After what was only a matter of days, the man returned, as silently and seemingly spontaneously as he'd done before. This time, though, he carried a small wooden bowl in his cupped hands.

Without a word, he passed the bowl to James, indicating that James should drink from it. The clear, dark-brown liquid it contained was warm and smelled vaguely familiar. Perhaps it's the stuff he poured on my chest, James mused. Grateful in the extreme that the man had come back, James took a sip from the bowl.

Almost immediately, he was transported into what felt like another dimension, or at least an extraordinary state of awareness. He could still see the flickering campfire before him, the quiet man beside him, and the dark jungle around them; and he was every bit aware of what was going on around and within him.

What then began was a silent conversation with an invisible presence, although it seemed like a group of people. “We are the guardians of the flame,” they said as one voice.

At the same time, James felt his body fill to the brim with a bright, warm, cheery flame. It illuminated without dazzling, it warmed without burning, and it made him feel extraordinarily happy. He felt more alive than he had in ages, and he experienced what he could only describe as a lively peace, as paradoxical as that might seem.

“This flame is life,” the guardians explained. “In many people, it is barely more than a pilot light most of the time; and in some, it flickers and sputters and threatens to go out, like a guttering candle.

“But in a few people, it burns brightly and steadily, like this,” they indicated to what James was now feeling inside himself. “These are the keepers of the flame.

“The flame is a friend to all,” they finished, somewhat cryptically.

Captivated, James turned to the native man sitting beside him. “Is this how you saved my life?” he asked in astonishment.

“Yes,” the man replied simply, again without sound.

“Teach me how to do that,” James rushed on, with such excitement that it sounded a bit like a command.

The man did not reply. Instead, the guardians did.

“You are wanting to be a keeper of the flame so that you can use it for your own purposes,” they stated with what seemed to James as a mild admonishment. And they're right, thought James, somewhat abashed but still hopeful.

“But it doesn't work like that,” they went on kindly; they hadn't been admonishing him at all.

“One doesn't become a keeper of the flame in order to use it,” they explained with emphasis. “It is not something you do, but something you are. There is no doing; only being.”

James understood exactly what they meant, and so he felt deflated. He did feel a strong desire, even an urgency, to possess this bright flame so that he could go back and put it to good use in his hospital. What could be more worthy than that? he justified to himself, somewhat defensively.

The native man remained silent and still at his side, knowing that James was not quite ready. James had yet to drop the desire to use the flame, even if for a noble purpose.

“OK, I understand that,” James said slowly, as he barely grasped the importance of what the guardians had just told him. Turning to the man, he said, “But how did you use it to save me that day? How do I use it to heal others in this way?” He was not to be put off this easily; he needed to know!

. . .

The man finally spoke — although it was more a matter of conveying with mental images how his flame had saved James' life, because of course the man was a keeper of the flame.

He had simply shown up and let his flame burn brightly over James' bullet-riddled body. He'd waited until the guard in the watch tower had turned his attention back toward the remaining prisoners and to his now-dead colleague, still lying in a pool of his own blood. The little man then quietly left the jungle, from where he'd been watching, and gently turned James' seemingly lifeless body over onto its back. Placing his hands lightly over James' chest, he simply allowed the flame within him to expand. In the retelling, James saw it fill the little man to the brim and then softly radiate from him.

The man was adept at this process, so he patiently stayed there until he saw a flicker of life pulse in James' throat. Then he quietly dragged James' body into the nearby jungle, out of sight. One or two of the prisoners had caught a glimpse of him, but most were still fixated with abject dread on the remaining guards; retribution was sure to be swift and savage.

Once hidden in the jungle, the man spend more time on reviving the tiny, faltering flame within James. It is a curious characteristic of this flame, James observed as the story unfolded, that it is inexhaustible. No part of it is ever lost as one is nursing the faint flicker of the flame in another. If anything, the little man's flame seemed to burn even more brightly the longer he remained focused on reviving the flame in James.

James did not fully understand, the man could see; or at least, he did not altogether believe what he was being shown. Could it really be as simple as that?!  The guardians had said all they had to say, and so they remained silent. Shortly after, the man got up and left, too, disappearing once again into the darkness.

This time, James immediately felt despondent. There was a yawning chasm between what the guardians had said about the flame and what James had felt in himself. For a few bright — brilliant — moments, he had been filled with the flame. But as soon as he turned his attention to how he could use it, the flame dimmed and diminished to little more than that of an oil lamp. What was he going to do now?

. . .

Copyright © Christine M. King, 2026. All rights reserved.

Chapter 5

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