Let There Be Light [FICTOID]

There is a hospital in Brazil that will blind you the moment you set foot in it.

Not literally, of course -- after all, that would be contrary to the whole purpose of a hospital, no? -- but by dazzling your eyes with starlight.

Princess Juliana Ximenes Branco of the Tabajara tribe started the hospital when she received an omen from the gods.

Her father was the grandson of an escaped Nazi war criminal.  He used family connections to accumulate vast wealth that he used to assuage his family guilt by spending it on charitable projects for the native tribes of Brazil.

On once such project his met Juliana’s mother and one thing led to another and that’s how Juliana.

While she lacked her father’s sense of guilt over her great-grandfather’s crimes, she did grasp the virtue of using one’s wealth and power to improve the lives of those less fortunate.

While the Tabajara possess no noble class, Juliana quickly became the tribe’s unofficial princess.

Unofficial in name on; where things really mattered, she could rule by divine right if she so chose.

It stood as a credit to her character that she chose not to.

She received the omen one evening while looking across the vast Amazon.  The night felt preternaturally quiet and still -- no insects or birds or predators could be heard.

Looking across the water, she noticed how the ripples seemed to magnify and multiple the reflection of the vast stretch of stars above her.

She already planned to build a hospital, the omen showed her how to do it.

Consulting with the finest electrical engineers in Brazil, she built a hospital where the ceilings / walls / floors were permeated with millions of fiber optic cable and powered by LEDs to create the sensation of floating through the heart of the Milky Way.

When turned on, these lights overpowered unprotected vision.  The staff learned to wear heavy polarized sunglasses to treat patients; the patients themselves wore dark masks that weren’t opaque enough to prevent a warm, rosy glow from leaking through.

While the staff seemed skeptical at first, they soon came to recognize the brilliance (no pun intended) of Princess Juliana’s design.

The light provided bright illumination around all parts of the hospital, leaving nothing in shadow.  This facilitated the diagnosis and treatment of rare jungle diseases -- and Lord knows Brazil possesses more than enough of those!

The Starlight Hospital remains one of the most successful hospitals for native tribes in Brazil, but its doors never open to non-native patients.

Princess Juliana recognizes that in order to best serve the Tabajara, she must never avail herself of the miracle she delivered unto them.

She is dying now, slowly from stomach cancer, yet she refuses all treatment.

“May it end with me and this hospital,” she says, thinking back on the horrors her great-grandfather perpetrated.

© Buzz Dixon