According to Joshua
Joshua never knew his father. His mother refused to say anything about him. No matter how plaintively he wheedled, no matter how often he asked, no matter how upset he became when he didn’t get an answer, she steadfastly refused to tell him.
Nevertheless, Joshua grew up a fine young man. His mother taught him that virtue was its own reward. She showed him the logic of being kind and generous, demonstrating through examples and fables how being kind would enable the world to be kind to him in turn. So one day when he was seven, and he travelled with his mother to a conference at a nearby university, and he became separated from her in the corridors and wandered into a class that was discussing ethics, he amazed the others in that room with his understanding of the finer points of morality.
This was only one example of the selflessness of the young man. As he grew, he learned of the evils of the world, and though they pained him, he wished only to ease the suffering of others. He never let the travails of society harden his heart against the adversity he saw all around him.
One night, just after he had reached adulthood, he was returning to his dorm at the university he had chosen to attend when he witnessed a man being mugged. A group of seven individuals were kicking an eighth as he lay writhing on the ground. Joshua immediately ran towards the group, calling out to them to stop. The assailants were frightened by his shouts, and ran away. Joshua knelt by the victim and told him that he would help him.
‘You can’t take me to a hospital,’ the men implored him. ‘I’ve done some bad things, and if you take me to a hospital, the police will come and take me away.’
Joshua reassured the man that he would not take him to a hospital. Instead, he carried the man back to his dorm. There, he applied what little first aid knowledge he possessed, gave him water, and fed him.
After a week and a half, the man was in fine shape. Joshua accepted the man’s thanks, and bid him farewell. As he opened the door to let the man leave, Joshua saw another person standing outside in the corridor. This new person stood aside to let Joshua’s guest depart, then turned back to Joshua.
‘You have done a great thing,’ this man said as he stepped into Joshua’s dorm room. He was dressed in a suit that was entirely white, from the tie around his neck to the wing-tipped shoes on his feet. ‘In fact, all your life, you have done many great things. I am here to tell you of your heritage. Your father wishes to meet with you, but he is not able to do so just yet. In a year’s time, he will come for you. Until then, he wants you to have a reward for your selflessness. Simply name what you desire, and it will be yours.’
Joshua was overcome with emotion. All he could think about was how happy he was that he would finally get to know his father. But he soon began to think of what sort of gift he would want. Being the altruistic person that he was, he knew immediately what he wanted.
‘The only gift for which I could wish,’ Joshua answered, ‘would be for a healing touch.’
‘Is that all?’ said the man in white. ‘It is easily done.’
Joshua was so excited that he couldn’t wait to try his new gift. He immediately went to leave the building in search of someone in need. Once outside, he started walking along the street. He spoke happily with his new companion, the man in white. After some time, he saw a minor traffic accident, in which a driver turning the corner did not see the bicyclist coming up from behind him. The car’s wheels rolled across the bicycle, pinning the rider against the curb and crushing her leg in the process.
Joshua ran to her side. The driver, having pulled his car back and jumping out to lift the bicycle off of the woman he had struck, was on his knees beside her, looking panic-stricken as he tried to decide what would be the best course of action. But Joshua, a sense of calm descending upon him, merely intoned in a serene voice, ‘I will help you.’ He reached out towards the woman’s leg, which was already starting to turn an alarming shade of indigo.
The man in white reached out to him. ‘Is that really how you want to use your new power?’ he asked.
Joshua looked up at the man in white, an incredulous expression on his face. ‘She is in great need of my gift. What better use for it could there be?’
The man in white raised an eyebrow. ‘As you say,’ he replied. He stood back, looking slightly bemused.
Joshua placed his hands on the woman’s leg. The skin began to glow with a blinding white light. The woman screamed out in pain. ‘What are you doing?’ she wailed. Joshua withdrew his hands from her leg. The light continued to shine from where his hands had touched her, and quickly grew to engulf her entire leg. The woman continued to scream in agony. Joshua could feel the heat emanating out from the woman’s body as the light spread to her torso and her other leg. The glow was blinding, and the heat oppressive. Joshua, the driver of the car, and the man in white all stepped away from the woman to gain some relief from the temperature.
Suddenly, the woman’s screams stopped. The light began to dim. Moments later, the only light was from the noonday sun high overhead. The woman had been transmuted to a gold-coloured statue, every detail of her agonised writhing captured in perfect clarity in the glinting metal. The clothing had not been changed; her shorts, shirt, and shoes were still as they had been before.
The driver stared in disbelief. The man in white stood dispassionately nearby. Joshua looked first at the object that had been a woman, then at the man in white. His gaze went between the two of them for a few moments, before he asked, ‘What just happened?’
‘You used your gift,’ the man in white responded.
‘But... that’s not what I asked for. I was trying to heal her! How did she turn to gold?’
‘Heal her?’ the man in white gaped.
‘Yes! I wanted to use my healing touch to repair the damage to her leg!’
‘Healing touch? Wait, you asked for a healing touch?’
‘Yes!’ Joshua shouted. ‘I said I wanted a healing touch! Is that not what you gave me?’
‘Oh. Oh dear. No, that’s not what I heard at all.’
‘What did you give me?’
The man in white looked sadly at Joshua. He hesitated a moment, and then finally said, ‘I thought you said you wanted the annealing touch. Anything you touch will be transformed through great heat into solid brass.’
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