The second arrow

Ripples in the pond, Spring 2002

When Jane talks, an unruly gang of muscles on the right side of her lips pulls and twists her mouth into a quirky grimace. She says she can’t swallow anymore. The swallowing I attribute to the various medications she takes (her pills cause dry mouth, dry mouth causes swallowing trouble), but the spasms have no identifiable source and only happen when she talks. She spent a good chunk of her assessment in tears describing all the tests she's done and all the doctors she's seen.

Charlie doesn’t want to eat. During our assessment, he took some food only because I asked him. He smelled it, tasted it with the tip of his tongue, and finally took the tiniest of tiny bites. Once the food was in his mouth, he swallowed with good timing and there was no tell-tale gurgle of residue in his throat. He said food hardly goes down and it always feels stuck. He’s dropped from 180 lbs. to a little over 90 in the past year.

Both of these clients have been through every diagnostic exam available. CTs MRIs ECTs neurological assessments, the works. As far as our medical technology and knowledge can determine, nothing is wrong. Physically.

Charlie won’t talk about it. He looks, talks, and acts depressed, but he refuses any kind of psych consult. He may just die. Jane can’t stop talking. She is young and physically strong. She loves to talk and is desperate to be better. She says she would even try electro-shock therapy if anyone would offer it to her.

What do I do with clients like this? I listen. I accept. I try to be a witness to their pain. I would like to talk about the second arrow story, but they are looking for medical answers not spiritual parables. They want me (and everyone else in the medical profession) to fix them as if the suffering they are going through comes strictly from some mysterious outside force (disease is most often perceived as an invader from outside our body's borders and not an example of us hurting ourselves) .

The second arrow story:

A hunter is stalking a beautiful stag with his best friend. They are taking parallel paths through a dense patch of forest and can no longer see each other. The hunter steps past a 100 year old spruce and sees 10-pointer directly ahead of him. His stag is munching grass at the edge of a meadow. Sunlight strikes it with a golden, misty haze and the wind is moving toward the hunter. Perfect. He raises his bow with glacial slowness, draws, and CRACK! A burning pain sears the hunter's shoulder and his cry of surprise sends the stag leaping away in an ever-ready bounce.

The pain is intense. The hunter looks over his shoulder and sees a yellow-shafted arrow sticking out. He tries to run from it. Instinctively. But the arrow shaft catches on the branches and twists sharply. He wrenches and rolls to the ground. The pain is like a piercing alarm that vibrates all the way to his toes. He knows what has happened now. He’s been shot and there is an arrow in his shoulder. To lie still would be wise, but the pain clouds his thinking. He reaches over and tries to pull the arrow from his flesh, but the corner of the arrowhead catches on a bone and will not retreat. His friend is there now with concern on his face, but the hunter is blind to him, focused only on the arrow. Then he is angry because he knows it was his friend who let the arrow fly. He rages. His friend recoils and decides it’s best to go for help so he turns to leave. The hunter, still affected by his mid-brain emotions to survive reaches for his bow, the buck’s arrow rests beside it. He finds the strength to sit up and draw on his friend who digs through his backpack for a cell phone. The hunter is insane with pain and fear. His friend stands to face him, looking at the phone's reception icon. Under the control of his primitive self, the hunter impales his attacker with his arrow. His friend drops instantly as the diamond sharp arrow passes though his chest and lacerates his heart. He dies as his blood soaks into the earth, eyes peering up into the cloudy sky. The second arrow.

The hunter drops to his hands and knees. He breathes. His panting calms and drops to a normal rate and his mind clears and the pain recedes a little. He thinks about what he has done. He has just killed his best friend. The hunter is still alive and he has committed murder. This thought fills him with dread. He could lose everything. His house, his car, his business, his new Diavel parked in the garage. What will his wife think? His business partners? His children? A blackness fills his vision and he feels like he is falling. The third arrow.

He opens his eyes. I will tell the police that it was self-defense, he says. My friend and I were arguing about the money he owed me (this is not a lie) and he tried to kill me and make it look like an accident and he thinks about that woman who accidentally killed her fist-talking husband with a hunting rifle and they couldn’t prove her guilt and she didn’t go to jail. The fourth arrow.

The hunter lived the rest of his life shooting arrows into himself until he resembled poor St. Sebastian; his body a wild target filled with wounds and infection. But St. Sebastian was saved in the end. His arrows were removed and his wounds were healed. This too may have happened to the hunter in the minutes before he died from the massive stroke that blocked the blood to his brain and allowed his heart cease its grieving. Perhaps he saw the true cause of his suffering.

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