The Anesthesia Game

by Rea Nolan Martin

  Not that the doctors would know about Pandora’s energetic DNA—or Syd’s. They wouldn’t. It’s too esoteric. Their brains aren’t trained to reach that far for answers. The evidence they seek is physical, concrete, and directly in front of them. They don’t know that the physical plane is only the crystallization of all the energetic planes combined. Or for that matter, that we, too, in physical form are the crystallization of our energy on other planes. The information they use is in front of them, but much of the information they need is beyond their reach.

  Pandora’s energetic DNA matches Syd’s at the intersection of at least one lifetime, probably more. That DNA—the energetic DNA they share—is apparently so powerful that it has downloaded into the physical plane in spite of incalculable hereditary odds. Pandora didn’t even know it was possible. Sometimes what we think are miracles are really just facts of another nature, she thinks. Facts from another timeline. New information and virgin energy flows into the universe moment by moment, day by day. Nothing is fixed. The mistake we make is thinking it is.

  What Pandora has been able to discern so far is that Syd’s energetic DNA was damaged by the embedded memory of a distant trauma. Damaged and recorded, its toxic expression was inescapable without intervention. Not just physical intervention, but the intervention of gifted mystics or healers—practitioners who understand the prismatic composition of energy and its infinite and layered manifestations from multiple lifetimes.

  Pandora has every reason to believe healing of a spiritual nature was attempted in the distant past, but failed. She herself could have been part of the attempt. Physical intervention is a last ditch effort effective only after a trauma has manifested. It didn’t have to get that far, Pandora knows. She should have trusted her gut. She should have passed Mitsy over and worked directly on Syd. But how? The mother and aunt are an integral part of both the pathology and the healing. And somehow, whether she likes it or not, so is she.

  She spreads the ankle length, raw silk of her finest Peruvian skirt and kneels on the bare floor in front of the window that features Heavenly Peak. Tahoe, you are my shaman! She draws the view into her memory, ballast for the journey, closes her eyes, brings her hands together, and moves into it. Immediately before her, as real as the sparkling indigo jewel at the base of the mountains, is the karmic wheel in all its power and complexity. The actual karmic wheel! She has only seen it once before and not in its entirety. She is mesmerized, awestruck, humbled. Her task is to spin it through centuries and incarnations on planes both physical and etheric then enter it in the exact place that will prevent the whip of destiny from breaking their necks. She has to enter it in the place where their memories overlap—hers, Mitsy’s, Hannah’s and Syd’s. Enter it; transform the moment; and move on. It’s their only hope.

  The wheel spins and they all spin with it. They spin in colorful Mongolian costumes and rich, velvet Saxon robes. They spin in Egyptian tunics and the alabaster robes of the Delphi oracles. They are worldly aristocrats and rebellious clerics. Plainclothes villagers and eccentric theatrical performers. Grecian sandals, stacked heels, and army boots caked with mud. They spin as men and women, primitive and sophisticated, laughing and plotting, innocent and manipulative. They are all things human and yet so particular in their various features, wardrobes, occupations and stations of life. Their personalities, biases and belief systems vary with each incarnation. How will it end? How will she know when to press the button that slows the wheel down long enough for her to re-enter from another lifetime? This lifetime! Maybe she won’t. Maybe it’s just a terrifying game of roulette.

  Pandora comes in and out of her trance, seeking knowledge and skill for the future, but understanding that the wheel can only be slowed down in the moment when her DNA is transferred to Syd. If she does it before that, there could be hell to pay. What condition she’ll be in when the time comes, she can’t know. For instance, will she be awake or under sedation? She’s not sure what method the hospital prefers or what method is best for her. In the meantime, all she can do is investigate and prepare. And the stem cell transplant is not the only thing she has to worry about. Were it only that simple!

  In order to make the physical DNA stick, Pandora knows she must capture the glue that will hold it in place. The glue is zeon. Zeon alone holds the signal. Without it, Syd’s weak body will most likely reject Pandora’s cells. The connective tissue between their lifetimes can be catalyzed only by the powerful frequency of that precise color; she knows that now. It’s what Anjah’s been trying to show her all along—or what she’s known in spite of him—with Anjah and her it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.

  But how will she do it?

  Last night, after hours of astral travel in every known corner of the multi-verse, she saw what looked like the possibility of a geomagnetic storm developing close to Earth. It appeared to be gathering in the stratosphere at a point threatening the northwest quadrasphere, somewhere around latitude 36.30N and longitude 77.5W. This is more or less in the vicinity of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland. Whether or not the storm will materialize, or whether Pandora will be able to access the zeon from that particular storm (or at all), remain huge questions. And even if the storm materializes, will it come close enough for harvest? Will it come so close that it destroys them?

  Timing is another factor. Must she harvest the zeon in perfect synchrony with the transplant? Or can she do it in advance and bring it into this dimension for storage? If she stores it, can she stabilize it? Or will it blow them all up? She doesn’t really know its full potential. And how in hell will she manage to activate the zeon at the same time she slows down the wheel in the exact moment her DNA enters Syd’s bloodstream? She is only one person! How much is expected of her? Too much, but what else is new. She is a grossly undervalued employee of the universe.

  She rises from the bare floor, her knees and head throbbing. She’s in it now—the center of creation itself—right where she always wanted to be. Not that she knew what it would feel like. The energy inside this bubble is chaotic and combustible; the pressure nearly unbearable. Whether she’s equal to it or not she’ll soon find out. All she knows is that this time, she has no choice.

  She lights a cigarette and stares out at her inspiration, bidding farewell to her mystic lake. The slow, punishing burn of the smoke in her throat feels sooo good. Burn away! She doesn’t regret not stopping sooner. She can’t stop now, either. Whatever’s holding her together today, good or bad, is the lubrication that will squeeze her through the eye of this needle. There’s no time to rip out the seam and sew it back the right way. This is the right way. In any case, it’s the only way.

  She finishes her smoke and approaches the covered easel twenty feet away. Should she lift it one more time? Good luck or bad? She fingers the edge of the worn linen, considering the consequences. If the image of Elysha has disappeared, Pandora may lose faith. If it has returned fully, her confidence will soar. She combs the fingers of both hands through her long, loose white hair several times, brushing it back and tying it in a simple knot at the nape of her neck. She won’t look at the painting; she can’t. It might mess with her already unsteady head.

  The stakes are too high.

  Before she can change her mind, she pushes a screeching Guru into a traveling crate and carries him out to the front where her two suitcases are lined up on the slate walkway. She can’t do it without Guru. She hopes the taxi arrives before she loses what little courage remains.

  Hannah

  While the nurse prepares Syd for her bedside transfusion, Mitsy sits just outside the room on a bench in the hall, head in hands. In front of her, Hannah wears a groove in the tile floor, twenty feet up and back, one corridor to the next, and again. Her tenth trip in she stops in front of Mitsy, arms extended. “It’s going to be okay,” she says, as much to herself as to her sister. “The doctors agreed that if Syd holds this transfusion, they can begin the chemo prep for the transplant. It’ll all work out.”

/>   Mitsy looks up. “The treatment is extremely aggressive,” she says. “I just don’t know if she can…” She chokes up. “…if she can…”

  Hannah slides down beside her sister and envelopes her. “She’ll survive!” she tells her. “Hell, knowing Syd, she’ll thrive!”

  Hannah has to force herself to believe her own words. The fear that grips them both is palpable, although neither caves into it, at least not verbally. Their thinly veiled expressions say it all. “Don’t scratch this scab!” They’re both dangling by a thread a thousand feet over crazy town. Either one of them could drop at any moment. They have to be careful what they say and do. And think!

  Mitsy sits up straight and gazes absently ahead. The corners of her blue-gray eyes are misty, but her eyes are bright, accentuated by the natural brown and beige tones Hannah used to soften her sharp features. Seeing Mitsy like this, through a softer lens, melts Hannah’s heart. The recent past dissolves like a cube of sugar in hot tea. All she sees now is the beloved sister who allowed Hannah and Syd to pull her out of the shadows. Shadows she’d been hiding in for years. The glare of the light must have smarted, Hannah knows. But she did it. Mitsy did it. It’s one brave choice that will open her to another and another. A choice that allows infinite possibility where there was none.

  “We’re on the cusp of everything,” Hannah says urgently. “I feel it. The cusp of all of us becoming who we really are. We just have to unravel this knot. This one knot.”

  Mitsy’s chin quivers. “It’s a big one,” she says. “Really big. And twisted.”

  They’re distracted by a shuffling noise down the hall. Around the corner in a fast moving pack are Jonah, Aaron and Dane.

  “What’s happened?” says Aaron, walking briskly toward them. “How is she?”

  Hannah jumps up and heads toward the posse to spare her sister the retelling of Syd’s collapse, but Aaron seems almost unaware of her. He looks up and over, distracted.

  “So she’s okay?” he says, his eyes searching somewhere behind Hannah.

  “Uh, yeah, so far,” says Hannah. “She’s getting transfused. But I wouldn’t say…” She turns, follows his eyes, and sees that he’s staring, open-mouthed, at the wondrous new version of his wife. If he looks any harder, his eyes might erupt.

  “What…” he says, “Mitsy, what…? Is that…? What did you do?”

  Mitsy just sits there completely disinterested in his or anyone’s reaction to her appearance. She doesn’t even answer.

  Aaron walks toward Mitsy, while Hannah moves in for a sympathy hug from Jonah. His embrace is disappointing, half-hearted. Is he staring at Mitsy, too? Well, who could blame him, Hannah thinks. She looks pretty terrific. “Meet the new Mitsy Michaels,” she says.

  Dane, whose view is blocked by Jonah, steps around to see what’s going on. He claps his hands. “Holy shit, Mrs. M, I didn’t even know that was you!”

  “Down, boy,” says Hannah with a chuckle.

  “Wow,” he says, “you look friggin’ hot!”

  At this, even Mitsy suppresses an amused grin immediately covering her face with her hands.

  Misunderstanding the silence, Dane turns to Aaron. “No offense, Mr. M,” he says.

  “No offense taken, Dane,” says Aaron evenly. He considers the situation for a few seconds then says, “Mitsy, you really do look…”

  Mitsy doesn’t wait for him to finish. She rises from the bench and says, “I’m going to get some coffee, anybody else want some?”

  “I’ll take a cup,” says Hannah. “Unless you need company?”

  Mitsy shakes her head and walks briskly down the hall in the opposite direction, her posture tall and erect. Still rocking those black leather pants stuffed into four inch heel boots. Hannah can’t remember when she last saw her sister walk with that much confidence. She’s surprised Mitsy even knows how to walk in heels. In spite of the convergence of so much hell, Hannah’s relieved that she and Syd were able to pull that off. That they were able to squeeze a thing of beauty out of so many layers of shit. Leave it to Syd to make that happen, Hannah thinks ruefully. It never would have happened without her.

  A memory flashes before Hannah. She’s twelve years old and Mitsy is sixteen. Hannah watches Mitsy perform dressage with her chestnut stallion, High Noon. There they are in the ring under a perfect cornflower blue sky, dazzling spectators and judges at the Oatlands Plantation on a crisp September morning. How proud Hannah was to be Mitsy’s little sister then! Hannah, who would rather be on a runway than a horse, nevertheless understood the nobility of a horse and its rider. The fusion of communication moved from the brain of the rider through the body of the horse, as if they were one magnificent creature. And that day, they were. Hannah had forgotten all about that aspect of Mitsy—the nobility—until now.

  When Mitsy disappears behind the double doors, Aaron says, “So…what did you do to her? How did she…I can’t picture her allowing…”

  “That’s not the same woman I drove down here,” says Dane, wide-eyed.

  Jonah clutches Dane’s shoulder and shakes him affectionately. “Simmer down, bucko,” he says with a smile. “She’s taken.”

  “You can thank Syd for the makeover,” Hannah tells Aaron. “She was the force behind it. Mine was the easy part—a little of this, a little of that.”

  Aaron’s eyes fix on a point somewhere in the distance. “How, uh…when can I see Syd?” he says.

  “Right now,” says Hannah. “Last I saw, she was groggy, but awake.”

  Aaron nods absently, raps on the door, and enters. Jonah stands in the hall, fidgeting, hands in pockets, mouth pursed.

  “What’s up?” Hannah says, concerned. Something’s up.

  He shrugs distantly.

  “Oh by the way, we saw the eagles,” she says. “Two of them! Syd made us note the time for you. It was exactly two o’clock.”

  “Oh yeah?” he says, but he’s not tuned in.

  Hannah reaches for his arm, and he withdraws it. “What…?” she says perplexed. “Did I do something?”

  He raises his chin and scratches the emerging scruff on his neck and jaw line. “This is not the time,” he says.

  Hannah’s heart sinks. “Is it Syd?” she persists. “Or maybe the Thompson deal? Didn’t it go through?”

  “No,” he says. “It went through. Look, I gotta go check on the mare. Doc says she was restless. After you all left with the ambulance, she laid down, so. It’s imminent.”

  Hannah nods. “Is there any way we can watch from here? On the laptop or iPad? I think it would really help Syd. And also Mitsy…”

  “Yeah, you’re so concerned about Syd, aren’t you?” he says with disgust. “It’s all about Syd.”

  She backs up. “Well, of course it is.”

  He turns and storms down the hall, shoulders hunched. She starts to follow him, but he waves his hand in a back-off gesture that feels exactly like a slap in the face. An invisible but nearly impenetrable barrier goes down between them. She’s been here before! But this time she has no idea what she’s done.

  This long, punishing day wears interminably into the evening, and not just because Jonah doesn’t reappear. Syd sleeps mercifully through much of it. No one’s confirming her ability to endure the bone marrow prep yet, or ever. In fact the doctors’ appearances are so few and far between they’re like mirages when they finally show up. This gives Hannah more compassion for the years Mitsy spent doing this on her own, Aaron traveling as he did. Did he really have to? Maybe he didn’t. She gave him the credit all these years, but maybe he was the real coward after all. Not that either one of them would appreciate Hannah’s judgment. Neither of them really deserves it. She’s clear on that. These situations are worse from the inside than anyone on the outside could ever guess.

  Aaron and Dane sit with Syd on and off beyond the three hour transfusion and into the dinner hour. Syd doesn’t eat. Periodically Aaron steps out of the room, disappears down the hall, and reappears with a bottle of water or coffee
. Every time Aaron steps out, Mitsy goes into the room. She won’t give him the satisfaction of answering a single question, though he tries. At six o’clock, he grabs a sandwich from the cafeteria and brings back a few for the rest of them. Mitsy holds up her hand in refusal. Hannah dives in. Dane eats everything that’s left.

  An hour later, Aaron steps out of the room. Dane lingers. Aaron looks directly at Mitsy and says, “I’m going to take Dane back to Jonah’s townhouse. Is there anything…”

  Mitsy turns in the other direction, arms folded, staring out the window at the distant hills.

  “Come on, Mitsy,” he says. “For God’s sake…”

  She turns around. “How dare you.”

  He steps toward her and she retreats. “We’ve got a sick child,” he says. “Can’t we have a conversation about her?” He drops his arms in exasperation. “Whatever’s going on between us can wait!”

  “You’re right about that,” she says. “It can wait forever as far as I’m concerned.”

  Aaron pokes his head into Syd’s room and gestures to Dane, “We’re leaving,” he says. “Gotta go now.”

  When he appears in the hall, Hannah sees for the first time that Dane’s eyes are rimmed in red. Another casualty of this disaster. “Anyone have some Advil or something?” Dane asks. “I have a splitting headache.” He rubs his temples. “I never get headaches.”

  “Well, this’ll do it,” says Hannah.

  Mitsy pulls a pill box out of her purse and hands him whatever. Right about now Hannah realizes that her head is splitting, too. Where does it all end? Ugh. She doesn’t want to know.

  An hour later, Syd’s sleeping, Mitsy’s brooding, and Hannah excuses herself to call Jonah about Daizee. After all, it’s doubtful in his foul mood that he would even call her if Daizee foaled. Although it’s not like Jonah at all to indulge a foul mood in the first place. Something terrible must be wrong, but what could be worse than Syd’s current situation? But there you have it—everything and everyone is under its spell, not just Syd. She punches Jonah’s number on her keypad and waits. Maybe things have improved. Six rings in, he answers.