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Jack's Fables

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Ladies of the Light

 

It was a likely scene. A cul-de-sac next to an industrial estate. The kind of place which featured in a hundred police dramas. Bleak, rubble-strewn, desolate, save for a few under-dressed women, the occasional car favoured by sales reps. And a biting northerly wind.

 

“My wife doesn’t understand me. I’m here out of desperation.”

 

“Fine. Just relax. Tell me what you want. What would you like to have happen?”

 

“I’ve been diagnosed with cancer. If I’m going to die, I want it to be as painless as possible.”

 

At another part of the city, in a leafy suburb, this time at twilight, angry residents were watching as a handful of sex workers gathered, who were wearing even less than their cul-de-sac sisters.

 

“The usual Dave?”

 

“No, miraculously not this time. What I came for seems to be healing. I’m wondering if you could see my daughter, she’s a bag of nerves, and I’m worried it could be serious.”

 

“But you are returning to ‘normal’, just like you asked for?”

 

“Yes, I wanted my life back, just as it was, and whatever you did seems to be doing the trick.”

 

“I’m wondering if you had thought your condition might have been caused by your ‘normal’ life?”

 

In a low budget hotel room, Delia was preparing for her next client. Two very basic wooden-framed chairs were placed close together, about 2 feet apart, facing each other. Relaxing music played on the stereo. Those who came in knew exactly what they were getting, even though almost all of them found the experience mind-blowing. James was no exception.

 

“I nearly croaked, didn’t I?”

 

“It was a close call. Still, you’ve got a new life out of it. Your realising that was the breakthrough I needed.”

 

Every month, Delia and seven of her sisters met in the hotel room, along with Pimptious Pilot, or PP for short. They shared their experiences. How they felt the work with some clients had gone well and what they had learned from it, and a discussion about how they could do it differently in future.

 

PP listened very carefully to all the stories. He always felt an overwhelming sense of pride. He was eternally grateful for the revelation that he could provide services other than sex to the local community, and in so doing, raise the level of awareness and consciousness of the planet.

 

Prior to his ‘girls’ selling healing, the principal thing that had been raised was the fines every time one of them was caught soliciting. But he also knew his job was far from over, as the awareness of public [and the partners of his clients] and all the agencies which fed off prostitution needed raising too.

 

James had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. He had contracted it in his 20’s and had got steadily worse. Drugs and a leading role in the Sclerosis Club offered only partial relief. He had been a very successful businessman, a millionaire at 25.  The ‘the wheels came off’ his life after a visit to his doctor confirmed the mild shaking sensations were not caused by an excess of ‘Red Bull.’

 

Many of his friends regularly used ‘sex workers.’ The no commitment lifestyle, the opportunity for bizarre sex, and the buzz they got from snorting coke whilst aroused all added up to a no--brainer as far as ‘The James Boys’ were concerned. Who needed fidelity and a mortgage?

 

But the steady demise of their leader, James Blown, was devastating to all who knew him. A shadow of his former self, JB no longer cut it as a role model for hedonists.

 

Dave’s daughter had ME [Myalgic Encephalopathy or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome]. In her teens, everyone but her parents had told her to pull herself together, to stop being lazy and get a life. Dave, having had a skin tumour on his face knew how stupid it was to mock people who had any kind of dis-ease. Whether it was ‘real’ or ‘in her imagination’ was irrelevant. Either way she was suffering and needed help.

 

Dave’s family could never understand why he had gone to a ‘Lady of the Light.’ His wife, Moiré, had thought the worst, and no amount of denial from Dave about his not going for sex convinced her of his innocence. Except when the tumour on his face shrank and then disappeared completely.

 

“The hospital will sort you out. We’ve all paid thousands into the health service, so go in and get your money’s worth. That’s the great thing about the NHS [National Health Service], you can live your life, and if you get ill, a quick trip down there and bish-bosh, you’re as right as rain.”

 

“Is that right?” said Dave angrily to his father, who had an answer for everything. “Well how come you are out of breath after walking 10 yards, and your ‘medicine’ is too much beer? What has the hospital done for you?”

 

Before his dad could answer, Dave’s mum jumped in.

 

“After the war, they had to compensate us, the working people, with more than a big gesture. Millions of lives lost for a needless and totally unnecessary war. Like all wars. We’re told that it’s inevitable that some nutter will spring up somewhere in the world, threaten to bomb or poison us, want ‘our land’ and we ‘need’ to ‘do something.’

 

Well, one day soon people will wake up to find out that the nutters are created by the same bastards who send out the likes of your dad to fight. The puppet masters win every time.

 

So, they gave us the NHS. And grateful we were too. And still are. But we live in a time when the friends of those who send us to fight sell us fast food. They put chemicals in the water, chemicals in what we eat and brainwash us to believe that we can do what we want. So, we do ‘what we want’ and get ill. Wall-to-wall pills make us feel better for while. But the cause of our illness isn’t tackled. By the time we get to the hospital it’s time for more drugs. And every drug has a side effect. So your dad is on 13 different kinds of tablets. And he’s lost the plot. The drugs make him dozy, devoid of feelings and a rag-bag of mindless rubbish the system has filled him with. His thoughts are like the headlines of a tabloid newspaper.

 

You go and get healed Dave, but never forget how your father and millions like him got in this state.”

 

Sarah was now talking to Albie, who wanted a pain-free passage to death. He had all but given up. He was willing to take any pill as long as it meant the absence of pain. His life wasn’t worth much anyway. A new car, a cruise, and a conservatory for his sister were planned as he imagined eking out his last few months.

 

God, if he existed at all, had abandoned him. Just like his mum had all those years ago. His teachers labelled him slow and stupid, so he bought into their view of the world.

 

He’d tried his hand at many things, but never felt satisfied, and usually ended up getting the sack.

 

PP had decided to help people, after years of being on the wrong side of the law. He’d read a book about an American doctor, who was a cancer counsellor. It was nothing he didn’t intuitively know, but it was reassuring to have it put so simply.

 

When diagnosed with cancer, people fell into 3 categories. The first wanted a pain-free death, and had given up. The second wanted to get back to the very life that had created the cancer in the first place. The realisation only hit home when the counsellor told them. And even then, many wouldn’t accept their role in the cancer creation. The last and most successful group [in terms of survival and recovery], were those who knew illness was a wake-up call, and they could change their lives, let go of years of regret, resentment, hatred and frustration, and start living.

 

Albie had earmarked over £30,000 to spend on his last months of life. If he had £300,000, that would have gone too. Yet he had decided one last throw of the dice before he gave up all hope. So he found the cheapest healer around, Sarah, who for the same price as the most basic sex would apply her magic.

 

Dave’s mother’s rant had shocked him. He had never heard he speak like that before. It knocked him out of his cosy little bubble. He wondered if he too could heal. Here was the chance to make a difference in the world. He would go and see PP. He would let go of all the crap he [and his dad] had been fed for forty years. And he could help his daughter.

 

JB decided to emigrate, after he had started to recover. The third world makers [the employees] of the jeans he had sold for massive profits were known to suffer appalling health, and it was payback time. He would help them and their families.

 

Local police, who had raided the hotel where Delia worked, cleared the streets where other Ladies of the Light operated, and had promised to get even with PP every time he walked out of the station after his ‘brief’ had found a flaw in the prosecution process, didn’t know what to make of the new situation.

 

Until Sergeant Scoff’s young son had been helped by Sarah. And after one visit to Delia, Constable Green no longer had panic attacks. The desk clerk’s pet dog had been ‘cured’ of leukaemia.

 

PP had been invited to talk to the local youth group. Residents of the leafy suburb had vowed to come along and disrupt it. They put down their placards, their faces melted into reluctant [at first] smiles when PP had finished his opening remarks:

 

“How many of you had a perfect childhood? Did any of you do anything wrong? Were your parents model citizens? Did you teachers support everything you did? Were you and your family free of illness, debt and struggle? Have you all had wonderful relationships? Do you take any risks? Is your work fulfilling, and a benefit to those you serve?

 

Well, now I’m an adult, I know my life is what I make of it. I choose to create everything, rather than react to everything, as the majority of you do. I mean this not as a criticism, but a call to wake up. I used to be a pimp, and then one day, it became obvious to me, profiting from sex was a passport to nowhere. And yes I know it’s a cliché, but I love my ‘girls’ and I thought, why be satisfied with meeting just one need in our community, and oppressing those who deliver it. Why not heal the clients, and heal the women at the same time?

 

Sex is a beautiful thing. I was making it cheap & dirty. Not all, but most of the punters feel the same way about themselves. How many of you would buy a new car, or spend thousands on material things rather than on your health? You don’t need to answer that, because it’s obvious. You smoke, drink too much, eat stuff you know is harmful and curb your excesses with pills, operations and pain.

 

All I’m asking is that you listen to your body, spend time in silence, and learn to love yourselves. I’m not here to lecture you. I was no different. Set an example to your children, because you are their true role models, not the creations of the media.

 

To quote the words from one of the greatest hymns ever written, ‘I once was lost but now I’m found.’ Can you find it in your hearts to forgive us?”

 

JS, July 08.

 

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