Nirvana Effect

Nirvana Effect - By Craig Gehring



Introduction



This in all likelihood is the first broadly published novelization of the events surrounding the rise of the most influential scientist of our times. Although Atlas gave no interview before he died, non-classified excerpts from his journals have recently been released by his foundation. These, combined with unprecedented interviews with both Doctor Knowles and the late Doctor Seacrest, make this fictionalization closer to truth than the many unauthorized biographies that have filled bookstores since Atlas’s untimely demise.

The scientific community may find fault with writing an historical fiction on such a figure as Atlas, but one could argue that in order to understand him and gain context to his accomplishment, one must take artistic license to fill in the many gaps. A timeline does no justice to his life’s work; a litany of his scientific discoveries does not spell out this man’s soul.

On behalf of my research team, co-writers and editors, it is my great pride and pleasure to present to you Nirvana Effect.





BOOK ONE: ONE ISLAND



In order for my early decisions to be comprehended, one must look out from the faulty pair of eyes I wore in 2010. I suffered from tunnel vision. If one desires to grasp my thinking at that time, one must feign the same affliction. One must ignore the affairs of nations. One must divert one’s eyes from such matters as my International Science Foundation. One must focus only on one island, one near-invisible speck on the globe. From there, one must narrow one’s consideration further to a small group of men and women and their conflicting struggles for survival.

This localized viewpoint actually provides the true story of the nirvana effect, all the way up the line to present day – that is, individuals and tiny groups making decisions (with global repercussions, I might add) in their own separate fights for life.

I hope someday that my earliest decisions will be forgiven. Once this journal is declassified, it will be quite plain that my initial actions with the trance substance brought on disaster and unnecessary suffering.

For the gifts I have given Man, I have never desired admiration.

But I hope for forgiveness.

-Atlas

Journal Excerpt, 2023 A.D.





1



A mosquito landed on the anthropology text Edward Styles studied from his lap. The insect was nothing; it scarcely blocked a single character. But since he focused his eyes on it, it was everything. All the world was a blur except that bug.

Much to Edward’s surprise, the bug and the text were blotted by the flickering shadow of a man. Edward looked up. He’d heard no footsteps into his tiny bamboo hut, no real warning sign.

Nockwe, the Onge chieftain, towered at the entrance of Edward’s dwelling, his dark skin punching out the starry sky behind him. The native’s surprise appearance unnerved Edward. It wasn’t like Nockwe to enter unannounced. In his six months of work at the Onge village, Edward had never feared for his safety. For no other reason than a poisonous wrenching in his gut, Edward feared then.

Nockwe wore more clothes than Edward had ever seen him in. Besides the staple loincloth, the chieftain wore ceremonial hunting garb: a feathered headdress, a bearskin for a robe, a dagger at the waist and hunting spear in hand. Edward noticed the spear particularly. The native gripped it as though he intended to use it.

Nockwe communicated with signs. He knew little English, and Edward preferred to not let on how well he understood Onge. Nockwe pointed at his spear, its tip glistening with poison. Nockwe then pointed to Edward.

The missionary stiffened. The text in his lap slid to the floor. Neither man glanced as it pounded the dirt; Edward watched the spear, and Nockwe watched Edward.

Nockwe spoke slowly in English: “White man stay hut.” He searched Edward’s eyes for a sign of betrayal. Edward nodded and tried to make his eyes appear trustworthy. The mosquito flitted past his nose. Edward had no trouble ignoring it.

Edward had a mind for facts. It had served him well in seminary. Facts flitted through his mind like the mosquito through the air. One fact was that Nockwe had become chieftain by dueling three men consecutively in hand-to-hand combat. Another fact was that the village was a forty mile hike from Lisbaad. Another was that Onge custom dictated that only one Westerner be allowed to visit at a time, and that in a village of 1,161 primitives, Edward was the only pale face.

Edward never prayed. He was a priest by profession and creed, and he said the words of the prayers as was custom, but he never put any faith behind his rosary. On mission, alone, where no one could detect him, he didn’t even bother rattling off the empty words.

At that moment, though, Edward prayed. He prayed faithfully, as an instantaneous thought. Make him leave.

The chieftain’s eyes strayed above Edward’s head. The missionary turned to follow Nockwe’s gaze. He was looking at the cross hanging from the wall, fashioned of wood and thorns. A young Onge man, Mahanta, had made it for Edward. Edward would have preferred a local craft, but accepted it graciously enough.

Nockwe walked around Edward to touch the cross. He easily reached it and fingered one of its thorns. Edward had used a chair to hang it up near the ceiling, out of his sight line.

Nockwe left abruptly. He swatted a mosquito off his arm on the way out.

Edward slid down to the floor to join his text. He flattened his hands on the hard dirt. The earth felt cooler than the air.

He picked up his book and examined it. One of its corners had dug into the ground. He picked each speck of dirt away and slid the book back onto his cot.

Edward looked outside from where he sat. He could not see far. Onge nights were darker than any he’d experienced. Only the stars and moon lit the village clearing, and even they had a rough go of it through the constant cloud cover. The tropical Isle of Lisbaad rained in seeming perpetuity.

This night was clear enough. He was happy to not have to endure his leaky roof.

Edward noticed that the nearby huts were tinged in the subtle warmth of a far-off campfire.

His mind had started racing for an answer for Nockwe’s uncharacteristic threats from the instant the chieftain had swatted the mosquito. The possibilities were few.

Either the tribe had gone to war (unlikely, since the only force to go up against on the island was the Sri Lankan government) or else they were having a ceremony to which Westerners were not privy. The campfire tended to confirm the latter. The lack of war cries, or any voice at all, for that matter, allowed Edward to finalize his conclusion.

He already knew what ceremony. It was Mahanta’s coming of age.

Edward lay down. The dirt felt a better pallet than the cot for the time being. The difference in temperatures and the hardness of the floor helped him think. He felt a soft spot where the handle of Nockwe’s spear had broken up some of the dirt, and fingered the grains of soil idly.

Edward did not pray, but he did meditate. Meditation was a way of the Jesuit. St. Ignatius would approve. Edward meditated on the ceremony and the dirt, gradually slowing his gyrating heart.

So Mahanta will come of age tonight. His thoughts beat in rhythm to his pulse. He gathered a handful of dirt and poured it out of his palm. And they don’t want me to see.

Edward guided himself into a light trance as he considered the key events surrounding the ceremony.

Weeks ago, Mahanta had mentioned the ritual. Edward’s mind travelled back to the moment.

“In a few moons, the tribe will try to make me a man,” Mahanta says in Tamil as he guides Edward through the jungle.

“What do you think of that?” Edward asks, noting the odd way Mahanta phrased it.

“Well, I’d like to stay a boy forever, I think,” he says.

Mahanta was hardly a boy by any standard. He was a hardened, muscular seventeen year old who could have passed for twenty-five in the West. His dark hands bore the callouses of labor.

“Me, too,” says Edward. “How will they make you a man?”

“It is not something for outsiders.” Mahanta will not discuss it further.

Edward breathed in deeply and let the oxygen circulate through his veins. Nockwe’s threats were fresh in his mind. The more time distanced him from them, however, the more easily he recognized that Nockwe’s intimidation act was probably for Edward’s own benefit. Must be some Onge law forbidding outsiders, just like Mahanta said.

Finally, Edward recalled his mission instructions. He would follow them tonight, not because he really cared what Brother Anthony thought, but rather because they provided a good justification for the decision he’d already made the moment Nockwe had told him not to leave the hut:

“You have too inquisitive a mind, Brother Styles. It is why I’m sending you to the Onge. No white man has ever changed their culture. I know you‘ve heard ‘you‘re not your brother’ plenty of times – and you definitely are not Allen. But in this one case, perhaps, it’s a good thing. Don’t do the preaching that you hate, anyway. Just study, and study well. Teach these people western science - irrigation, basic medicine. Do not fail to learn everything about this tribe - every secret, every way. You must understand these people. Only then can you help them. Maybe after that we’ll send in Allen.

“Why did you become a Jesuit, again?” It was Anthony’s running joke. He always said it with a serious face and then laughed sharply, in a staccato chortle. “Your heart’s in the right place, my scientist priest. I have no doubt of that. God has a purpose for us all.”

These Onge had mystified Edward. In six months, he felt no closer to understanding them than when he started. Perhaps Allen would have done a better job after all. The Onge not only resisted change; they rebuked it. Their women lugged water over half a mile from a nearby stream, yet were utterly disinterested in irrigation. They let Edward practice medicine on individual tribesmen, but refused to learn medicine’s procedures themselves. If he could just understand some fabric of their culture, he could relate enough to help them. As it was, he was planning on packing up, soon.

He would not miss this opportunity to observe them. Nockwe had the right idea in being so forceful in his warning; yet the only way he could have avoided Edward’s watching would have been to never bring it up in the first place.

Edward’s thoughts turned toward more questions. He had no idea what the ritual would entail. He had not a clue what lay in store for him outside the hut. He didn’t bother reflecting on it. He would soon find out.

He paused at the doorway and gripped the bamboo. It dug into his skin. He weighed the consequences of satiating his curiosity, then shrugged them off. He just wouldn’t get caught. That was that.

Before Edward could even roll off the balls of his feet to poke his head outside, the air filled up with a low, hair-raising drone. The sound seemed everywhere, as though without source or reason. He could feel it.

The ritual. It had begun.

Edward couldn’t help but fear for Mahanta. Many of the primitive initiation rites he’d studied were none too pleasant for the initiate. Edward liked the young man. He was different than the rest of the Onge. He had an ear sharp for all things Western and a head full of questions.

Edward hoped that difference wouldn’t result in consequences for Mahanta during the ceremony.

The droning enervated Edward. He tried to place the sound, momentarily drained of all his enthusiasm to sneak out. He steeled himself to push on along the course that his curiosity had pointed. He poked his head out. No guards.

He slipped outside. The sound became more localized to his ears. It was coming from the bonfire area. Edward crept around his hut and peeked in that direction.

A fire blazed higher than he’d ever seen at the camp. Edward could tell a sizeable crowd had gathered. He could view its fringes even from his dismal vantage point. It must have been half the tribe.

He knew he could risk getting closer. He didn’t see anyone around. The camp felt abnormally still. If the tribe had their vision burned out by the fire, they wouldn’t be able to see his spying. He cursed to himself using his favorite Onge curse: “Niet wan-wan.” Fools die fools.

Edward crept to the next closest tent, and then another, edging as closely as he dared to the gathering. All the dwellings were empty. Everyone was at the fire.

It was the medicine man who was droning. Edward could see him clearly, twisting and contorting on the ground, his chant incongruously monotonous. The crowd watched raptly. Their long flickering shadows stretched behind them as though to reach Edward as they shifted to follow the vagaries of the light. Edward stopped approaching when their shadows met his own.

He heard the witch doctor more distinctly now, bellowing at a monotone which eerily lacked sanity or humanity. Edward had the dim realization that he was awfully close. He suddenly was aware of his heart pounding as though lodged in his ears. He had a fleeting thought which he quickly quelled. I should go back.

He peered around the edge of the hut closest to the fire, watching with the one eye he dared expose. They stood in rank and file, every Onge with a weapon in his hand, dressed similarly to Nockwe. There were more than four hundred of them. It must have been all the males in the village. Even the children attended. The light flickered ominously off their dark skin and weapons.

On the far side of the bonfire writhed the medicine man. He lay horizontal on the ground, his erratic gyrations out of sync with the constant, insane chant that came deep from his gut. He may have been in his death throes of a drug - or it may have been all ceremony. The whole village was silent, though, except for this “witch doctor” who would have been committed to an asylum in any Western culture.

Edward’s ears started to separate out the sounds of the night. Besides the chant, there was the faint rattle of the medicine man’s beads. The birds and the animals of the jungle let out their occasional cry. Over it all he heard his own breathing, his heart racing as though if it ran fast enough he could escape whatever threat the jungle people might throw at him.

Over his own breathing he heard another. A tiny yelp behind him clued his ears to it. He twisted around quietly, Nockwe’s poison-tipped spear flashing in his mind’s eye.

It was only Mahanta. The young man sat in a hut forty yards away. Edward wondered how he’d heard him. Probably the fear was stretching his perceptions.

He saw Mahanta through the hut’s entrance. He sat there alone on a mat with a surgical needle in his hand, his arm straight out. Blood pooled red on the pit of his arm. He’d given himself some sort of shot. Edward wondered if that was a part of the ritual.

The anachronism gave Edward something to ponder, but he filed it away for later. His mind never stopped; fear seemed to work it all the harder.

Mahanta would be leaving that hut soon, and might have the same injunction toward keeping the ritual’s secret as Nockwe. Edward saw the young man was breathing hard, staring straight forward. The missionary quickly took cover behind another hut, out of view of Mahanta’s path to the gathering. Again, Edward peered out to the fire.

The medicine man’s chant grew softer. His body now matched the droning, immobile on the dirt surrounding the fire. An ember blew from the fire onto his arm. It rested there, singing his skin before finally smoldering. He didn’t move, and the droning didn’t stop. The whole village was absorbed in his performance.

Except Mahanta. Edward peered back around the corner. Mahanta was no longer in the hut. Edward spotted the his shadow shrinking toward the fire. Edward turned back around again.

Mahanta walked stiffly towards the gathering, nearing the now quiet medicine man. The villagers bunched closer to the fire to watch. Their weapons gave them more the aspect of a militia than a religious or communal gathering. Edward wondered what was in store for Mahanta.

Edward heard a sudden shriek of pain. He risked craning his neck out to get a better view. It was early in the morning, but he felt he’d never been more awake in his life. He examined his options. If he sprinted at the first sign of the ceremony ending, he could make it without being spotted. Still, it was too close. He thought again about running back.

He turned his eyes back to the fire and the “stage” it lit. Niet wan-wan.

He could clearly see the medicine man, still on the ground. Mahanta stood over him, facing the crowd. To his left, Nockwe brandished a burning staff. He touched the flame to the fleshy arm of the medicine man. The medicine man did not respond in any way.

Nockwe then turned to Mahanta. That’s why he shouted. Nockwe touched the staff to Mahanta’s flesh. Again, the young man yelped, but did not move. The crowd observed passively. Edward could not be so passive, wincing as though the burn had been to his own flesh. Edward was rooting for him.

Mahanta stared straight ahead to the crowd as again Nockwe touched the staff to the medicine man. Again he touched the staff to Mahanta. This time, Mahanta held fast. No sound came from his lips. He did it with an ease that let Edward know he needn’t have yelped either of the other two times if he hadn’t wanted to. Edward could imagine the burn growing worse and worse on Mahanta’s arm, and still Mahanta didn’t react. Finally, the chieftain cast the staff back into the fire. Edward sighed quietly, relieved.

Nockwe grunted and raised his arms, chanting over and over again in an ancient tongue. Edward recognized its Indo-European roots. Man, hunter, killer, peace bringer - something to that effect. He could definitely make out the symmetry in the words. The burn was to burn out something animalistic in the youth, and yet bring out all that was animalistic in the soon-to-be-man.

Nockwe’s words stopped. In unison, the tribe lay down their weapons and kneeled. The chieftain nudged the boy towards them. Mahanta walked forward warily. He was looking at their weapons.

Mahanta’s concentration was absolute. Edward didn’t understand what that look was, then. He would later recognize that this was the moment that would launch Mahanta onto his inevitable path.

Quietly, Mahanta stole to the back of the crowd. From the ground next to a young child, he took a small staff. He circled to the front, between the fire and the crowd, and held up the petty stick, shouting, “Ley hook!” I am.

The tribesmen were troubled. Whispers circulated through them like an insidious breeze. The younger boys looked wildly about with darting eyes. They feared for Mahanta.

Mahanta was not supposed to choose a child’s staff for this coming-of-age. Edward found himself leaning in, as though the few inches he gained would give him a more microscopic view to what was happening. Forgotten was the need to run.

One of the biggest of the males of the tribe stood up and shouted to Nockwe. He spoke too quickly for Edward to interpret, but it had a tone of indignation. It was matched by several angry cries from the crowd, though no one else stood.

“Do you break the way, Dook?” Nockwe shouted back in Onge. He spoke slowly, so that all could hear. His feet were planted firmly, his composure unperturbed. He would let no man disturb his dominance of the tribe.

“This child breaks the way with his weapon, Chieftain. Does he mock our ways?” The dissident matched Nockwe’s pace, speaking more to the crowd than to his ruler. He was playing politics; Dook wanted Nockwe’s title.

Before Nockwe could answer, he was stopped by the medicine man, who had quietly risen from his trance during the disturbance and now gripped Nockwe’s arm.

“TAUN!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. It was a curse Edward had never heard before, directed straight at Dook. It blasted the big man down back to his knees and silenced the other dissidents. The medicine man then whispered in Nockwe’s ear.

Nockwe surveyed the crowd. “It is the way. The boy has chosen,” he announced. “The boy may choose any weapon to become a man.”

“Turn around, boy,” rasped the medicine man.

Fear gripped Edward. Despite the intertribal politics, there was something else occurring here. He couldn’t quite grasp it. The adrenaline pumping through his veins kept it just out of reach of his mind.

The youth faced the fire now. Edward was long overdue on returning to his hut. His legs wanted to run but he could not turn his head from the scene.

They continued their ritual. “I face the fire,” Mahanta shouted.

“I face your life,” shouted back the medicine man.

“I face a boy,” cried Nockwe.

“We face a boy,” shouted the tribe in unison.

Silence. Mahanta acknowledged them by bowing his head. “I am a man,” he asserted.

“By whose spear?” returned the medicine man.

“By the tribe’s spear,” shouted Mahanta.

“What shall you slay?” asked Nockwe.

Silence again. The silence grew too long. Mahanta was breathing heavily. Edward wondered what drug was coursing through his veins. Maybe he’d blanked out.

“What do you slay, child?” coaxed the medicine man.

Mahanta said nothing.

“What do you say, child? Will you slay the hog?” the medicine man asked again.

Mahanta shook his head - no. The tribe grew more agitated. The medicine man quieted them with a small hand motion. His stage presence was impeccable.

Patiently, he asked Mahanta, “Then what shall you slay?”

Mahanta gripped his stick and spoke slowly in the formal version of their tongue. “As it is sung in the psalms of our ancestors, I shall slay the panther as a child, and defying my elders, remain a child immortal.”

“Blasphemy!” shouted a man in the crowd. Several joined him and started shouting, their weapons to hand.

“You call yourself a god?” asked the medicine man.

“I call myself a child. And I shall slay a panther tonight with this toy and so become immortal,” said Mahanta, defiant.

The medicine man nodded, feinting as though he were just motioning toward Nockwe to get his attention, but with a cat-like grace Edward would have never expected out of the old man, he grabbed Nockwe’s spear and in one swooping motion hurled it over the fire at Mahanta.

It was hard for Edward to make out by the firelight at such a distance, but in an instant it seemed that Mahanta’s whole body shifted, as though jerked like a rag doll by an unseen hand. The spear flew where he had been just a moment before. Mahanta struck the spear in midair with his staff, shattering it in two. Its splinters flew into the crowd of Onge.

The tribesmen could no longer contain their excitement. Edward could make one of the voices out, one of the younger men who he knew trained under the medicine man. He seemed to be quoting. “He shall shatter the spear of the spirit guide.” Others voiced terse agreement.

For only a moment, Mahanta locked eyes with the medicine man. Then, with his tiny staff still gripped in his hand, Mahanta launched into an all-out sprint towards the jungle.

Edward’s stomach dropped. Mahanta was running directly at him.

Mahanta flew with an unnatural speed. He wasn’t just running - every muscle in his body seemed to be propelling him as though he were clawing up for air along the ground. Some invisible force was pushing him, pulling him toward the jungle, and toward Edward.

Behind Mahanta, most of the tribe started running, their weapons to hand. Edward drew back. They were coming so quickly.

He had a choice to make. He could bolt for it, but surely they’d see him and his long shadows.

Edward frantically edged around the hut, losing his footing in mud. He heard the thundering footsteps of the tribe draw nearer. Mahanta flew by. Edward threw himself into the hut behind which he’d been hiding. He would wait it out.

Edward noticed the walls of this hut didn’t come all the way down to the floor. It was a cooking hut. He jumped up onto a bench against the far wall to avoid running the risk of some observant Onge noticing his legs. The shadows of the tribe raced on the floor. Their feet drummed the earth, only yards away.

It would only take one Onge taking pause at the hut to see him through the holes in the bamboo reeds, but they were all in pursuit of Mahanta.

Edward started to get the same feeling he’d had just half an hour before when Nockwe had entered his hut. He might not survive this night.

Through one of the wider gaps in the wall, Edward peeked to see what was happening. The tribe had all raged into the jungle. He didn’t know enough to be able to analyze it. Unanswered questions whizzed through his mind. Were they trying to kill Mahanta or just watch him? What was happening? Mahanta ran as though possessed. Perhaps he had overdosed on whatever drug he’d injected in his veins. An insane part of Edward wanted to follow, to run with the tribe as though one of them.

As the pounding of the Onge feet receded towards the nearby jungle, the voice of reason (and terror) triumphed. It was time to return to his hut. He had been fortunate; no need to push his luck. The men were in the jungle. The women seemed to be gone somewhere, too. The whole village was empty. He wouldn’t even need to sneak to make it back safely.

He stepped down from the bench and turned toward the doorway.

An Onge stood where only the darkness had been a minute ago. It was Nockwe.