his leg from a fishing trip. It had grown infected and would not heal. The doctor ran his hands down the man's calf and the wound reappeared on his own leg. But then the doctor rested his hands over the fisherman’s heart. The fisherman tried to explain he was fine and didn’t have a chest cold, but the doctor didn’t listen. 

Next the clerk came forward. He had red eye, a stomach rash, and an ear infection. The doctor healed him and did the same for the farmer’s widow, who had developed stomach ulcers from the passing of her husband. He healed the principal, barber, and the other villagers as well. They all flinched when the he touched them. They had forgotten what hands felt like. He always ended with his hands over their hearts for reasons they didn’t seem to understand. 

The doctor grew weaker and paler by the patient but continued until the last patient was cured. Then he collapsed on the floor sweating and sick. The little band of patients, who were all well now, had no idea what to do for him. They had no time to come up with a plan because the mayor, his officer of the law, and a band of angry villagers broke down the front door of the general store. The doctor’s patients scattered as the mayor ordered the arrest of the doctor and had him dragged out onto the town square.

The whole village was outside waiting. They kicked and scratched the doctor, adding fresh wounds to his already feverish body. They knew if he’d never left they would never have gotten sick. They had done just fine until the doctor went away. He left because he wanted them to die. He didn’t bring any medicines to heal them, after all, but had come to gloat. The doctor had come to watch them suffer. The mayor asked the crowd what they wanted, and they all condemned him to death. 

The mayor and his officer, along with the villagers, dragged the doctor outside the village. They stripped him of his clothes, tore them to pieces, and tied him to a palm tree. When they stripped him naked, they did not find the strong man who had come to the island just a few hours previous, but a sick man who was dying. The doctor had a long infected cut on his calf from the fisherman, a red eye and stomach rash from the clerk, and other ailments from the rest of his patients. Those patients were now hiding in the distant shadows.

The mayor grabbed the doctor’s hands and placed them on his forehead. He’d been suffering from a migraine all month, but unlike all the other times he’d taken advantage of the weaker townsfolk, this time his headache didn’t go away. The cure didn’t work. The mayor was quite surprised by this but didn’t let it frustrate him. He called over the officer of the law and ordered him to give his lip infection to the doctor. But this time also the doctor’s hands did nothing for him. One by one the mayor had the villagers try and force their sickness upon the doctor, but nothing happened. With this news the mayor’s face grew redder and redder, contorting into an angry mess. He pushed aside the last villager and wrapped his hands around the doctor’s neck. He grunted and squeezed until it was finished.

Storm clouds blew over the island as the sick villagers and their mayor coughed and wheezed their way home. It rained as the doctor’s patients came and untied him. The water did very little to clean up his bloody wounds so they took him out to the farm house and laid him on the kitchen table. They wiped him off and closed his eyes. They crossed his arms so that his hands rested over his own heart. They didn’t speak among themselves but they all wept and wished they hadn’t run away. 

In this moment no one in the farm house had any hope. They had long since forgotten how the doctor cured them and didn’t realize the cure had stuck. They were all alive and well but they no longer cared as they wept for their doctor. The small band of patients went away one-by-one, leaving the widowed farmer’s wife to tend the body. 

She sat looking at the body for a while. She noticed that the doctor’s corpse, though still pale, looked much healthier now than it first had when they brought him home. The stomach rash had disappeared along with the gash in his leg. All the bruises and wounds were also gone. The purple marks around his neck had disappeared and color had returned to his cheeks. He now looked perfectly well except for a fresh scar on his chest. She thought she must be dizzy so she poured herself a glass of water and took a long sip. A flicker of movement caught the corner of her eye. She turned around and his body was gone.

Photo Credit: Caneles via Compfight cc

Author Bio: Jonathan M. Romig (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell) is the associate pastor at Immanuel Church in Chelmsford Massachusetts (CCCC). He blogs at PastorRomig.blogspot.com. He recently self-published his first ebook How To Give A Christian Wedding Toast.