Nirvana Effect

by Craig Gehring

  “Not if you wish to live,” whispered Nockwe. “You can’t even be seen here. And no Onge can intercede in the coming of age. It would be death.”

  “It’s death right now! That boy will die! He’s not in his senses!”

  “Be as that may, there is nothing that can be done.” He sounded resolute, but his shadowy face was slack and his eyes looked empty. Edward knew Nockwe wanted to save the boy. Nockwe’s power was simply not absolute; he could not break with the Onge tradition.

  There’s too much dissent in the tribe for Nockwe to make a move like that. Edward had seen the politics at the campfire. “Please, help him,” Edward pleaded.

  Nockwe did not answer. His eyes were riveted on Mahanta.

  Mahanta looked back to the crowd. The panther had tired and was circling again, growling at its pray. Mahanta yelled in the formal Onge tongue, “You shall die, panther, and so shall my earthly flesh! No mortal Mahanta leaves here tonight!” He pulled his staff to the ready.

  The panther pounced as if to answer, swinging for him with its huge paws. Mahanta deftly side-stepped and brought his staff down with both hands. The staff shattered on the panther’s skull.

  It wobbled for a moment, giving Mahanta enough time for a fatal blow. He jabbed the splintered remains of his staff at the panther’s face.

  The cat flinched back, however, before Mahanta could drive his weapon in. It struck back, swiping Mahanta’s torso with its wicked claws. It was the first hit the panther had gotten in all night, and it was a vicious one. Edward cringed as Mahanta dropped. He wouldn’t be coming up from that one.

  From the grass, Edward could no longer see Mahanta. The panther dove, disappearing from Edward’s view as well. It sounded like the two were struggling.

  Edward’s desire to run was overshadowed by an impulse to go jump into the fray and help Mahanta. He craned his ear as though the extra six inches would give him some insight as to what was happening.

  The noises vanished. The clearing was quiet as the moon. The night felt robed in an unnatural calm.

  The native figures looked like statues all around the clearing edge. Edward watched the faces of the nearest from his hiding place. Their hopefulness slowly gave way to disappointment as the silence reigned. Silence was the way of a panther, not a man.

  Then came a cry.

  First, soft, then stronger - a victorious, human cry.

  Mahanta’s figure surged up from the grass, hefting the carcass of the panther over his head.

  “T’ley’to’ni,” cried Nockwe. Literally it meant, “Death God,” but he was certainly using it as a curse. Edward cursed, as well. Though he was glad to see Mahanta alive, he did not feel relieved. The shock overrode any sense of that. The wiry young man was shaking the panther over his head like a trophy. Edward’s scientific mind was not willing to absorb it all. He doubted his own perceptions, as a magician might watching another illusionist’s tricks.

  Nockwe muttered, “He lives. He shall be a god.”

  Mahanta’s fulfilled a prophecy… Edward wondered what Nockwe meant by “god”.

  “What does this boy hope to do?” Nockwe asked himself, vocalizing Edward’s own thoughts. The words echoed between Edward’s ears.

  To the left of Edward came an angry Onge curse. Edward jerked his head in that direction. No more than twenty yards away, an older Onge was screaming and pointing directly at him. The thin grass did little to hide Edward from that angle of view. “Nockwe!” shouted the native. “Behind you! The white man sneaks behind you!”

  Nockwe was startled, but it only took him an instant to regain his composure. The last thing Edward remembered seeing was Nockwe’s face. He looked sorry. His foot crashed into Edward’s head. It happened so fast that the missionary could hardly perceive the motion.

  Edward was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  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 t
hen 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. “J
ust 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.