[Flashback] Mysteries of master masseur (solo)

[Cora Greenberg]

TIMESTAMP - 30th Day of Summer, 498 AV Summary - Cora's first contact with massaging It was late afternoon and Cora was sitting on a chair in his father’s office, quite bored. She observed him, as he treated some of his patients all day and it was beginning to be a bit dull. Her father promised, that he would teach her how to give a massage today, but he had so many patients, that he didn’t have time for it. Until now. He went to a door, to see, if there was somebody waiting. Cora saw him closing the door again and her heart leapt. Finally. "All right. We can start. I’m sure you are all impatient to learn something, aren’t you?" he smiled slightly. Cora nodded eagerly and stood up from her chair, straightening her clothes. "Yes, father." Her father nodded. "Come on, then.“ He led her to another room, right next to his office. Cora had never been there, so she looked around curiously. It was a plain room with white walls. Around the room, near the walls there were standing several big cupboards. In the middle of the room there was a simple wooden table. Cora’s father went to one of the cupboards standing in the left opposite corner of the room, opened it and took out several papers and even one book. He set it on the table and motioned for her to come to him. “All right. A little bit of theory comes first. This,” He was handing her a paper and Cora took in and looked at it. There was a colourful image of the human body, muscles and their names. “is important for you to know, so be sure to study it properly.” He told her firmly. “I also lend you a book on massage and I expect you to actually read it.” He continued and Cora gave a small groan. A book! That will be boring. Couldn’t he just show her how to do it instead of all these? Cora rolled her eyes and looked slightly irritated. Cora’s father ignored her annoyed look and continued with his lecture. “You must know, that massage is not merely caressing of the patient’s body. By applying a pressure on specific points of the body, the massage can serve for relaxing or relieving pain.” That was something new to Cora. She watched her father several times while massaging, but to her it all seemed easy. It was like mere sliding of hands on the body and to her, the mere touch seemed to heal people. She looked at her father with new interest. “All right. I’m sure you are ready to begin the real work, so let’s get to it.” Said father and firmly clapped his hands. Cora, being all excited, did some kind of a victory dance and came to stand near the table. Meanwhile, her father crouched down to take out something from one of the cupbards. When he stood up, Cora saw a dummy of an upper human body. She rubbed her hands together. This was going to be fun.

[Cora Greenberg]

Cora’s father put the dummy on the wooden table, he put his hands behind his back and continued to explain. “I’ll show you some basic techniques for back massage, because people tend to have most problems there.” He turned around so that he was facing the table now. Cora stood next to him and watched his actions. “But first of all, we need to prepare our working place. That means the table, but also the surroundings, especially if you will have your own office. And remember that patient’s needs are always above yours. You need to keep them as much comfortable as possible.” He reminded her. Cora made a face. “So that means, that I’ll have to decorate the place? With flower pots and pictures on the walls and so on?” The man laughed.”You don’t need to exaggerate it, but a flower or picture or two would be nice. What I meant was that you’ll need to adjust the temperature of the room. You don’t want the patient to be cold or hot too much. Before you start, it would be good to ask him or her, how they are feeling so you can make the room warmer or colder.” Cora, standing next to her father, started tapping her foot impatiently. So this was the ‘real work’ her father had promised. She had to admit that what father was saying was important and even interesting, but she hated the waiting and she couldn’t wait to get to real ‘real work’ soon. “Could we start already?” she complained, bored. Her father frowned at her and looked closely at her. He knew that attitude very well and he also knew how to get rid of it. The friendly and relaxed atmosphere was suddenly gone. “Cora, stop whining or I won’t show you anything and you will have to read it alone from the book I gave you. You need to know all of this. I want you to be the best and even better then me, so I can pass this work on you knowing, that you will care for your patients well. Remember that you are learning this so you can save people’s lives.” “How can this…” she tried again and started rolling his eyes, but she saw the look on the man’s face, so she fell silent and looked at the dummy on the table, trying to keep straight face and her mouth shut. It was here again. The moment of rebellion seemed to be slowly waking up in her and it was coming back to her more often than before. Cora’s father raised an eyebrow. “So you don’t want to learn? Fine then.” He turned around and made a move as if to leave the room. “No, no! It’s not that…it’s…All right, I’ll listen. I’m sorry.” Cora said quickly, hoping he would come back and he would continue with explaining all of it to her. The man cleared his throat, turned around to the table again and continued. “Good. As I was saying, we need to make sure that the patient is feeling comfortable before we start. Another way to achieve this is to soften the working surface. For example, with pillows and so on. Also don’t forget to cover the parts of the patient’s body that you aren’t working on with a towel or some other cloth.” He looked around as if he was looking for something and then he shrugged. “I don’t have anything like that in here now, but I’m sure that this one won’t mind.” He laughed slightly and tapped the dummy with the knuckles of his right hand. Cora smiled too. It seemed that her father chose to forget her earlier outburst. Cora’s father gave the dummy a contemplative look and after a while he grinned at his daughter, knowing that she would be happy to hear what was he going to say next. “Now we are ready to give this one a proper back massage, don’t you think?”

[Cora Greenberg]

Finally! Cora was nearly jumping up with excitement. She immediately started planning on how she was going to use what she was learning on her friends or other people in their neighbourhood. Maybe she could convince that old lady, living right next to them. Or persuade that handsome sailor from the small house on the corner. Or… “Hey, are you listening to me?” father’s concerned face came into view. It looked like he was telling her something and she wasn’t responding for quite a while. “Oh, yes. Sorry. What did you say?” said Cora apologetically. Her father sighed and shook his head. “Daydreaming, again. I said: Come stand here, where the patient has his head. Good. You can see that the spine is dividing the back into two halves. Now you will put your hands with palms down on each of the dummy’s shoulders like that.” He put his hands on the dummy like he instructed and then he motioned for Cora to repeat it while he observed her. “Yes, that’s right, but don’t stretch your fingers so much. Try to keep them together a little. And relax them a little. Yours are very rigid.” When he saw her correcting her mistake, he nodded. “That’s better. Now slide both hands down to the lower back and up again and when you are going up, apply a small pressure on the patient. Do it slowly.” Cora frowned in concentration. That shouldn’t be very difficult. She started sliding her hands downwards maybe a little too quickly, because from time to time, her hands jerked and she had to stop and begin from that spot again. When her hands reached the shoulders again, she lifted them and looked expectantly at her father. The man nodded. “That was fine, but I have a few things to say. First: never lift your hands from the patient’s body. Only if it’s absolutely necessary. If you lift your hands abruptly like you did, patient will be startled and he may not be as relaxed as he was before and all healing purpose of the massage will be gone. So be sure that you do all your movements slowly. Do you understand?” he looked pointedly at his daughter. Cora impatiently nodded. “Yes, yes of course. So what’s next?” “One more thing. Didn’t you notice something odd when you were sliding your hands like that.“ Her father asked. Cora scrunched up her face in confusion. Something odd? “No...? Maybe I was doing it a little more quickly than I should?” she half asked, half answered. She didn’t notice anything different. Was he testing her? Her father shook his head. “Your hands were scrubbing the dummy very hard. That could be painful for the patient. The motion should be smooth and flowing. And that could be achieved by using an oil.” He explained. “It is good for nourishing the skin and it has a moisturizing effect, which could help you whilst performing massage. We can use an ordinary olive oil, but I prefer almond and sunflower oil and I use them most often.” He looked at Cora and sighed in desperation. The girl was looking out of the window, clearly not listening to him. He cleared his throat and Cora jumped up. “I think we should end today. You clearly can’t concentrate. We will continue tomorrow.“ Cora didn’t like the slight disappointment in her father’s voice, but she had to admit, that she was beginning to feel tired and she started to lose concentration. This way she wouldn’t remember anything. “Fine.” She nodded, turned around and moved to leave the room. Her father quickly caught up to her. “Don't forget the book and the paper.” And with slightly gleeful expression he winked at her and dropped the materials into her arms. Then he quickly departed from the room. Cora sighed in defeat. This is going to be the death of her. FINIS OOCI'm very bad at describing emotions and descriptions in general. Well, at least I tried...

[Oracle]

Name: Cora Greenberg

XP Award:

• Massage +2

Lore:

• The impatience of youth
• Massage Oils

Notes: Good read. I hope to see even longer posts from you though. I do like your writing style and interactions between the characters. Keep up the good work!


If you have any concerns with this please PM me and let me know.

A.S. Oracle