Nirvana Effect

3



“Tell me the story,” Edward croaked. His head spun. He could not remember how to ask, “What happened?”

“What story?” asked Tomy, the teenage Onge who sat at his side.

“Tell me the story of what was and is,” said Edward.

He squinted his eyes to take in the rest of his surroundings. He lay in a corner of the largest hut he had ever seen. There was no hut like it in the village. It was simply colossal by all Onge standards. He tried to crane his neck to take in the entire scene, but a sharp pain thwarted him.

He lay propped up in a bed of straw on the dirt floor. Only the chief of the village slept on such a bed as this.

His head throbbed as though it might hemorrhage or explode at any minute. Some sort of demon was climbing back and forth along his optic nerves and scalding him to his core. The pain sharpened further as he came to full awareness.

What happened? Just tell me.

Tomy leaned in to examine Edward closely. The boy looked tired, as though he had been watching Edward for quite some time. His eyes were wide.

Tomy’s stare spurred Edward to start a self-inventory. Aside from the sharp pain along his nerves and his immobility, his throat and mouth felt parched. As he waited for his attendant to formulate an answer, he caught a water bowl in his peripheral vision. He deliberately looked over at it.

God, my eyes burn, too.

“Water. Drink. You drank nothing for a sun and moon.” Tomy grabbed the bowl and enthusiastically pressed it against Edward’s mouth. Edward sipped suspiciously. No Onge would ever attend a white man in such a way.

Then again, Edward was suspicious of even being alive. By all logic, he should be dead. Instead, it appeared he was resting in a chieftain’s bed attended by an Onge in a monumental hut. His predicament defied all reasoning.

Edward felt a frantic urge to get up, to leave his bed, to somehow escape, but he couldn’t even sit up. He felt trapped in his pain-wracked skin.

He forced himself to calm down and took a few minutes to drink, the cool water’s soothing action on his throat temporarily distracting his mind’s probing.

Gradually, the events of the night came back to him, like bits of flotsam netted from a river. He remembered it all. Mahanta, the drug, the variance in the coming of age. The panther.

A muscle in his head cramped that he didn’t know he had.

Nockwe’s foot. I remember now.

He reviewed each piece of the puzzle in his mind. He was still missing quite a bit of jigsaw. Once he ran out of the past to examine, he looked over the present.

Such odd surroundings. He hadn’t yet ruled out delusion.

Next to the bed was a sitting mat made of a velvety fabric that probably represented a tenth of the tribe’s total wealth. It must have come from their underground cache.

He pulled his head up slightly. It hurt tremendously but he needed to see.

Far across the hut was some sort of chair. A throne? It certainly had a grandeur that seemed other-worldly in an Onge setting. Its wood was freshly carved and lined with red fabric. The roof of the hut actually arched to some degree over the chair area. Decorative strings with shiny metal and beads hung from the ceiling down to the floor, framing the “throne.”

He rested his head back on the bed. It hurt too much to keep it up.

Edward’s delusion hypothesis couldn’t overcome the fact that in the final analysis, the straw felt real and the space looked real. His head and body ached realistically. These factors taken together lent credence to his alternate hypothesis that he had not the foggiest clue what was going on. The mystery ached nearly as bad as his injuries.

He shifted his head for comfort, waiting for the merciless throbbing in his skull to ease before once more addressing the boy. Tomy still hadn’t answered up.

“Story,” Edward gently prompted him.

The boy had been staring at him the whole time. Edward hoped the reason for Tomy’s rapt attention wasn’t because Edward’s brain was exposed or something else equally gruesome.

“Nockwe kicked you,” said the boy slowly. Yes, the flashing foot. Edward grimaced and then immediately regretted that he did so. His attitude had provided new muscles to join in the aching.

“Yes, yes…” prodded Edward. It even pained him to vibrate his own vocal chords. Speaking was a necessary evil.

“A lot of people kicked and hit you. Medicine man and Dook wanted to roast you.” But I’m here. “Manassa said no.”

“Who is Manassa?” asked Edward.

The boy scrunched his eyebrows. He sighed, then started his story over again as though to a child. “Mahanta had his ret’nal’u two nights past. You sneaked to watch it, you silly white man. But only he didn’t kill the pig. He left the village to kill a panther, and Mahanta died.”

He died? Edward’s mind scanned again through the night. He died? There Mahanta stood before his mind’s eye, hefting the panther over his head. Edward would never forget that moment. He saw it as clearly as if he were still there, hiding in the grass. The incident was unbelievable but certainly a reality.

“What happened when I passed out?” Edward asked.

“I just told you,” said Tomy, obviously frustrated. Before Edward could say anything else, Tomy tapped his forehead with his palm. “Oh! I forgot! Manassa told me to get Bri’ley’na as soon as you wake, if you do.” He ran out of the hut.

Edward attempted to further assess the damage to his weary body without moving. He didn’t want to stir up the pain again.

He had no visible wounds, save for some scratches from the jungle brush and syringe marks in his arm. He dared not touch his head. His legs felt numb, presumably from lying in the same position all day and night. Sun and moon. He gave them a try and got no response.

He would need to shift his body up to get his circulation going, but he didn’t want to risk that without assistance. It had been hard enough just lifting his head to an upright position. It felt like he’d had his head amputated, used for a football game, and then screwed back on.

What is this hut? Manassa’s? Who is this man?

Edward speculated that Manassa was an elder from outlying tribe. In Edward’s other missions, there were always respected outsiders coming in and out. These primitive opinion leaders had always been his key to getting any work done. Being roamers and travelers, they were more open to new ideas. Often they’d already been introduced to Christianity, and were at least familiar with the concept of missionaries and Western advances.

Unlike the Onge, any travelers’ great-grandparents and entire descendancy didn’t all live and die within a thousand yards of an old tree. Perhaps this Manassa is such a traveler. Perhaps he can help me.

Immediately Edward dismissed his own thoughts. It was pointless speculation, as his position on the island was untenable. Even with the support of this outsider, Nockwe had to follow the laws of the tribe. As evidenced by my aching head. If he couldn’t bend the rules for Mahanta, he certainly couldn’t do so for a white man. Both the medicine man and Nockwe’s main adversary wanted Edward dead. The best Edward could hope for would be a return to Sri Lanka, and from there back to London.

He kept at examining his surroundings as though the dust motes floating near the rafters of the hut might suddenly give him answers.

There was nothing else he could divine by looking. Tomy had not yet returned.

For the second time in less than a week, Edward prayed. This time he started with one his father had drilled into him from the first day he could say the words.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Then Edward added:

I hope somehow Mahanta’s still alive. And if he isn’t, I’m sure you’re taking care of him. It’s a shame, though.

Whenever Edward did really pray, he just talked to God. He didn’t even throw in an “amen” at the end.

“You’re crying.” A female’s soft voice, in Onge.

“Hmm?” Edward mumbled. He opened his eyes. A woman stood over him. He recognized her at once as Nockwe’s young wife, Bri‘ley‘na.

“Water?” she asked.

“No, Tomy helped me with that,” he answered.

Bri’ley’na was twenty-five years old. Edward had never seen an Onge woman with hair even slightly cared for, but hers was washed and combed that day. Her thick black hair ran straight down the sides of her dark face and swept back and forth gently as she moved. She was full-figured and quite beautiful, by any standards. He suddenly felt excruciatingly aware that she was topless. It must have been something about her hair.

“What happened?” Edward asked, keeping his eyes on her face. He ignored the tears that had collected on his cheeks. He didn’t want to wipe them and make the pain worse again.

“Nockwe kicked you. Manassa saved you.” Her voice carried a kind tone. Her eyes assessed his injuries. It seemed Bri’ley’na actually cared how Edward was doing.

I must look terrible if I’m getting sympathy from an Onge woman. Their society was patriarchal; so was American society, and that didn’t mean anything in either case. The Onge village ran on the hardened backs of the women.

Here was a woman who didn’t seem so hardened, and yet he knew that she was probably the toughest of them all. Edward had heard that one fool challenged Nockwe after he had become chieftain. She had killed the man personally rather than have her husband be troubled with the duel. They’re quite a match, Nockwe and she. She ran the village work crews from sun up to sun down as the chieftain’s wife.

“Yes, but what happened to Mahanta?” Edward asked.

“Mahanta died,” she said.

I’ve heard this before. “Yes, but how?” he asked.

“You have many questions, Ed-ward.” She peered at him for approval on her pronunciation. He nodded with his eyes and she grinned slightly. “Now you must sleep. You must rest and you must heal.”

“But I have so many questions,” he insisted.

“And so does Manassa. But first you must be well.” She knelt down on the ground beside him. “Your skull seems broken. Nockwe kicked you hard, but I am told two others got in blows and almost killed you. My husband stopped them.” He heard her open a box. “Manassa told me to give this to you. This is your last shot. He showed me how to do it. It will heal you.”

Edward glanced down as far as he could manage. In his lower periphery vision he saw her fiddling with a syringe.

“What is that?” he asked. I’m not going to let them inject mud into my veins or something.

Her warm hands pulled his arm open to expose the vein. She answered with a sing-song voice. “Nectar of the gods, that only Manassa and his chosen may drink. Magic medicine, he said.”

A doctor. Perhaps this Manassa is not a tribesman at all. No wonder I’m still alive. “Is Manassa a doctor?” he asked. Maybe he has painkillers…

She looked at him quizzically for a moment and then gave him the injection. It hurt; her nursing skills left much to be desired. Edward wondered why Manassa hadn’t administered the medicine himself.

“Now, Manassa told me to tell you this, in these exact words.” She breathed in deep and looked up, reciting mechanically what he had told her. “Something strange is about to occur. Don’t do anything except fix your head. Fix your head. Fix every part of your head. Fix your body and don’t move your body. You will have the power to heal your body but if you move your body you may die.”

Edward’s stomach turned somersaults. This was not a doctor; more like another “medicine man”. For all he knew, she might have injected peyote or worse. Certainly something was happening. He felt as though he were swimming at the bottom of the ocean, with all its crushing pressure bearing down, and every time he stroked in one direction he was spun completely around.

He was not losing consciousness, but it was certainly being altered.

“Just fix your head.” She said again. “Just fix your head.”

The last time she said that, it took her a full two minutes. It was at the end of these two minutes, as she turned to walk away in slow motion, that Edward noticed something was wrong inside of him.

The rushing sensation stopped, as though he were plunging off a cliff and had frozen in mid-air at the onset of free fall.

Disconnect. Disconnection.

He felt a peace that he had achieved only once before. Three weeks into the arduous retreat he’d taken to qualify as a Jesuit, he had sat upon a mountain top from one sunrise to the next. He’d achieved a total serenity, a detachment from this world. He had not hungered or tired. He’d felt at one with the universe.

His mentor had called it “being with God”. He knew of other faiths that had terms for the same thing. It was this experience that most Jesuits shared, in the tradition of their patron saint, Ignatious, which caused their order to be more liberal than most of their Catholic brethren.

The sensation he felt now (or rather, the lack of it) was far stronger than anything he’d experienced on the mountaintop. Total disconnect.

Life is. I am.

Perception was perception, which had its own realities and significances and no particular emotional connotation unless he chose to have it. Detached, he could view his surroundings far more clearly.

The awareness dawned on him that, he had total control of his senses. His perceptions churned through his mind like a clear, unstoppable river. He could draw from it as he chose. A flood of sensation. And nothing. As I choose.

His perceptions and memories seemed without limit. Experimentally, he stretched his hearing. He heard an Onge wife arguing her husband into gathering more firewood. They were in another hut.

He shut off his hearing entirely. The world turned silent. He was mute. He turned it on again.

He sensed Bri’ley’na had left the giant hut.

Edward wanted to know what had happened to him. Perhaps in this strange, heightened state of awareness he could reach an answer without having to rely on the cryptic Onge.

When he began to examine his memory, Edward was startled to discover that he knew with certainty the whole path of his life. He could dive into his past and pull up a full recollection of what he’d witnessed - every sight, sound and sensation instantly available.

A Christmas kiss. Callista. He re-experienced it as though he were living it. The fireplace. The music playing. Her warmth.

He rapidly flicked through a dozen more memories. All were shockingly complete. What was more, he could just pull up data.

What was the name of my first grade teacher?

The answer flashed into his mind the instant he formed the question.

He picked a random number. Element number 64?

Gadolinium. He’d never memorized the periodic table before. His mind had pulled its response from a distant memory of the chart.

He closed his eyes. He started calculating. His mind leaped to associations which had never occurred to him five minutes before. Huge chunks of his data, his education, his memory blew into view to assist him in evaluation. He rapidly inspected old conclusions and faulty evaluations, blew them out like so many cobwebs. He could see everything from his schooling, and yet could know without looking at any of it.

One of the first mysteries he’d been working on since he’d awakened came to light in little more than a glance. Manassa. Mahanta. Mahanta’s words to the crowd. “No mortal Mahanta leaves here tonight.” The Onge root of Manassa: ‘mana’ - of Polynesian origin, meaning ‘powerful, magical, of gods’, and ‘sa’ - Onge for ‘boy, child’. Mahanta’s words: “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.” The hut. The “throne.”

Mahanta died. Manassa lives. They are the same - Manassa is the boy now deified.

In those minutes he reached many other conclusions, resolving the past, the present, and what might lay in store. Much of it might have perturbed him if he weren’t so detached. The emotion connected to the facts with which he calculated had distorted and blocked them from use.

Much needed to be contemplated further, but at present there was an immediate threat to his survival. He wondered at how he’d been able to go so far off on a tangent. He had to secure his own survival, not experiment with his mind.

Mahanta. My life is in the hands of this young man. Edward assessed his chances at escape. Mahanta could not be predicted, and Edward’s condition was more than questionable.

The young man took this drug, and so killed the panther to become a god in the eyes of his people. He is a powerful threat. Edward sorted through every encounter he’d had with Mahanta in his months at the village.

In retrospect, it was no wonder he’d been so inquisitive, yet so reserved, and why there’d been such strangeness about him. He must have been planning this for a long time.

Observation: Mahanta gave me this drug.

Evaluation: If he had reason to fear me, he would not.

Conclusion: He has a purpose for me, so he will not kill me yet or permit me be killed.

With that matter put to rest, at least for the immediate present, Edward worried over what intentions the Onge had for him since they knew he’d spied on their ceremony.

He remembered Nockwe’s injunction: “If the tribe learns what you saw, either I or someone else will have to end your life.” Edward wondered now if there were any teeth left to that threat.

Considering this hut, it seems Mahanta has established control. The whole tribe must have worked day and night to erect this “temple”. As long as I am useful to him, I have no threats to worry about.

Edward had no idea what that use might be.

He turned his attention to his injury, realizing that he had subconsciously shut off the pain coming from his head to aid his concentration.

He deliberately turned the perception of pain back on in full. The devil took out his pitchfork again and began wreaking havoc on his brain and the nerves along his body. He was amazed at how much control he had over his own perceptions, even the undesirable ones.

Edward could sense every part of his body - every gland, every organ, every function. He noticed his pulse was racing. He could detect the subtle rush of blood along his veins, the pressure that forced the oxygen-laden cells to all his organs.

He slowed his heart rate as easily as he might consciously slow his breathing. He had once seen a medicine man do the same. The witch doctor had even stopped circulation in his hand for a time, but it had taken much hypnosis and to-do.

Edward just monitored his heart rate at will. He knew that if he so desired, he could take conscious command of every function of his body, automatic or otherwise.

What was this drug in his system? What was this trance he’d entered into?

It was too real for him to think he was dreaming or delusional. It was the most real moment of his life.

There was a task he had to tend to before he wasted any more time. He remembered the simple words of Bri’ley’na. “Fix your head.”

Edward explored his injury without moving. He could sense it. His body knew what was happening. There seemed to be a near-fracture in his skull that was giving him the trouble. The bone was weak and the tissue bruised. Blood pooled in places it shouldn’t. The bone would weaken further. His mind knew what was wrong.

He sensed an energy near the injury, one that he couldn’t touch. It seemed to have its own perceptions connected to it, neurons that kept firing off the same signal.

He picked up what it was broadcasting. The impact of the kick. Nockwe kicked me and then…nothing. There was something there. There were other kicks. He kept prying, and finally it flew into view of his consciousness.

The damaged cells had recorded their attacker. They were just energy waves, playing over and over again from the nerve bundle. His mind translated them into something he could make sense out of.

Nockwe shouts. Then others. The impact. More impacts. Nockwe says to get away, to leave him be, that he is dead, and if not he will be tried.

The pain, the voices. Mahanta’s voice.

The pain subsided noticeably. Connected nerve bundles were helping it discharge as he played the energy of his attention across the damaged area.

Finally, the nerves stopped sending out their distress signal.

Fascinating.

Edward’s glandular system had tried to go into motion to heal the fracture, but the hormones and blood cells never reached the injured area. The misfiring nerves had kept telling his body over and over again that he was still being injured. Edward got the glands going again.

He remembered back to his classes in medicine. The Jesuits were so well-trained. There were certain healing conditions one tried to create in a body. Regular heart rate, regular breathing, increased circulation. Reduced pain. High protein intake. The first four he enforced directly on his body by will alone. The last he substituted by working his stomach glands out of starvation mode. It might deplete his store of resources but he needed his head mobile and functional. He needed to heal.

And of course, the last healing condition was a given. Sleep. He directed his body to it and instantly he was out.