There is always manna. It floats like stardust in the dark, falling every night, covering the ground. Hoarfrost collected at dawn, milled and baked into small loaves, sustaining the Israelites through 40 years of wandering from slavery to the promised land. Take this. Eat.

I peel the clementine bedside. The delicate spray sparkles in the autumn sun pouring through the window and scents the curtain-divided room for a quick moment, lacing the pervasive smell of disinfectant with the sweet tang of citrus. I poke an index finger into the crevice and clasp each half to pry apart with fingertips the skin that holds the whole together. Feel the give and peel a wedge from the globe of iridescent orange. Place the perfect morsel in the small blue pottery bowl and slide it quietly across the hospital bed table toward her needle-bruised hand and look away.

Manna is the size of a coriander seed, the colour of crystal. It is bread, baked. It is syrup that drips from Sicilian ash trees into white stalactites of spongy sugar. It is the secretions of insects that harden on Iranian tamarisk trees. It tastes like roasted meat or breastmilk—but never zucchini or garlic or onions. It tastes like wafers made with honey. Like sweet syrup, like saliva from the stars or perspiration from the sky.

I stare out the hospital window at the mountain, St. Joseph’s Oratory, the sky. “It’s bright outside. The trees are turning.” She hums ascent. I can hear her sucking on the juice.

Do they see it fall? Or do they just wake up and it’s on the ground? Manna flakes covering rocks, mud, tents, the clothes hanging up to dry, the pots placed out to collect water, the embering fires left over from last evening. It falls in the night, like rain. It melts in their mouths, it flakes down their throats, it fills them, their bellies, just for that day. Just enough for that day. Take it and store it and it turns rancid. It makes you sick. It smells awful, like sourdough starter gone bad, rotting rodents. So much potential, but gone. Gone. Gone. Gate gate pāragate pārasamgate bodhi svāha. All the way to the other side. All the way to the other side. Tastes like dry fall leaves mulched. Tastes like plans gone sour. Like death for a moment stopping to place his tongue in your mouth. Manna falls. Always falling. Always in the dark. We have complained so much. And we want more. To be fed, yes. But also more. Manna comes from complaint. Complaints rise, manna falls. Makes the sky gray with its just enoughness.

This is the first she has eaten in more than a day. The nutritionist is a bully. My mother abhors bullies. So turns away. Her body is shutting down quicker than we can mount any argument to hold on. I feed her beauty. Small morsels of delight.

Manna with two n’s is always food. Fleshed sustenance. Bread, rising. Tongued and tasted and swallowed. Feeds from outside the places that are empty within. Mouth, belly, being. With one n—mana—it’s something else, almost the opposite. Instead of a surrendering, it is a force to be cultivated. The Austronesian notion of spirit—the life force energy and healing power that permeates the universe. Karma, élan, vital, lifeblood, Shakti, inner light, orgone, chi.

There are 14 sections in a clementine. I silently place another into the blue bowl. She takes it up with her manicured fingers, slides it into her mouth and smiles at the sudden brightness it contains. Then is done. Leans back and sighs. “I don’t care what funeral arrangements you make, I’ll be gone.” She waves her hand. “But make sure the food is good. Hire a caterer. Dansereau. In my phonebook, top drawer, desk.”

Mana with one “n” is also metamoney in the metaverse—a centralized virtual world that parallels and overlaps this physical one. It is cryptocurrency worth $3.85 USD, with a return on investment of 18402.2%. My father would have liked that. My mother wouldn’t care.

She pushes the bowl away, fingering the rim, closes her eyes. I place another delicate bit of clementine in the bowl and know it will dry out, crust up into skin that needs to be pierced with sharp teeth. I wait bedside, breathing. Pop clementine into my mouth, savouring each section, each silent sweet memory, while I wait for the full moon to rise.

Nancy Huggett is a writer, caregiver, and settler descendant who lives in Ottawa, Canada on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people.