Nirvana Effect by Craig Gehring

that you look completely healthy.  Is that understood?”  Edward nodded.  “ I can ’ t give you any more of the nectar.  You’ ve h ad three injections in less than two moons.  I’ ve never had to experience the degree of pain that I know you now feel.”  There was a touch of compassion in his tone that Edward somehow f ound reassuring.  “Let us stand.”
    Edward couldn’t help but scream again, though this time he was well aware of it .  Once moving, he found it helped to stay moving.  He wobbled back and forth, his vision almost seared out by the pain.
    “Breathe more quickly.  Increase your heart rate.  Release your adrenal glands... get angry…Don’t look it, though. ” advised Mahanta.
    Oddly, Edward found that he could follow the commands, no t nearly as thoroughly as he would have been able to while in that trance, but he started to feel his heart rate go up and the pain ease a bit.  It was still unbearable.
    “Are you okay?” asked Mahanta.
    Edward did not speak, but almost swooned.  Mahanta propped him up.
    “You will need to speak loud and clear out there,” said the Onge.  “You will need to look healed.  And you will need to stand tall, and then bow to me.”
    Edward breathed in deep and wiped the tears out of his eyes.  He let out a long, frustrated groan.  “Let’s go,” he muttered.
    He leaned against Mahanta, shuffling all the way to the entrance of the hut.  Bamboo reeds hung from the arch of the door by strings to make a rigid sort of drape.  Mahanta deposited Edward to lean against the wall just inside and walked out to the crowd.

6
     
    The tribe stopped their shouting.  They had long awaited this hour to hear the wisdom of their Manassa.  They knelt before him , the white man momentarily forgotten .
    Already, th eir god had conjured the clouds; the rains had come for two days just as he had foretold .  He had, of course, slain the panther.  He had defeated the medicine man, even though the medicine man had cheated and attacked Manassa unarmed upon his triumphant return .  Manassa had even healed a child, Tomy, of demons. 
    Every day, for a short time, Manassa talked to his people.
    The tribesman Tien , on his knees, pushed his way closer to Manassa.  He had a mission that would fail if he did get near . 
    Even if Tien’s deed meant hi s death it would be for the greater good of the tribe and his god .  He was to slay the white man on sight.  If the white man didn’t come out, Tien was to wait in the night and assassinate him as he slept. 
    Others were agitating the crowd to draw out the white man.  Tien was to wait at the front of the crowd, his dagger in hand.  But the crowd was thick, thicker than any other day.  Tien could not get up to the front; the people there were jealous and kept pushing him back.  They refused to be far from Manassa.  They had waited all day to be near Him.
    “MY PEOPLE!” shouted Manassa in the traditional Onge tongue he favored .  My great god, thought Tien.  He had been one to see Manassa fight the panther, and again fight the medicine man.  Earlier, he’d seen Manassa shatter the medicine man’s spear.  He had no doubt in his mind that this boy was the immortal of their legends.
    “Manassa!” shouted the crowd in unison, Tien along with them.  He was several rows back.  Now that everyone was kneeling it was difficult edging closer.
    “YOU ARE THE CHOSEN!” shouted Manassa.
    “As are you, our god!” said the tribe.
    “Hear me today, my people.  A mighty miracle is at hand.  Here today is the first shudder of a powerful earthquake.  H ere is the first branch bent by an unstoppable typhoon.  Here is our first advance to the high throne to which the Onge are destined.”  Tien had never learned traditional Onge.  He did not understand what Manassa was saying.  He would hear the story later, from Dook or another.  He could not help but be excited, though, by the tone of his god’s words, by the