Separate, p.12
Separate, page 12
“Erm, that sounds expensive,” Doug grumbled sincerely.
Jackie’s reply was unperturbed. “You alone know the value of your experience at the nursery, and there exist multiple means of gifting. You decide which gifts of thankfulness are suitable to provide.”
Shocked, Doug blurted, “Your classes are free?”
“Their value lies within you. Should they have no value, give no gift.”
Na rejoined Doug and reclasped his hand. “When is today’s class?”
“Today is inauspicious. The nursery requests nursing. Tomorrow at three we shall hold fellowship. If you attend and are able to withstand, do not medicate after one. Pure minds and bodies meditate best.”
“Got it,” Na pledged. Her arm had been twinge-free today. Perhaps tomorrow, she contemplated, I could be wholly drug-free—except for the antibiotics preventing gangrene in her puncture. “Should we bring mats or towels?”
“Willing minds are enough. And before I forget, please let our goat friends mellow in the meadow as you leave.”
Na elbowed Doug and said, “Your Oberhaslis are beautiful.”
“They are not mine, but I agree. They emanate . . . dignity. Farewell.”
Na and Doug retreated down the path. Beyond the birdbath and completely out of earshot, Na shared her impression of the guru. “He’s, like, too stereotypical. Cartoony.”
“More marketing. People have to think his nursery is unique to donate money. And if his students feel like he’s given them something, they’re obliged to give back.”
“I can’t believe anybody would buy that act. He didn’t strike me as sinister, though.”
“Yeah. He’s more of a hipster hippie than a witch doctor. Did you have a hunch he’d be sinister?”
Na thought Doug was still shaken from Krasue and didn’t want to overwhelm him with what Taryn had said. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. “Oh, I mean he’s not selling spells, potions, and hexes. He won’t send specters to haunt his clients’ targets.”
“Yeah. Although, I get why Mom and Dad told me to keep away. He’s not, um, conventionally holy.”
“Dr. Elmir and I knew it would be a dead end.” Finally past the gate and on the road, Na let go of Doug’s hand. “When he said ‘goat friend,’ was it two words or one? Having a goat friend is okay, but a goatfriend is less okay. ‘Hey, Mom, I want you to meet my goatfriend.’ ‘I met my goatfriend at the petting zoo.’ ‘My goatfriend has a kid.’”
“Two words; it had to be two words. Shudder. We have to go back, don’t we?” Doug unlocked his truck.
“We can’t quit prematurely no matter how dead the end is. The class will be definitive, and we’ll scope out his customers. Like, he could have taught spirit manipulation to the wrong person.” Na climbed inside and fished in her backpack, which she had left underneath the seat. “Don’t start the truck yet. I need a favor.”
“Anything.”
She tapped her phone on and passed it to Doug. “There’s video from the night you rescued me. The idea of watching it makes me sick, but I have to know what’s on it. Will you watch it?”
“Ugh, I don’t know,” he queasily replied.
Na urged, “I shouldn’t be on it. And I turned the sound off. I don’t want to hear me scream either.”
“I should look for the lumberjack, right? See if he showed?”
“Exactly. Or anything else, um, Krasue-y.”
“Ughhh.” Doug hovered his finger over the phone, hesitated, and clicked play. “It’s messier in there than I remember.” Unflinching at first, Doug’s face contorted and settled into relief. “Nothing. It’s dirty and dark and then the phone goes flying.”
Wonderful. The story’s a bust, and I’m hurt for nothing. Na snatched her phone, deleted the video, and zipped it into her bag. “Let’s head home. I’ll meet you at Stuffs after two tomorrow.”
“As you wish.”
36
Thursday
“Because matter lives, our guest lives. A doctor might say, ‘No pulse. No movement. It does not eat or grow. It is dead. Inanimate.’ We know better! Planet will move and grow. It will become innumerable components that fuse with others into new organisms: a grasshopper, a zucchini, an infant. And these new organisms will move and grow and become innumerable components that fuse again! Matter is life. It is all life that has been and will be. Matter wants to become. It desires to become, and so it does eternally, unceasingly, becoming one thing and then the next. It desires! It lives!
“This living universe loses nothing. Matter becomes energy, and energy becomes matter. All of us, all lives, are matter and energy made of the components of others’ matter and energy. And our bodies are physical structures designed to transmit energy. Life transmits energy in patterns. Our memories, our emotions, our movements, our relationships are nerves shooting electrical messages to other nerves. When I touch you and you touch me, we share energy. We share patterns. We become one structure, one circuit transmitting electricity, yet we remain us. We remain us. Our energy patterns are always ours. We unite and separate and alter positions and forms and reunite. Through it all, we are us.
“And we falter. We tangle into unhealthy patterns, unhealthy thoughts and actions. Unhealthy patterns are transmitted to lives surrounding us. They receive our transmissions and are changed negatively. We disrupt their patterns, their health. And it is our fault, for we remain us. Our patterns are ours. The patterns we transmit are our responsibility. We have a duty to accept ourselves, to love and be aware of ourselves and admit our dignity. It is not selfish to do so. It is responsible. For when we do, we are healthy and so are our transmissions. We pass our health outward, healing and strengthening surrounding lives and repairing the damage we do when we are tangled.”
Jackie’s rambling, mood-setting sermon depleted Na’s self-restraint, but her peers were enthralled. Thirteen attentive thirty-something-and-over women attended the class with Na and Doug. They were all cushion-carrying disciples, dressed in either workout clothes or robes. Jackie had greeted each by name upon their arrival, and each had poutily smiled back. In unpunished violations of Jackie’s third rule, a few had also frowned at their classmates. His clan had not attained perfect harmony.
“Therefore, meditate on the Planet. It is what it is: peacefulness, tranquility, acceptance. Allow your own patterns to be. Allow you to be you. In downpouring rain, in dusklight, in frost, the stone is marble. The marble is itself. You be you.
“Now divide and meditate on yourself as the Planet. We have two new pupils. Please defer tents to them and share the rest according to modesty. Should your meditations struggle, turn your palms upward, and I will provide consult. Dignity and blessings.”
“Dignity and blessings,” the class unanimously repeated before fanning out.
“So much to say,” Doug whispered. “Like, how Dad would have reacted if Mom socialized with a shirtless dude in a hut.”
“Shh, he’s coming!”
“May I guide you to your tents?” Jackie extended his arms. “Isolation is recommended. Because you are a couple, you will be opposites, facing the Planet and each other in spiritual counterbalance.”
No choice, Na thought with resignation. “That’s fine. Whatever you advise.”
“Can’t we share a tent?”
“Alas, our tents are singles to promote meditation.”
Doug feebly objected, “Her arm. She might—”
Na addressed Doug, then Jackie, “It’s fine. It’s fine.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Come.” Jackie ushered them to a white tent nearby. He unzipped the vertical entrance and lifted one of its triangular flaps. Motioning with a cloth tie attached to the flap, Jackie asked Doug, “Open or closed?”
“Open,” Doug responded glumly.
Jackie rolled up the flap and tied it in place. “There you are.” He gestured like a restaurant waiter treating his customers to a sought-after booth. Doug shuffled inside and crossed his legs. Jackie gave him a priestly farewell bow and led Na around the marble sphere to an identical tent.
“Closed,” Na told him before Jackie could ask. The sphere completely blocked her view of Doug; leaving herself visible only had disadvantages. She delicately clambered into the compartment.
“Very good. I shall leave it unzipped and loose for easy egress. Turn your palms upward for assistance. There is no shame in Mender’s Nursery. Only discovery.” Jackie disappeared behind the floppy canvas and walked away.
Na folded her legs in the lotus position and pondered what to do. The bare, remarkably clean tent suited meditation. Its fibrous fabric walls softened sunlight to a sleepy Saturday morning. Without a cushion, the ground was firm but not unpleasantly hard. Na had room to stretch her legs if they went numb, but as Jackie had said, two occupants would be cramped. Whatever else he was behind, Jackie at least cared about his students.
What was Jackie behind? From the get-go, the nursery had carried a benign vibe. Granted a tad shifty, Jackie himself radiated no cruelty. An ongoing plot to terrorize and cull Milton’s citizenry seemed beyond him. But he was fishy: his life revolved around a boulder, animal husbandry, and relaxing. It was too shallow. There had to be more to Jackson Mender.
Anyhow, Na had heeded Jackie and abstained from drugs all day. She expected stinging and vertigo, and maybe fainting, as the drugs flushed out of her system. Instead, her marred muscle had been prickle-free with a mere background soreness she had no trouble ignoring. If the drugs did nothing to quell the prickling, could it be a warning symptom of another condition? The doctor had mentioned nerve damage.
Recalling that pain, Na rocked on her haunches, back and forth. Every instance of that pain had knocked her virtually unconscious and drowned her in nightmarish imagery. With no one to describe the episodes to, Na had suppressed her worries about their significance.
Na heard hushed muttering outside and froze mid-rock. Jackie and a woman pattered inaudibly. Fractionally louder, Jackie reassuringly stated, “Happily. No blame. No guilt. Nature made us thus.” Loud shuffling and a minute of silence proceeded. Na’s undercover role mandated she keep eavesdropping. The woman moaned. “Slower. Ah, oh. Oh, oh-ahh-ahhhh.” He soothed her: “We are all beautiful. Embrace your beauty.”
Actual meditation rookies would want coaching, but Doug wouldn’t have the wherewithal to ask. Na had to bite the bullet. It was fine. After all, she was ostensibly the reason they had come. She stoically closed her eyes, breathed deeply, displayed her clammy palms, and recited a mantra: I don’t know what I just heard. I don’t know what I heard.
Hand sanitizer wafted into her tent. Jackie lilted to Na, “You have questions, yes? How may I assist?”
“Yes.” Na wiped her eyes and gathered herself. “Well, I get how meditating helps stress, but when the pain zings, I double over. What am I supposed to do then?”
“Stay afloat. Don’t sink. Accept the pain and set it free. Do not dwell on it or ruminate. Do not fret. Acknowledge and release it. The very moment pain ceases, it is out of your thoughts. Do this with stress, and you can do so with rage and pain. You will hurt, but only when you are hurting. Not before, not after.”
“It’s managing my reaction, not the pain itself.”
“Muscle cramps, headaches—for these, the pain itself. For injuries, your reactions.”
“How long have you taught? Have there been many patients like me?”
“Most want emotional respite. Some bring corporeal complaints. A few like you have come in my years. For all, the mind decides. Resistant minds who quarrel cannot align with the Planet.”
“Oh, of course.” Na feigned understanding. “Do you give intensive classes for special situations?”
“This is all I donate. I replenish myself between sessions. I must, to aid my pupils.”
“Do men attend your classes?”
“Seldomly. Narrow views of masculinity mistakenly label meditation ‘feminine.’ A sadness. In truth, balance has no gender.”
“How about metaphysical counseling?”
“Ah, transcendental. A perilous route.” Jackie’s serene demeanor was unfazed. “My humble gifts are insufficient; my talent is the physical plane.”
“Perilous?”
Jackie mimed a tipping scale with his hands. “Modern activity tangles the mind. Meditation unties, rebalances. Our weighty Planet grants us colossal inspiration, restoring equilibrium. Yet our Planet’s gargantuan mass cannot unravel or rebalance transcendental knots. Knots of the kind strangle and dominate. They,” Jackie sighed, “are inoperable.”
“Interesting. Okay then. Thanks.” Na reset her posture to shoo him away. Jackie withdrew and reclosed the fabric flaps.
Alone and cognizant of why they had come, Na stayed alert by muting her phone and playing a free puzzle app. She was immune to the temptation of microtransactions and switched games whenever the advertising became overly aggressive. Her enjoyment came from basic self-satisfaction and mild mental exercise, not unlocking bonuses or competing for global rankings. The pleasing distraction kept her flicking and tapping her finger for the duration of their session.
A resonant ting preceded an announcement from Jackie. “Peaceful egress, compatriots, peaceful egress.” He tinged the chimes again.
Is he pompous or just artificial? Na crawled outside and gradually stood as she readjusted to daylight. Her classmates were already huddled by their guru, a gardener in a plot of strawberries.
Doug nervously burst around the marble. “This guy’s a loon. You alright? Did he bother you?”
“Hi. No. Yes.”
“What?!” Doug confrontationally spun in Jackie’s direction.
“No, I’m fine. Don’t talk; I don’t want to linger. Let’s slip out while Jackie’s engulfed in admirers. We should report to Dr. Elmir. Let’s tell him everything. Everything everything.”
37
Dumbfounded by their original report, Zeb had Na and Doug restart at the beginning of their burn pit and Nursery adventures. He treated them as primary witnesses and video-recorded their complete chronicles on his laptop without comment, interrupting only for clarifying confirmations and explicit details. Doug kept his hands in his pockets, spoke succinctly, and frequently looked at Na as if seeking approval to reveal their shared secrets. Na was forthright and animated, a paradigm of conviction, until she began describing her injury’s side effects. That’s when her saga lost momentum and wavered.
“How I’m blacking out from pain . . . what I saw when I fainted—sorry I lied, Doug. I haven’t told anyone. Not the doctor either. Was what I saw real, Dr. Elmir? Did a ghost claw at me and turn into Krasue?”
“Back up, Na. What happened when you fainted, step by step?”
“My arm prickled, like when a bee lands on your face and walks on your eyelid. A sticky prickle. That turned into pain. I couldn’t think and passed out. That’s when I saw the ghosts. They saw me back. One tried to get me, but Doug called and woke me up. And Krasue was right there.”
“Ah. Good news.” Zeb clapped. “People can dream during syncope—fainting. Coming out of syncope isn’t instantaneous. Some mental functions activate before others, meaning you can perceive things in your vicinity and unknowingly incorporate them into a dream. For instance, you might awaken from slumber and notice a coat hanging from a hall tree. From that coat, your half-awake mind could generate nightmares about a kidnapper standing over you. It’s possible that you would not be able to separate your real perceptions from details you dreamt and would eventually believe wholeheartedly that a home invader had tried to abduct you.
“In short, Na, you’re not one hundred percent. You’re brittle. Overexertion brings pain, which knocks you out. While unconscious, you dream. It’s common. Just don’t start telling people you were kidnapped while working as my assistant.”
Na and Doug duetted, “Really!?”
“Jinx,” Doug grunted.
“Now stop overexerting yourself,” Zeb admonished, “and tell me if you faint again so we can get you back to the doctor.”
“I’m seeing him tomorrow. You’re how sure I dreamt it?”
“Ninety-five percent. Mathematical certainty. I estimate you two encountered a wraith, which is what triggered your dream. It fit Krasue’s visual description, but understand, Krasue’s description is folklore, a set of beliefs accumulated over generations. It’s not factual or encyclopedic. Although you hobbled, it poofed before you reached Doug’s truck. Hardly the relentless predator depicted in the myths.”
Is this conversion disorder? Zeb wondered. Are their interactions inducing ailments and hallucinations, bringing their fears to life? Wade, a patient rebounding from life-threatening pneumonia, was certainly a conversion disorder risk. As was Rojana. She’d been exposed to a gaggle of distressing life events, which have evidently been relayed to her devoted partner. In turn, this poor fellow had become susceptible too. Or is something, either here or hereafter, driving Milton’s spirits to prowl? Humans were complex but typically had simple motivations. Ghosts, in their warped states, were simpler. What could rile them up? Conversion disorder is statistically more common than rioting undead. Nonetheless, hmm.
“I’m confused.” Doug massaged his left thigh with his palm. “Did it paralyze me? Something did.”
“That’s normal too. You froze.” Or you have conversion disorder. But he couldn’t say that, because trying to talk people out of it was fruitless. “Don’t be embarrassed. Freezing is a basic response to stress that has nothing to do with your mindset or personality. It doesn’t mean you’re weak or not macho or that you’ll freeze again in the future. It doesn’t make you cowardly. This one time you were threatened, your body locked up. It can happen to anyone at any time, and it’s more likely in extreme circumstances. Seeing a ghost for the first time, especially a Krasue, counts as extreme. That was your first time, right?”
