Carson

Carson was a slight, wispy boy of six with jaunt cheeks and irregular, abrupt breaths (a mouth breather! Karan whispered). Despite his obvious fragility, Carson was bunked with the other pre-teens in the lowest floor of the dorm. With what now seems obvious predictability he was soon coughing and wheezing. The coughs became fits, which then turned non-stop, lasting several days at a stretch. The staff tried: humidifiers, de-humidifiers, disinfectant spray, tea, blankets, pictures of the Abbott. None helped. Sensei attempted his own potion magic, enveloping Carson in a Pigpenesque cloud of eucalyptus and thyme, ginger and garlic. This didn't stem the flow of his spasms but did get the rest of us coughing.

Then one day, morning zazen was suddenly quiet.
No one's coughing, someone wispered.

- Where is Carson?

Sensei found him under his bunk, wet and convulsing. They covered his forehead in towels, applied salve to his convex chest and pulsing throat, and burned incense at the Medicine Buddha's altar. The next morning his bed was empty; Koi soon found him on the Lodge doorstep hugging a porch support beam, bent and sobbing, gasping for forgiveness. Sensei drove him to the city hospital.

Days later, when we were allowed to visit him, Carson lifted his hospital gown to show us his wounds. Pointing: I had a needle in each arm, here, and here, and there were wires stuck with round tape here. His bones tightly wrapped in flesh like a harlequin dancer, bruises on his chest and thigh. He no longer speaks of the hospital, but we still remember vividly the details he told us that day: doctors constantly carting strange, boxy instruments into the room; his mother resettling the cold, misty mask on his face; nurses switching IV bags kaleidoscopically - blue replacing yellow, ochre replacing green; flowers and potted herbs filled the room like a greenhouse garden; one doctor, dressed like Medicine Buddha, chanting the Sutra of healing while Carson coughs blood and sputum into his Medicine Bowl; his parents kissing him goodnight through the mask.