Soporific

Sleep-causing, marked by sleepiness (adj.)

Nelbert couldn't believe it. He had been living in Austrailia for three years trying to finish his dissertation on the role of oracles in aboriginal culture, and this was the first time he had ever ran out of narcolepsy medication.
It was the night of the solstice ceremony, the night Nelbert had been waiting for since his arrival, the night where the oracle he had been studying would emerge for the first and only time to perform a scared ritual that was only performed every twenty years. The oracle was said to enact a spell whose nature no one in the tribe could anticipate. The tribe had been buzzing with rumors about a rain spell, a curse on the tribe's enemies, a spell that would morph snakes into beautiful virgins who would dance for eternity and produce innumerable children with the men of the tribe. Nelbert recorded all these predictions. He scribbled down the attitudes and opinions of every tribe member regarding this mysterious tradition. He had reams of second-hand information about the oracle--pages of descriptions from the elders of the tribe, stories parents told their children about the oracle, stories that had been passed down for generations about the oracle's cave and how all were forbidden to go to the cave lest they should contaminate the oracle's power. Because of this Nelbert had not been able to see the oracle. And this ceremony was his only chance. When he shook his little bottle and no pills came out from underneath the cotton ball his chest tensed. The teenagers of the tribe probably stole his last pills, just as they stole his CD player and headphones which he had found smashed in the outskirts of the tribe several weeks ago on his way back from the bathroom.

He felt fine, he told himself. He promised himself he would stay awake. He would make it through one night without his meds, without passing out impromptu of nothing like he had at so many family functions before he was diagnosed. He had to stay awake. This was the end of his research, the experience that would confer respect and academic legitimacy to his otherwise meteocre career as a student. He could do it, he would do it. He felt fine.

The sun set. A fire was made in the center of the village and the women of the tribe began a dance and song around a circle of men that drummed and spoke in call and response chants. They called the oracle out from his cave. Nelbert sat and watched, as he had so many nights, with his pad and pencil taking notes. As night fell the chants became louder and more frantic, and the children of the village formed a path whose opening led to a dark entrance to the forest.
There came a torch from the bush, held by man who looked to be in his middle-forties, a round face, painted in blues and reds, cloth knotted around his muscular body. He walked down the path formed by the children. When the women saw him they stopped chanting. Then the oracle walked forward to the men's center circle. The tribe looked at him, eager to find what magic he might conjure. The oracle's face slowly looked over the heads of the tribe members. His eyes fixed on Nelbert. Then the oracle opened his mouth, bared his teeth, and began a harrowing chant that the entire tribe recognized. As they all sang they looked at Nelbert, pointing at him. The oracle began walking toward him, the men rising from their circle and following. The women chanted a mantra, an echoe of the oracle's prayer, and the children broke their formation and began to walk in Nelbert's direction as well. Nelbert stood up and dropped his pencil and paper. He was frightened, unable to move his limbs. Then the tribe began stamping their feet in a rhythm that got faster and faster. The men shrieked. The women chanted. The oracle raised his fist toward Nerlbert's face and Nelbert's knees buckled, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The tribe was silent then, and the only noise was a faintly nasal snore coming from the back if Nelbert's throat.