VAL DAY-SANCHEZ

Copyright © 2016 Val Day-Sanchez

All rights reserved.

It started like always, a series of ordinary events that were then eclipsed with an epic commotion. There were no warning signs it seemed to just happen.

Could she work somewhere else? Perhaps take a position that didn’t require this level of sacrifice? But then nothing paid like this.She looked around the penthouse littered with its excessive decor, the marble floors, the walls that literally were laced with gold. There was a time when she had convinced herself that this made it worth it. That the dozens of cars and private jets, all of it made it fair but now as her hands trembled while she pulled the wig over her ever-thinning hair she wondered how much more she could take.

The business line rang and she automatically answered it.

“You have an eleven o’clock.” The familiar voice on the other end filled her ear, and she felt like her eardrum may explode. That was a new symptom.

“What’s their prognosis?”

“Not great, they’re paying forty-million, deep tissue.”

“That’s not even how I work.”

“I know but it makes them feel better, no one wants to hear the magic bit, massage is hippie enough.”

“How’d they hear about me?” The frailty in her voice surprised her.

“Does it matter? Just be there at eleven and get ready to cure ‘em.”

The line went dead and she pulled her robe closer around her, suddenly freezing.

The first client she ever had was her Doberman, Boots. He had a cataract,arthritic hips and a mass on his hind leg. She had laid down on the cool kitchen floor beside him, rubbing his belly at first before moving to his hips. He winced but eventually let her rub them and then she stroked the back of his head, massaging behind his ears. She didn’t know what she was doing, she couldn’t explain it well then. It was as if his body was telling her what to do, which pressure points to engage, how to release his pain. The next day he was running again, he could see without struggle, the mass had disappeared. She was six.

Years past and it wasn’t until her high school boyfriend sprained his ankle jumping off a tailgate that she was reminded of Boots. This time all she had to do was reach for his hand and his body was talking to hers. She moved her hand gently down his thigh and his calf until the muscles that surrounded the ankle, (she still didn’t know their proper names) gently manipulating them so that the pain stopped, the swelling disappearing. His need for a brace alleviated. The next morning she fell out of bed, losing her balance when she tried to put weight on her right ankle. Somehow his injury had become hers. It only lasted a few hours so she convinced herself that what she had originally hypothesized had been incorrect and impossible.

During her freshmen year of college her roommate had a crick in her neck so one night she offered to rub it out for her. She began at the base of her neck. She moved down her back until she reached the base of her spine and something happened. A pain of extreme intensity shocked her fingertips, causing her to recoil. When she attempted to return her hands, a force pushed her away. It was angry. It was a warning. This body was not hers. Nine months later her roommate was diagnosed with bone cancer.

This is what she meant by ordinary becoming something more. She didn’t touch anyone for months after that, deciding she didn’t need or want to know anyone that intimately. Then there was the man on the bus. His arm had practically begged him for her touch. Before she could stop it, her hand was on his wrist and she was sent into a seizure, collapsing in the aisle. Two days later, when she awoke the man from the buswas sitting in her hospital room, thanking her. His gout had been cured by her touch. They all started to happen like that after a while, strangers passing by her on the street, fellow students brushing against her in a crowded elevators, she soon had a reputation for possessing “the healing touch.” And then it had a power of its own and she embraced it. She dropped out of college her junior year and moved across the country. When she got to L.A. she built up a high end client list, she hired an agent, she became selective, she became famous. It became the new ordinary. Then, after working on one of her clients, she woke up with a limp, but this time didn’t go away after a few hours. In fact it grew worse.

Her leg became swollen and the next day she realized the swelling had spread to her arm. She called her own holistic healer who treated her for an allergic reaction, it seemed to help until the next day.

After a morning full of clients she found herself attacked by a migraine and sore limbs. She vomited for hours, her holistic healer returned, convinced she had some sort of viral infection but she knew what it was. She was contracting her client’s ailments. She soon found that if she limited her number of patients she could relieve herself of their symptoms within a few days but on the days when she wasn’t treating anyone she began to feel weak. Eating became a daunting chore, sleep wasunimaginable. The slightest movement exhausted her. As soon as another body would enter her vicinity she felt her own body reaching out. She needed their energy to return to her normal self while their ailments inflicted themselves upon her.

Her clients had become necessary for her survival but they were also the cause of her demise. She needed patients that were healthy enough to rejuvenate her but if they were too healthy her body became overwhelmed and sent her into a detox that was so bombarding that once she had been hospitalized for extreme dehydration. If they were too sick she could die. She had narrowed down a healthy medium which she referred to as, “the tipping point.” And so this became her ordinary, until it was once again interrupted.

Now it didn’t seem there was a tipping point. All of her interactions, no matter how healthy or sick the client, her body seemed to have reached its expiration date. Years of treating others, confiscating their pain had no doubt shortened her years. She was out of options. She still needed to see patients to live but she was now forever unsure of which one would take her out. Would it be an aging movie star with fibromyalgia? Or a sitcom writer with skin cancer? Could it be a dancer with brittle bone syndrome? They all empowered and depleted her. She looked around the penthouse, her body craving another. It wouldn’t be long now.

Valerie Day-Sánchez enjoys reading and writing across genres, although young adult is her favorite at the moment. Threshold is her first attempt at Sci-Fi. Her other work consists of YA Fantasy Trilogy, Harlow Whittaker. She received both her B.A. and M.A. in Communication Studies from New Mexico State University. Her love of the desert Southwest keeps her close to home although she loves to travel, especially when she gets a chance to try the local cuisine. Playing with her two sons and the family’s Boston Terrier, Winston, are how she occupies her time when she’ not writing.