The Healer In The Tower

There was a healer, in a tower.

He often went down to the town. When he saw someone in need, he offered to help. He followed through on his offers. He helped when he could; he still tried when he couldn’t.

He tried to not turn people away.

Soon, the healer made himself known. Soon, people depended on him. They came to him with trouble, and the healer listened, and often that was enough. When it was not, a question or two usually did the trick.

The healer came to understand the human soul, and see things that people hid from themselves. This helped the healer, too. What he found in others, often, he unearthed within himself later. Help and help he did, and grow he did as well.

And he was loved and admired, and paid well in food and clothes and all the worldly things.

There was a healer, in his tower.

People came, for his fame, his ear, his mind, his soul.

He offered help, to those who came, because he had to. Some people listened. Some people didn’t.

When they didn’t, the healer hurt. Why wouldn’t they see it? He knew the problem, he’d seen it a hundredfold. But they, the people he was helping, didn’t want to see. Why wouldn’t they see?

When people didn’t listen, the healer suffered. When they did, the healer suffered too, for there was no time to rest; it was time to take care of the next thing. He was running, sweating, in the desert, head light with lack of water… but still clear enough to help.

Before, the healer healed because it was good. Now, the healer healed because he must.

Because it’s the right thing to do.

Because he can, and so he should.

After all, what is the value of a healer, if he doesn’t heal?

Over time, he changed. He started seeing people not as people, but problems waiting to happen. Over time, his magic became weaker. His ears turned more muffled, his questions less pointed.

But patients still came, so still, the healer healed.

There is no healer in the tower.

The people in the village said his mood was souring. That his eyes were sunk, his hair a mess, his anger quick.

They don’t know.

“Maybe he’s resting,” they said.

“Good,” they thought. “He was working too hard. He deserves a break.”

“That way,” they continued, “he’ll come back happy, and we’ll get the old healer back.”

The people in the village don’t understand.

There is a shepherd on a hill.

He used to be a healer; he is not anymore.

He just needed everyone to stop, just… stop.

So he left, and now everything is quiet.

And yet he weeps.

In the quiet, he searches for purpose, for fire, for that life he remembers feeling. He searches for “want”, of anything.

But he knows, deep in his heart, that there is nothing. There is no room for “want”. There is only “should”.

In the quiet, there is nobody to correct him. So in the quiet, he weeps.

Note: Dear reader, you may be thinking “holy shit this guy is entitled, and has a very high image of himself”. If you are thinking that, I’ll say “Yep! That’s the whole point of the story.”

If I could have gotten rid of my self-image, and it was as easy as “stop having a self-image”, I would have done it. But the fact is I am demonstrably good at helping in some contexts, and lots of people do come to me for help (or other things that equate to help). Over time, I have built a self-image of “someone whose worth as a human is in helping”, and sometimes that image hurts me. Sometimes, I volunteer to help too eagerly, and that leaves me looking and feeling like a buffoon. Often, feel responsible for helping just because I know there is a problem, and that hurts as well. But I also want to be a good and helpful person, and I sure wish someone like me came to help me with some of this stuff, so what right do I have to not do it?

It’s complicated. This post is part of me processing that conundrum. If you have any tips, borja@bardic.tools