|
|
|
|
|
|
an inch above the bluish protrusion. She gently swept the air over the lump with the palm of her right hand. Then she held her right palm open above the bump, and kept it there for awhile. I was surprised that she didn't look at the man's arm. She gazed downward, and appeared to be intent on something she was feeling or sensing within herself. I wondered if she were praying, or listening for an answer. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Then I looked at the man, and noticed that he was sweating profusely, despite the air-conditioning in the room. Beads of perspiration rolled down his red face. I whispered to him, "Does it hurt?" "No," he said. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Do you feel a lot of heat?" I asked. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Then why are you sweating so much?" |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"I don't know. It's very strange. I don't feel anything. I feel very light." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thelma began to scratch the lump with her thumbnail. For the first time, I noticed a dark speck, like an enlarged pore, on the surface of the bump. Thelma picked at it a bit with her fingernail, and pulled up, seemingly from out of the pore, a thin, elongated piece of tissue. It looked like an inch-long dendrite, the shape of which I remembered from high school biology. She told the man it was the root of the growth on his arm, and now that it was removed, the lump would recede and be gone within two weeks. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The man was obviously flustered. He left abruptly, without a thank you, or an apology for his obnoxious behavior. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Two days and many healings later, when I arrived at Thelma's hotel room in the morning, the U.S. agent was already there. He stood quietly and courteously over to one side of the room, as he observed the day's "surgeries." His respectful manner was extremely different from that of his first encounter with Thelma. I was surprised at his transformed demeanor. I asked him, "How is that growth on your arm?" He showed me the place where Thelma had scratched a few days before. The ridge was one-third as high as it had been previously, and its color had changed from purple to pink. "Oh," he assured me, in a matter-of-fact tone, "It's almost gone now. I think it will be entirely gone by the end of the week." I wouldn't have believed it was the same man if I hadn't talked to him myself! |
|
|
|
|
|