The orderly moved forward. I stumbled back and pulled out the shard of glass in mypocket. My arm shook as I struggled to hold out my hand. They backed away likehostages in a bank robbery. I stood up straight and waved the glass in front of them like itwas a gun.
“Stay back, none of you come near me,” I demanded.
“Nelly, why are you doing this? We’re here to help you,” someone said.
“No, you here to hurt me,” I said weakly. I swallowed back a bout of tears because Irealized that it was never going to stop. This was never going to end until I did somethingto stop it, to stop them. Dr. Ontarian peeked between two orderlies. Our eyes met.
I reached over and tried to slit my wrist, but an orderly pushed through and grabbedmy hand. We engaged in a brief tug of war match. The orderly had big brute arms, and heforcefully wrestled the glass out of my hand. I stumbled back, lost my footing and fellwith my head slamming against the rim of the bathtub. I heard a loud thud, and then myhead started to throb. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. There wasdarkness, just darkness.
I opened my eyes and sat up. I was back in my dream, in the slave quarters. I sawpeople of all colors dancing around me fervently. My head was still throbbing but when Ispotted the musicians, I knew that it wasn’t my head, but the drums. The pounding of thedrums became louder, each beat reverberating throughout the room.
“They have healing power you know,” said a man wearing a faded red tunic. He wasbarefoot, with legs that were as skinny as stilts with kinky hairs that looked like theywere being invaded by a colony of ants. I didn’t say anything. Instead, I just stared athim.
“Do you know who Changó is?” he asked quizzically. I didn’t answer.
“He was a king who became a God,” he said, smiling like he just revealed a reallybig secret.
“He had everything and yet he was still unhappy, so he hung himself from a tree,” hecontinued as he pointed a crooked figure at me. He snorted and then eyed me skeptically,looking me up and down. I felt weird, like he was a dog who was able to sniff my scent.He laughed.
“You’ve come to die like Changó” he said, holding out his skinny arms and liftingup his staff.
“You’ve come to ascend behind the human mind, to a higher level ofconsciousness,” he said, smiling and revealing two missing teeth. He sucked on his gumsand narrowed his eyes to the left as if he was thinking carefully about what he was goingto say next.
“In order for a king to become a God, he must pass through certain levels ofdevelopment,” he said while resting his hand underneath his chin.
“Once one attains the highest level, then his consciousness is able to realign with theforces of the universe,” he said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means letting go and finding the heaven that’s inside of you,” he said walkingcloser to me; I looked deep into his eyes and realized that they were the most peculiarshade of blue. He smiled again, poking out his long chin and accentuating the linesaround his eyes and mouth.
“Heaven isn’t a place up in the sky. It’s inside of you,” he said shaking his head.
“I can’t,” I said.
“You have to. Call out to Changó He’ll help you,” he said. “How?” I asked.
He threw back his head and let out a strong belly laugh. He got up and started to limparound the room, using his staff as a cane. His joints looked hard and stiff like he wassuffering from a serious case of arthritis. The drums rumbled throughout the room,increasing in intensity. This must have given the man the energy that he needed becausehe carelessly flung his staff to the side and began to leap around the room, with as muchzeal as a street dancer. His arms and legs swung around wildly as the spirit of Changó,who rode him like a bareback horse, mounted him.
“You got to burn away the impurities. You got to go deep inside to where theshadows hide and burn them up alive,” he yelled while struggling to catch his breath.
“He’ll help you to become grounded. He’ll help you to dig roots deep into the earthso you can reach the sky,” he said smiling and raising his hands up in the air. Then heran, full force and disappeared into the crowd.
The drums got louder. I looked around and saw dozens of people dancing around me,flinging their arms, swinging their heads, mumbling prayers, hoping and wishing for theOrishas to mount them. There were boys banging together claves; there were menslamming their palms onto of drums. There were woman shaking their breast like rattles.Then I started to hear the voices again. The Orishas are inside of you. You have losttouch with your family, the egguns; you have to find them again to be free.
The room was getting really hot. I spotted the old man again from across the room.He was just staring at me. His eyes were as red as polished rubies, and his chest washeaving up and down. His nostrils flared as he started to shake as if he had inhaled toomany fumes. Then, he let it out. He opened his mouth and diffused naked blue flameswith the precision of a blowtorch. His body was wet and sticky from sweat. I heard a manin the crowd yell,” Changó! Changó is here. right before a vicious ball of flames charredhim.
He opened his mouth again. Frightened, I ran over to a large basin of water andjumped into it. I managed to escape the flames unscathed. I buried my head under thewater, and rocked back and forth. Then, I could feel
