Nirvana Effect

9



It was a date, thought Callista as she got into her car behind the clinic. It was around 10:00 p.m.

After three years in Lisbaad, she thought she would have gotten used to the nights. It was no London. Since her first day here, darkness had taken on new meanings and new depths. She recalled the chilling night her headlights had both burned out, and she had to struggle home along the pockmarked road with only the diffused light of the cloud covered moon to guide her. She’d eventually driven back to the clinic and slept the night there.

She saw James’s hand wave out of the Corvette’s window as he pulled onto the road. She started her car.

A dark body flickered past her headlights. Dark skin and a loincloth. A woman with something in her arms.

The woman was gibbering loudly. She pounded on Callista’s window. The doctor didn’t understand a word the woman was saying.

Callista looked for Seacrest, but he’d already left. She screamed for him on reflex. She realized with a touch of panic that the woman had probably waited for the Corvette to leave.

She checked the door’s lock. Fortunately it was secure.

The woman kept pounding the windshield and shouting. She was frantic.

Callista shouted to her, “Get away!” through the window. The woman did not stop. Callista tried the five dialects she knew besides Tamil. She got no response.

Callista put the car in drive. She decided to try to make a break for it.

The woman screamed even more loudly. She ran in front of the car’s headlights. Callista finally saw her clearly. She had a limp body in her arms. She looked no older than 25, her long black hair framing her face. She looked half Indian, half Chinese, with dark skin, nearly black. Now wonder Callista hadn’t seen her.

Callista had her hand over the horn, planning to force her way past this native, but stopped when she saw the body.

The woman was crying hysterically. She gripped the hood of Callista’s car to steady herself.

She was holding a little boy, younger than the native who she’d treated earlier. Must be her son, thought Callista. He had the same complexion as his mother.

For Callista, there was little choice at this point. The woman had stopped shouting. She was leaning against the car hood with one arm around her son as she took gulping, arrhythmic breaths. He tears sparkled down her dark face.

Oh, God. Callista wrestled with the door lock and stepped out of the car. She approached the woman carefully. The woman looked at Dr. Knowles, but did not show any signs of relief. She showed the doctor the boy.

He was limp, and some saliva had foamed out of his mouth. He was dead or close to it.

Callista moved with all the efficiency of an ER doctor, grabbing the woman’s arm and escorting her through the back door of the clinic. “Come this way,” she said in Tamil. She knew the woman probably didn’t understand her, but the voice tone was important. Callista left the car running; there wasn’t time.

Once in the exam room, Knowles touched the woman’s shoulder and made eye contact. She breathed deeply, in and out. She got the native to do the same. Callista needed her to calm down.

“Do you understand me?” asked Callista in Tamil. “What language do you speak?” The woman looked at her blankly, moving her lips as though trying to work out the words. No comprehension.

Callista gently took the child’s limp form into her arms and laid him on the exam table. He was dressed in a loincloth and wrapped in an off-white homespun. Callista watched the slight rise and fall of his chest. She checked his pulse. It was far too low.

All the while Callista made her exam, the boy’s mother hovered. The mother could not look at him for more than a second; she could not look away from him for more than a second. She was perpetually touching him and releasing him, gulping back her tears only to let them loose again.

Callista opened the boy’s eyelids and flashed a light in his pupils. He was out cold.

On a hunch, Callista pulled out a needle from the cabinet in the room. The woman reacted violently to the glint of steel, throwing her body between her and the child.

Callista held out her hand, refusing to react. She demonstrated breathing deeply again. The mother calmed herself, and Callista edged past her to the boy. She pricked his finger and tested the blood. The results were conclusive almost instantly.

He’s in a diabetic coma.

Callista pointed at the child, then made a sleeping motion, then pointed at her wristwatch with an upturned eyebrow and a shrug. The woman didn’t understand. Callista needed to know how long he’d been out. She sighed. It was irrelevant, anyway. The treatment would be the same.

Callista made a “stay here” motion. The mother nodded. Callista sprinted down the hall to the medicine closet. She pulled out the IV equipment and hauled everything back to the room.

The woman was stroking her son’s hair. Her tears splashed his face. She was still trying to choke back her sobs.

Callista hooked up the IV. The woman restrained herself from another reaction to protect her son. She was terrified, though, whimpering and moaning.

Knowles checked the boy’s vitals every half hour.

It was an exhausting night. The three never left the room. Knowles sat in her swivel stool, watching the boy breathe and the mother hover. At any moment, with his blood sugar that low, he could go into cardiac arrest. She had to be ready to resuscitate him the instant she didn’t see those little lungs rise and fall.

The woman caressed his face and brushed his hair. She kept muttering to herself in a foreign dialect.

Callista felt an empty edge as the adrenaline drained from her body. It would be easy to fall asleep now, were there not a little native boy half-dead on her exam table. Tonight would not be a question of what would be nice or comfortable, but rather a question of what is necessary.

The doctor had no one to relieve her. She would stay with the boy until he was no longer critical. Time was not a factor. In the little exam room, with the door closed and the mother pacing, the world seemed timeless.

Callista kept counting breaths. She forced herself to stop looking at her watch.

At six in the morning, the boy’s chest stopped.

Callista was shocked. She launched out of her swivel chair to the boy. His blood sugar had bounced to a livable range. As the night gave way to morning, Callista had been sure of recovery.

The mother panicked at Callista’s sudden motion. She gasped and rushed to her son’s side.

Before Callista could reach him, The boy took a deep, grasping breath. His eyes popped open. He tried to roll to his side.

The woman grabbed her son and hugged him fiercely. She kept squeezing him, crying and yelling aloud. The boy didn’t say anything, but tried to squeeze her back.

He looked around the room. He saw Callista and pulled back. The woman glanced from her son to see what he was reacting to, then muttered to him soothingly.

He looked at her dazedly, then back up to Callista. He smiled a weak, toothy grin. He hugged his mother again.

Callista couldn’t help but smile. She was so tired her bones ached, but she still felt the rush. That boy is alive. The little family was smiling now. The mother still hadn’t stopped crying. She held her forehead to her son’s forehead. This is why I do medicine.

After a while, the native woman nodded at Callista. They did not share a language, but no words were necessary. Callista got a pillow and propped it under the boy’s head, motioning that he should go back to sleep.

The little boy started snoring quietly. The woman hugged Callista. Callista hugged her back. The woman started crying once more. She cried hysterically. Callista didn’t let her go from their embrace until she had cried it all out.

Though Callista had never had a child, she knew exactly how the mother felt.