A LUCILIUS PARABLE: HEADWAY

November 15th, 2020

Lucilius was floating cross-legged, encased in a sphere of brilliant golden light, suspended in a void of infinite vastness.  His breath consumed the universe and brought it to be once again as he breathed out.  His heartbeat set the rhythm of all time in this momentary place and within it Lucilius was at peace in his meditation.

He opened his eyes.  “Okie dokie, that should do it.”

He lifted his hands before him, out stretched, his grasp poised for invisible gears.  He tightened his grasp and thin lines of light instantly materialized, tracing the shape of virtual controllers perfectly fitted to each hand.  He twisted each and zigzagged them in the space before him, pausing the program.  

The brilliant gold light all around him faded, the void dematerialized and Lucilius was now sitting cross legged on a tiny wooden meditation stool he’d built many years before.    He looked out now through a wall of glass overlooking the sea.  He smiled momentarily, the corse texture of those cold waves bringing to mind a memory while aboard ship.  But the luminous controls were still poised in his hands and Lucilius twisted them again, activating a curved panel, tracing itself out in thin lines of light, hovering before Lucilius.  The screen populated with strange symbols of code and a diagram of neuronal firing.  It was a representation of Lucilius’ own brain - a recording, that had been taken while Lucilius had been in meditation.  

Lucilius had implanted within his brain an advanced neuralsync, through which he could directly interface with his computer, and through which he could record his brainstates.

Parts of code began to vanish and rewrite in multiple places on the screen simultaneously.  The code scrolled and rotated revealing more, which likewise seemed to be self editing as Lucilius rewrote bits of the program.

“That.. should be it.”  Lucilius mumbled to himself.  He’d been designing a new type of meditation app which he’d designed to function with a neuralsync, or an advanced personal MRI for those rare individuals who had not yet taken the dive with neural implantation.  

He’d just recorded the final brain state required to finish the meditation course, and now it was time to give the whole program a run.  Each level, of course, required months, even years of meditative practice in order to unlock.  Each mental challenge came with it’s own set of exercises and premises which Lucilius had designed and which the student experienced through a kind of telepathy transmitted through their link.  Lucilius felt that pleasant sense of accomplishment now that the app was finished, and he wanted to give it one last run through.

He flicked his hands, still equipped with their virtual controllers and the screen of code disappeared.  The neuralsync within Lucilius’ brain overrode his sensory input, feeding his brain instead the landscape generated by his meditation program.  The sea beyond the glass calmed and began to rise.  The glass and the walls of his home vanished, and the turgid grey sky cleared to a purple twilight.  Lucilius was sitting now on a single, simple stone poised in the center of a landscape of perfectly still water that stretched to every horizon.  

Smiling, he stretched his neck, tilting his head to each side, and as he did, subtle ripples fluttered out from the rock in the direction of his simple stretch.  He giggled and instantly it looked as though the glassy surface of the water were shattered with invisible raindrops.  He breathed deeply and it settled once again.  Then, Lucilius gathered his concentration and conjured a terrible anger, filling himself with old memories, giving them full reign of his mind, his heart beginning to race, his body electric with impulse.  He opened his eyes and he was immersed within a valley between gargantuan waves, their high tops sheared of spray by a terrible wind.  The oncoming wave was closing upon Lucilius, bound to crush him and sweep him from his sitting.  But he breathed deeply, slowly, looking at the towering wave, and as he did, the wave slowed, shrinking before Lucilius as he properly embraced the old memories and the anger they instilled.   The rushing wave still bore down upon Lucilius but he closed his eyes and as peace settled again throughout his mind, the wave crumbled until it was just a mere rippling that lapped against the stone where he sat.

The glassy water began to glow with light, signalling that the level had been unlocked.  Lucilius smiled.  The water then began to drain, revealing a mountain beneath Lucilius.  Quickly snowy peaks emerged around him and then far below green valleys as the receding waters unrolled.  Lucilius was surrounded by a ragged and torn landscape of rock.  The air grew cold, then freezing with the altitude, and Lucilius set himself upon the task of concentration, now raising the heat of his body with his mind, knowing the ice storm that would crawl over the horizon and fill this world.