Life Blood --VIII---Page 27

Sometime thereafter, in a reverie, I felt myself in a magical forest whose lush vines reminded me of Kerala in India. It was a verdant, hazy paradise, another Eden. A child was with me, a child of my own, and I felt jubilation. I watched the child as she grew and became a resplendent orchid.

But with childbearing came pain, and I seemed to be feeling
that pain as I took up the flower and held it, joy flowing through
me.

Then Alex Goddard drifted into my dream, still all in white,
and he was gentle and caring as he again moved his hands over
me, leaving numbness in their wake. I thought I heard his voice
talking of the miracle that he would make for me. A miracle baby,
a beautiful flower of a child. I asked him how such a thing would
happen. A miracle, he whispered back. It will be a miracle, just for
you. When he said it, the orchid turned into the silver face of a cat,
a vaguely familiar image, smiling benignly, then transmuted back
into a blossom.

Then he drifted out of my dream much as he had come, a

wisp of white, leaving me holding the gorgeous flower against my
breasts, which had begun to swell and spill out milk the color of
gold. . .

A wet coolness washed across my face, and—as I faintly
heard the sounds of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Glenn
Gould's piano notes crisp and clear—I opened my eyes to
see Ramala massaging my brow with a damp cloth. She smiled
kindly and lovingly as she saw my eyes open, then widen with
astonishment.

"What—?"

"Hey, how're you doing? Don't be alarmed. He's taking great care of you."

"What. . . where am I?" I lifted my head off the pillow and tried
to look around. I half expected Steve to be there, but of course he
wasn't.

"You're here. At Quetzal Manor." She reached and did

something and the music slowly faded away. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. I think the doctor was trying to release your Chi, and when he did it was too strong for you."

"What day is it?" I felt completely disoriented my bearings
gone.

"Sunday. It's Sunday morning." She reached and touched my
brow as though giving me a blessing. Like, it's okay, really.
        At that moment, Alex Goddard strolled in, dressed again in
white.

Just as in the dream, I thought.

"So, how's the patient?" He walked over—eyes benign and

caring—and lifted my wrist, absently taking my pulse while he

inserted a digital thermometer in my ear. For a flashback moment
he merged into, then emerged from, my dream. "You're looking
fine. I have to say, though, you had quite a time yesterday."

"All I remember is passing out in your office," I mumbled

glancing around at the gray plastic thermometer. And that strange
dream, you telling me I would have a miracle baby.
        "You had an unusual reaction," he went on. "You remember I
spoke to you about mind-body harmony. You see what can
happen when I redirect the flows of energy, Chi, from your body to
your mind." He smiled and settled my wrist back onto the bed.
"Don't worry. I have a lot of hope for you. You're going to do fine."
        He looked satisfied as he consulted the thermometer, then
jotted down my temperature on a chart. He's already started a
medical record, I thought. Why?

"I'm . . . I'm wondering if this really is working out," I said. It

was dawning on me that I was getting into Alex Goddard's world a lot deeper and a lot faster than I'd expected. I'd come planning to be an observer and now I was the one being observed. That was exactly not how I'd intended it. Maybe, I thought, if I back off and make a new run, I can keep us on equal footing. "Perhaps I ought to just go back to the city for a few days and—"

"I'd assumed you came to begin the program." He looked at me, a quick sadness flooding his eyes. "You struck me as a person who would follow through."

"I need to think this over" I really feel terrible, I thought, trying to rise up. What did he do to me? "Maybe I'm just not right for your 'program'?" The idea of a documentary had momentarily retreated far into the depths of my mind.

"On the contrary." He smiled. "We've shown that you're very responsive."

"Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm too responsive." I rose and slipped

my feet off the bed. The motion brought a piercing pain in my

abdomen. "OUCH! What's . . ." I felt my pelvis, only to find it was very sensitive.

Pulling aside my bed shift, I gazed in disbelief at my lower

abdomen. There were red spots just above my pale blue panties.
        Alex Goddard modestly averted his eyes. "I didn't want to say
anything," he explained to the wall above my head, "but you were
in pretty delicate shape there for a while. Mild convulsions, and I
think your digestive system had gone into shock. The stomach is
a center of energy, because it's constantly active. So I gave you
some shots of muscle relaxant. Nothing serious. It's an unusual
treatment, but I've found it works. It . . . modulates the energy

flows. I also took a blood sample for some tests, but the results were all normal."

He then asked me about my menstrual cycle, exact days,

saying he wanted to make sure it wasn't just routine cramps. "The
seizure you had passed almost as soon as it came, but you might
actually have been hallucinating a bit. You had a slight fever all
night."

"Well . . ." Something like that had happened to me years ago in rural Japan, when I stupidly ate some unwashed greens and my stomach went into shock. At one point a local doctor, Chinese, was trying acupuncture, which also left me sore.

"Nothing to be worried about," he continued. "But if you're the least bit concerned, maybe we ought to do a quick sonogram,
take a sound picture. Ease your mind that everything's okay."
        "That doesn't really seem necessary," I said. For a clinic
specializing in "energy flows" and "mind-body" programs, there was a lot of modern equipment. Odd.

"Won't do a bit of harm." He nodded at Ramala, who also

seemed to think it was a good idea. "Come on, help me walk her down to the lab." He turned back. "It's totally noninvasive. You'll see for yourself that you're fine."

Before I could protest, I found myself walking, with some

dizziness, down the hallway. This part of Quetzal Manor, which I had not seen before, was a sterile, high-tech clinic. I realized I was in a different building from the old convent, probably the new one I'd noticed across the parking lot, the one he hadn't bothered to mention that first day. But all I could focus on were the blue walls and the new white tiles of the floor.

The sonogram was as he described it, quick and noninvasive.
He rubbed the ultrasound wand over my abdomen, watching the