A LUCILIUS PARABLE: AUTOCEPTION

April 4th, 2021

Lucilius had a problem.  He’d somehow gotten himself in a bind.  He had a fairly overwhelming amount of work he had to do, but for whatever infuriating reason, he could not figure out how to get himself going on this enormous task.  That was, until he remembered a recent method for solving problems which he’d practiced to great effect.  His face lit up with the idea, and so he set about seeing if it would work for this task.

He laid down on a particularly comfortable couch, and luckily, his overwhelming feelings of being behind and procrastinating created a particularly weary cocktail for his mental state that made him ripe for sleep.  But before he dozed off to escape the world that he couldn’t seem to get going in, he had just a little bit of effort that he needed to put in.

As the normal borders of his mind loosened and the edged blurred, the corners softening to rounds that shifted, moving away from their usual conscious anchors, he spoke within his own mind.  He thought of the real world problem he had, and he set about making a request to his own mind to figure something out about it while he was asleep, and most importantly, he managed to tack on a request to remember it upon waking.

And then Lucilius slumbered, his mind undulating through that phantasmagoria of vision merged with concept, doused with incoherent splashes of memory and sensation.  His mind took hold of it’s own being and stretched it, parsing it, molding it and refracting it through countless perspectives.  The dream is a hallucination, a crazed existence if only for it’s incoherence, it’s mangled logic and seductive conviction.

Lucilius’ eyes slowly opened.  He knew where he was but his mind was still soft, fuzzy on a threshold of time as the environment of his consciousness rapidly changed.  

How easy it is to forget the place we’ve just been, Lucilius thought.  Like walking through a knew building, entering a new room and having no idea what the hallway looked like.  Were ancient people more skilled in this realm of sleep?  Lucilius wondered.  He felt he once knew the answer, but he couldn’t explore it, for there sitting in the center of his mind was the idea, the solution to his qualms in the real world.

“Of course,” he said out loud.  He sat up with a start, and then bounded for his computer.  He clacked away at it for a moment, but it wasn’t yet for the work that still loomed over him.  He was busy building a simulation.  He’d built many, but he’d never thought of one so simply until the little nap he’d just had.  It took little time at all to cook up, and with it done he readied his neuralsync for the experience.  The connection was active and nominal, and then Lucilius smiled, and before pressing the final button, he said..

“Good luck old friend.”

And then Lucilius woke up within a softly lit cube.  The lighting was perfect.  Which was a relief.  He had no way of changing it now.  Against one wall was a simple desk, a chair and atop the desk was an old mechanical typewriter.

Lucilius sat down and smiled.  “Well, you devious friend, we’re stuck here until you hit your word count.”  

Lucilius laced his fingers together and pushed his palms out away from himself, cracking his knuckles.  The tips of his fingers suddenly felt alive, eager to hit keys.  Finally, there were no more distractions.