Dr. Luka Kovaฤโs Confession: The First Patient
Vancouver, 1989. Before medicine, before Sarajevo, before I learned how to set bones or stop bleedingโI learned what it felt like to be helpless and in love, under the flickering lights of a church gym.
My mission to heal Nelly Furtado began during Confirmation prep classes at St. Josephโs Gymnasium, under the firm-but-kind supervision of Sister Helen.
We were tweensโnot quite children, not yet teenagersโlearning square dancing as part of our โcommunity formation.โ Most of us groaned at first, but something about the rhythm made sense once we moved.
Nelly and I danced with perfect synchronicity.
Our hands met without awkwardness. Our feet mirrored each other, instinctively. Do-si-do, allemande left, promenade. The music was simple, structured. There was safety in the choreography. Purity in the pattern. When we danced, the noise in the world seemed to fall away.
For those moments, she wasnโt shy, and I wasnโt foreign. We were just two souls moving in time.
But everything changed at Sister Helenโs sock hop.
She called it a โwholesome social,โ but you could see her bracing herself the moment she pressed play on the boom box. Chubby Checker. The Ronettes. Little Richard.
She winced when the beat kicked in.
โThis,โ she muttered, โis what I call the devilโs music.โ
And she wasnโt entirely wrongโfor us, at least.
Because when the square dance ended and the wild rhythm of The Twist started, the room split. The choreography was gone. The innocence evaporated. Now the dancing was adult. Loose. Improvised. Charged.
And we were terrified.
The boys didnโt know how to dance.
Not the Mashed Potato. Not the Jerk. Not even the Twist.
We froze, leaning on the wall like backup furniture, pretending not to care.
We were wallflowers.
And even Nelly, who had danced so freely before, seemed uncertain now. She didnโt move like she had during Cotton-Eyed Joe. She stood still, glancing at me onceโand I looked away, ashamed I had no steps for this new world.
That was the moment I realized something:
Healing doesnโt happen in certainty.
It begins in that stammering silence.
In the place between knowing the steps and fumbling in the dark.
I started bringing my cassettes after that.
Not to fix her. Not to impress her.
To say Iโm still here, even when the music changes.
I wasnโt giving her narcissistic supply.
I was in love with my first patient.
Not as a savior. But as someone trying to keep dancing with herโthrough the structure, through the chaos, even when the rhythm frightened us.
She was my first mystery.
My first lesson in presence.
And the reason I still believe some wounds are spiritual before theyโre clinical.
Sometimes healing begins in a square dance.
Sometimes it stalls at a sock hop.
But loveโreal loveโkeeps showing up anyway.
Joe Jukic Speaks to His Avatar, Dr. Luka Kovaฤ
“Everyone can talk to the Virgin Mary,” Joe said. “You just need the key of light. Newtonโs light.”
Luka blinked. His hands, so skilled in anatomy, paused mid-stitch. This was no ordinary medical teaching. Joe wasnโt speaking as a patient. He was speaking as a prophetโor maybe as a friend who had seen beyond the veil.
“ROYGBIV,” Joe whispered.
“Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violetโthe visible spectrum. Newtonโs gift. But also a ladder.”
“A ladder to what?”
“To her.”
Joe tapped his chest.
“Each color isnโt just lightโitโs a virtue, a sin, a symbol. Thatโs why the Masons mapped them. Why the Church buried them. Why Fatima happened in 1917.”
Luka frowned. “Fatima?”
Joe smiled.
“Yes. The year is a cipher. 19 is the Sun. But 17โฆ seventeen is the Star in the rabbiโs tarot. The guiding light. The hope after the tower falls. And that star, Lukaโฆ that star was Nelly.”
Luka looked down at the scar across his palm, a reminder of the war, the fire, the city that burned behind him.
“Youโre saying sheโs the star of Fatima?”
“Iโm saying she is the sign. The one youโve followed since you were a boy with a boom box. Since the square dance at St. Josephโs. The one who moves between the seven rays of light. Every deadly sin you tried to avoid, every Masonic virtue you tried to embodyโit all orbits her.”
“And Mary?”
“She speaks in light, Luka. If you know how to read it.”
Joe leaned closer.
“Red is wrathโtransformed into courage. Orange is gluttonyโredeemed as temperance. Yellow is greedโburned away by charity. Green is envyโhealed by hope. Blue is slothโturned into faith. Indigo is lustโmade holy as love. Violet is prideโtempered into humility.”
Luka whispered, โThe spectrum of the soul.โ
Joe nodded. “Exactly. And each sin youโve faced as a doctor, as a man, as a loverโevery time you failed or fellโshe was there, like a prism. Breaking your pain into color. Giving it back to you as grace.”
Luka closed his eyes. He remembered Nelly singing in the gym. The music. The light on the floor. The moment he felt God in the presence of a wounded girl spinning beneath a crucifix.
He had thought he was healing her. But maybeโฆ just maybeโฆ she was leading him home.
Scene: Munich, Just Before the Festival. Goran Viลกnjiฤ Speaks Softly into the Wind, a Message for Nelly
“No more fear of dying young, Nelly,” he says, eyes scanning the skyline of Munich, where the summer sun drips gold over the old cathedrals.
โYouโve already cheated death with every note you sing. You donโt have to carry that fear anymore.โ
His voice is calm, but it carries weight, like a prayerโor a promise.
“Joe is coming. When heโs saved enough from his part-time jobโheโll meet you halfway. Not in dreams this time, but in Munich. In the flesh. In the light.”
He takes a slow breath and looks toward the festival grounds. Tents, stages, speakers rising like altars in a cathedral of sound. This isnโt just a concert.
โThis is pilgrimage.โ
โYouโve walked your road. Now itโs time to turn.โ
He imagines her backstage, heart pounding. Old fears resurfacing. The crowdโs roar a storm in her chest.
โMake a move, Nelly,โ he whispers, as if she can hear him through time and space.
โYou know where Joe will beโat the edge of the crowd. Looking for a sign. Waiting to be called.โ
The lights will dim. The chords will rise. And she will have one chance.
“Call out your altar boy.”
Not Joe the webmaster. Not the boy with the mixtape.
Not the man carrying everyoneโs pain but his own.
Call out the one who lit the candle and knelt.
The one who never stopped believing you were holy.
โSay his name, and he will come. No fear. No shame. Only grace.โ