Empty Hand Revolution

Healing Never Comes Easy

The torture lasted long enough to lose meaning. After the first day, Cosmo couldn’t remember why it was happening or what his captors wanted. Half the time, no one seemed to know. By the third day, he couldn’t remember anything.

Finally, he slinked inside a cave in the back of his mind and went to sleep. The violence and pain continued. He felt every bit, but kept no record. Each blow, shock or cut erased the one preceding it. And so he killed his past a moment at a time.

Then, with effort, he erased the future.

But the pain remained, anchoring him to the present.

Until without announcement, it stopped.

When the pain returned, it came carrying snatches of memory. Fragments. Cosmo saw the faces of his captors. He saw Damu disappear into the dark—may the jungle conceal your presence. His friend’s parting words, the last friendly words he’d heard, echoed in Cosmo’s brain.

He tried to push his awareness beneath the surface—to remain asleep in his mental cave. But too much sensory data filtered through the veil. The pain had dulled, leaving room for exploration and discovery. He smelled the freshness of the jungle. He heard gentle, rhythmic humming—a tune.

With that realization, his conscious mind rebooted. His awareness returned to his broken body. Against his will, he felt the full intensity of the physical pain, along with the emotional pain of abandonment.

He struggled with his eyes, the left one swollen shut and the right one crusted over. After a steady flow of tears, it broke open. Without moving his head, he methodically studied his surroundings for what could have been hours.

He decided it safe to turn his neck. Pain and stiffness allowed for only the slightest of movement. He rested.

The humming returned. Cosmo opened his functioning eye. This time an elderly woman greeted him with a smile. “Do not try to move. You’ve been hurt very badly. Including your spine. It will take time for the swelling to go down.”

Cosmo attempted to move his toes, but could not. I’m paralyzed. His breathing and pulse increased.

The woman cocked her head and stared into his eye.

“Who are you?” Cosmo asked.

“I’m not with whoever did this to you. That is all you need to know.”

“Don’t you want to know who I am?”

The woman scoffed. “Why would I?”

“I could be a bad guy.”

“And are you?”

“Am I what?” Cosmo became confused.

“A bad guy?”

The question stung Cosmo deeper than he would have imagined. It stung even worse that he knew the answer instantly. It took him several moments to admit it. “Yes. I am a bad guy.”

The old woman tutted. “Lucky for me, you are incapacitated, and will be for many days. Maybe by the time you can stand, time will have changed you.”

Cosmo knew better. Time alone could not change him. The sermons of his childhood flooded his mind in a jumble. No single word or thought rose above the confusion, just a sense of sorrow.

For the first time, Cosmo prayed to the God of his father. I’m sorry, God, for ignoring you. But I promise, let me walk again and I will do nothing but good things. Let me walk again, if only to apologize to my parents for all the wrongs I’ve done.

Cosmo’s functioning eye continued to water. He closed it to rest.

The sounds of the jungle came and went for an indeterminate period. Among the nightmares from his past, Cosmo’s sleep often incorporated tender moments he’d spent with his mother and father. The old woman’s tune wove it all together. Her humming mutated and took on new complexities. Gradually, it took on colors and images.

One day, as Cosmo focused on the tune, he felt the woman changing the bandages around his leg. Coughing, he strained to lift his head. “I feel that.”

The woman nodded and went about her work without interrupting her tune.

Cosmo lay back and swallowed. I’m getting better. I’ll walk again. On the heels of his first positive thought in days, possibly weeks, guilt and fear redoubled their efforts. “I should have died. You should have let me.”

The woman stopped her humming. “Your death is a certainty, young man. But when it happens is not for me to decide. Death will always take its course with or without our help. Life requires us to fight. Perhaps you should reconsider your loyalties.” With the flat side of a blade, the woman smeared something hot and damp on his wounded thigh.

Cosmo’s eyes swam. The nauseous odor choked his lungs. The weight of her words choked his heart. “I only wanted to stand up to them. I wanted to take back what they’ve taken from me.”

The woman finished with his leg and deposited the leftover poultice on a cluttered table. “Did you get it?”

Cosmo shut his eyes tight. He didn’t understand what she was asking. His mind remained sluggish. “Get what?”

“The things they took from you? Did you get them back?” She shuffled to his side and shifted the pillow beneath his head.

Cosmo pinched his eyes tighter in an effort to hold back tears. The last time he remembered crying was…he couldn’t remember a time at all.

“It’s time to roll you over.” With warm hands, the woman stuffed a rumpled sheet beneath his back. She shifted to the other side of the bamboo bed. Gripping the sheet, she slowly used it to roll Cosmo onto his stomach. Then she stood back and tutted. “There’s a difference between standing and taking, child. You can do the one with empty hands and a pure heart. Not the other.”

His face buried in the pillow, Cosmo could no longer hold back the tears. The woman’s words jolted him more violently than any method of torture. In the span of a second, he relived all the moments of emptiness from his childhood—his empty stomach, his empty pockets, his empty hands helpless to do anything about it.

He heard his younger self speaking the vow to never show weakness and to never forgive those who do. He blamed his father and the passive teachings of Jesus for letting others victimize him and his family. All the backbreaking labor his mother was still forced to endure. If God cared for them, why didn’t he protect them?

“You’re still alive.” The old woman’s voice interrupted his internal ramblings. “Maybe you’ll learn the difference yet.”

Cosmo leaned on his handmade crutch and turned for a final look at the hut where he’d spent the last several weeks. He couldn’t be sure how long the old woman had cared for him, any more than he could be sure he’d see the woman again. Vaguely, he hoped for the opportunity to pay her back for saving his life.

The woman had already disappeared inside her hut.

Through the dense jungle, Cosmo couldn’t see any other huts or signs of human life. The woman claimed the nearest village to be over a kilometer west. She pointed Cosmo north after providing him with a few landmarks to guide him toward a jungle road that would eventually wind its way back to civilization.

“Thank you.” In the absence of the woman, Cosmo spoke the words to the jungle in her stead. Then he began a steady and painful march that would in time loosen his muscles and clear his mind.