The Patron Saint of San Luis Rey (standard:Creative non-fiction, 3009 words)
Author: Abaricia Garcia Santiago	Added: Aug 07 2006	Views/Reads: 3774/2596	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Just when they needed a miracle, a healer arrived to change the people of San Luis Rey forever.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

woman escaped. 

“My name is Maria,” the young woman said to the good doctor when the
soldier left the premises. "I want to thank you for helping me. " The 
doctor did not only save her from a severe sickness but from jail as 
well. “I don't know how can I ever repay you,” Maria said. The doctor 
replied that she could start by helping him clean the hospital 
premises. From then on Maria became a part of the regular hospital 
staff and a portion of donation by wealthy patients was saved for her 
wages so she could quietly leave whenever she is ready. Her constant 
wait for her husband was endless. The weeks became an excruciating 
month, the months become an agonizing year until one day she got tired 
of looking at the hospital calendar that she tore the calendar in half. 
One night as she mimicked the cry of ‘sarimanok' bird in the distant 
mountain she resolved to herself that her husband either perished in a 
fierce gun battle or had completely forgotten her. It was time to move 
on. 

When Maria woke up the next morning she saw the handsomest man she ever
saw in her life. She bathed herself and wore the white dress she bought 
with her wages and slowly walked down the aisle of the hospital ward. 
She saw the doctor waiting for her at the end of the hall with his 
rugged looks and forlorn eyes. The doctor could not remember the last 
time his heart had felt so much love but the years of longing have 
brought him and Maria so much passion that the moment they touched each 
other they knew they would not have enough time to contain the fire 
they felt inside. In between seeing the dead and the dying or patients 
that could not wait for their check up in the morning as incessant pain 
torture them in their sleep, the two lovers locked themselves in each 
other's embrace like a couple of foxes mating in spring. They cried in 
each other arms from the severity of their sadness and in the middle of 
their sorrow they arched and bend and caressed the contour of their 
skin. They did not find the time to excuse one self because they find 
no use in relieving themselves. They breathe in order to salivate and 
the careful words they exchange throughout the whole time they were 
together were nothing but pleasant thought and unfounded worries. “What 
we are doing is wrong,” Maria said. The handsome doctor just looked at 
her and carefully examined the lips that he tenderly kissed and said to 
her that he did not travel far to make other people unhappy.  In fact, 
he said to her she was the reason why he was there in the first place 
and that she is the woman he was looking for all his life. 

Three years, eleven months and twenty-six days later the inevitable
happened. Thirty armed men arrived in San Luis Rey armed with powerful 
weapon including a grenade launcher and in a blitzkrieg attack overran 
the government army post. They took the army jeep and assorted weapon. 
The powerful blast of grenade and gunfire roused in their bed the 
sleeping townsfolk. Maria went up from her bed and ran towards the 
hospital ward. He saw Miguel running towards her as if he knew this 
thing would happen. “This must be the time Maria,” Miguel said. Maria 
cried. This has got to be the day her husband had promised her he would 
come back. The patient in the ward was in frenzy that they huddled 
themselves inside the female medical ward. The nurse gathered the 
elderly and moved them out of the male medical ward towards the pedia 
ward. “They don't touch children,” the nurse said. Maria shouted to 
Miguel, “What about you?” Miguel just looked at her. Maria ran towards 
the last room down the hall and began to undress. She wore the lovely 
white dress she bought for her wedding day and began to fix her hair. 
She waited so long for this day to come that this is the best time to 
make everything perfect. But she was filled with hesitation. Something 
was so wrong inside her that suddenly upset her stomach. She does not 
want her husband anymore. She wanted to be normal just like everyone 
else. She does not like the eerie sound of the mountain at night, the 
deafening sound of whistling bullet during gun battle and the sound of 
mortars and flying helicopters. She wanted to stay where she is right 
now. When the bandits arrived in the hospital they strafed with bullets 
the rows of precious medicine in the cabinet. The patients scampered 
for safety. They destroyed with axe and machetes the walls and hospital 
bed. Some patient cried when the lawless bandits began to aim their 
fire above their heads. “Don't kill them!” Miguel shouted. “So you are 
the brave doctor of this town?” the bandit leader said. He then quickly 
ordered his men. “Find Maria, my wife!” The he turned his ire to 
Miguel's direction.” How dare you?” The bandit said as he fired his 
armalite in the ceiling. “I asked you to take care of her wounds not 
own her!” Miguel was sheltered by a group of patient who ran to cover 
him. The fearsome bandit took his machetes and single handedly hacked 
to death the patient who covered Miguel from his ordeal. “You cannot 
escape my wrath! You will die in my hands!” But before he could cut the 
good doctor into pieces he heard a gun shot behind his back. When he 
looked back the bandit saw Maria standing behind him. It was something 
he did not expect. Something just told the bandit he was an enemy and 
he needed to die. He can't seem to grapple with the vision that 
appeared before him. Maria wore a glorious white wedding gown and 
instead of bouquet of flowers she was holding a gun in her hand. She 
was crying a well of tears that could possibly be for him. But the way 
her eyes slanted in her beautiful face it was undeniable that she felt 
hatred at that unfortunate time. “I cannot let you kill the most 
important person in my life!” Maria shouted. It was a word more 
powerful than the bullet she fired in her gun. The bandit felt a 
tightening feeling in his throat. He grabbed his heart and saw blood 
coming out of his chest. “How can you kill me, Maria?” the bandit said. 
“You should not have come anymore,” Maria said. When the bandits saw 
their fallen comrade they retaliated by locking up its occupant inside 
and without an ounce of mercy torched down the hospital. Miguel Olvido 
and Maria took the chance to save the numerous patients that were 
trapped during the fire and saved twenty-three patients from untimely 
death. 

During their grand trek in the mountains the bandits went down one by
one with high-grade fever. They burned dried leaves and fanned the 
smoke to drive away the swarm of mosquitoes that harbor fatal Malaria. 
During their unsuccessful escape they saw in their dreams the ghost of 
men and women they have killed. They tried escaping as they wield their 
machetes and realized the ghost they have killed twice over were 
dismembered bodies of their sleeping comrades. They cried when they 
cannot find the route to escape as wall of tall grasses and trees 
hindered their way.  They fall on their knees and told each other they 
were just having a bad dream from parasite that inhabited the cavity of 
their brain. “This is what Malaria does to its victim,” one of the 
bandit said. It changed everything one sees. 

The town was so shocked to learn that the hospital was razed down to the
ground. They have no idea whether the couple Miguel Olvido, the doctor 
and Maria survived the one-hour fire. Patients who were ushered out of 
the burning hospital did not saw them come out during the last minute 
and efforts to exhume their bodies from the rubble did not yield 
conclusive proof of their untimely death due to heavy rain and 
flooding. Three typhoons and two major earthquakes later they almost 
forgot the tragic incident that happened in the outskirts of their 
town. Only when a number of children began to have fever and their 
noses and mouth began to bleed that they remembered Miguel Olvido, the 
doctor.  He was like a mirage that only appeared in their dreams and 
only when they are too drunk or in the middle of some terrible pain or 
sickness they remember who he was. But no one can tell where he is. 
People who were tired of telling that he was dead pointed him at the 
deserted compound of the burned hospital that now houses Gemelina and 
Acacia Trees that grew to height of twenty feet. Numerous children 
began to vomit blood and they appealed to the nearest provincial 
capitol for help but the only help they had gotten were piles of 
leaflets and reading materials on how to combat dengue fever. No one 
was there to help them in times of need. They cried for Miguel Olvido 
the whole time their children bleed. In one peculiar incident a man 
told the authorities that Miguel Olvido, the doctor visited him and 
save his children from death. The grandiose tale he recounted in his 
drunken state spread like wildfire and took every unimaginable twist of 
plot as it passed through countless word-of-mouth stories.  A search to 
look for Miguel Olvido created so much confusion among townsfolk that 
they experienced numerous cases of mass hysteria. As more and more 
people come out to support earlier claims of Miguel Olvido's personal 
intervention a rumor ensued that the church already step in to validate 
his 'miraculous' intervention. He said to have appeared in people's 
dream that no sooner they misconstrued every imaginable shadow as 
Miguel Olvido's miraculous images. They drowned their sadness with 
tales of his sacred stories that every bit of moment spent in hearing 
tales of his miraculous powers jettisoned its listeners and onlookers 
in a state that can only be describe as extreme euphoria. 

The miracle of Miguel Olvido not only reached the local Archbishop but
the office of El Negros most corrupt congressman as well who shelled 
part of his pork barrel fund and erected a substandard hospital in the 
site where the gutted hospital once stood. It was inaugurated in a 
lavish fanfare that included the Provincial Governor and the town's 
council of elders. But it failed to attract enough attention from city 
doctors to migrate in San Luis Rey even with compensation that rivaled 
city wages. A year after it was established the hospital was left in 
neglect and began to collect dewdrops and green moss. Huge cracks began 
to appear in its floor and walls as roots sprouted out of the open 
crevices. Tiny plants ate the yellow figment in the coat of cheap China 
paint while puddle of mud began to harbor mosquitoes and harmful 
parasites. Trees skewered at unimaginable height from underneath the 
poorly cemented floors while rainwater washed the empty beds and rotten 
chairs from flash flood that become San Luis Rey's regular occurences. 
When a group of scavengers visited the abandoned government hospital 
building they saw the images of Miguel Olvido in its floor and walls. 
Expert on visionaries claimed that it was his way of telling the people 
of San Luis Rey that he was still looking after them even though he was 
gone. People began to flock in the hospital to light up candles and 
pray. It was an eerie sight. People lined up to take a peek at the wall 
that they claimed contain a human like images that is better seen in 
black and white photographs. No one disputed the claim of the poor 
scavengers at a time when majority of the hopeless people wanted 
miracles for themselves in whatever form or manner to alleviate their 
sufferings. They needed a sanctuary other than the church to pour out 
their frustrations and ask for deliverance. Later the town council 
declared it a holy ground and began to collect donations from visitors 
who come from as far away as Aparri and Jolo for construction of a holy 
church. The rumors and ancient story that was passed on during town's 
gatherings became a cacophony of twisted facts bloated truth and 
mythical lies. But whether the story is real or not it is undeniable 
that many people who were convinced of the town's incredulous stories 
flocked to the abandoned hospital to pay their homage to Miguel Olvido, 
the doctor and later the Patron Saint of San Luis Rey. 


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