Nirvana Effect by Craig Gehring Read Free Book Online Page A

could…very slowly…
    He picked it all over in his mind as best he could.  The pain dispersed his concentration.  The salient points stood out.  Manassa is Mahanta.  Mahanta, for now, is a friend.  
    His mind drifted to the drug that Bri’ley’na had injected into his veins.  And I had worried it was mud.  A dream he had buried a decade ago resurfaced.
    Edward stands in Father’s study.  Father is kneeling, praying on his rosary.  Thomas ha s just left the night before.  “Are you sad, Edward?” ask s F ather.
    “No, sir.”  But his voice i s cracking. 
    “It’ s fine to miss your brother.”
    “I do miss him.”
    “Let’s prayer together.”
    “I don’t want to pray tonight, father.”
    “That’s whe n we need to the most - when we don’t wish to.”
    “I don’t want to go off like Thomas, father.”
    Father chuckles .  “Then what do you want to do?
    “I want to learn about science, father.  I want to learn about electricity, biology, chemistry.  I can’t stop reading about all of it.  I want to make a difference.”
    “You will be a Jesuit, then, the most learned of the priests.  You won’t be a Franciscan like your brother Thomas.  You’ll be a Jesuit like Allen.”
    I don’t want to be a priest, father.  I don’t want to be like either of them. 
    That part was never said.
    Edward had held hope.  After Edward had won a scholarship to Oxford, his father had let him attend for his bachelors “to prepare him for the priesthood . ”   All while he was in school, he’d held hope, though , that his course would change . 
    As he’d neared graduation, the pressure had mounted.  Father.  Then brothers.  And then Cali - a different sort of pressure, and a final one.  It left him with a terrible question: had those dreams ever been real?  Though he held them so hard, had they fled?
    They had.  Now, after his experience with this mysterious substance, the dreams rushed back to him in full. 
    He knew that under its influence, with the inhuman mind that it gave him, he could solve mysteries that had plagued humankind for centuries.
    That substance is not of God.  The voice of his father.  Edward ignored it.
    It’s a drug, Edward, his cautious side protested.  He quickly quelled it. 
    I don’t know what it is.   Whatever it is, I need to learn mor e.
    “Edward.”  Edward opened his eyes.  Mahanta sat with his legs crossed on his velvet pad.
    “Manassa,” answered Edward with what might have passed for a smile.  He noticed his throat didn’t croak so much this time.
    “We shall name me something Western in time,” Mahanta said thoughtfully in English.  Clearly Mahanta felt comfortable in Edward’s company.
    Edward said nothing but took note of this.  Mahanta was hinting at something that Edward wasn’t awake enough to decipher.
    “How is your head?” Mahanta asked.
    “Better and worse.  My nerves…”
    “It is the lleychta , the nectar - the unfortunate side effect of its trance.”
    Edward could hear a growing din of Onge voices outside the hut.  They were getting loud enough to contribute to the aching in his head.
    “It hurt before I was given it,” said Edward.
    “I tried to give it to you twice, while you were out, when it looked like you w ouldn’t make it.  But it doesn’ t work while you are knocked out.  I didn’t know,” he said .  “I’ve never been knocked out and given it to myself before.” 
    Edward couldn’t help but chuckle at this.  He was awarded immediately by a fresh throbbing radiating from his spine out to h is toes and fingers
    “I will get some eucalyptus paste to help with the pain.  It sooth es the nerves after the liquid,” said Mahanta.
    “ I could definitely use some soothing.  What was that stuff?  What did you put in me? And in you?”  Edward stuttered trying to get out all his questions at once.
    Mahanta smiled warmly.  “I have many questions for you, too.  All that in time.”  The young