OUROBOROS

copyright Anaya Roma (2012)

        Being born with no legs made everything thrice as difficult, but Ernest Lee had found his niche in life. His power wheelchair was certainly a blessing! It gave him just the amount of mobility he required. He had a computer and he had a mind. And what a mind he had!

        He was a highly skilled wordsmith, building virtual worlds in which his readers could become the lovers, warriors, queens, and kings, or even the villains they had always dreamed about. His tremendous imagination had brought entertainment to thousands all over the world. His novels and short stories had been translated into a host of languages, and a grateful multitude of readers had made his life quite comfortable and satisfying.

        Like most people, Ernest had a daily routine. After his morning toilette and cup of tea, he would sit zazen for an hour. Then he would have a simple breakfast, and he would wheel over to his computer to start the day’s work.

        One fine day, Ernest began writing a story about a maintenance employee at a Masonic Lodge who, while dusting and polishing the antique solid oak furniture, inadvertently stumbled upon a hidden panel under the Worshipful Master’s Seat. The panel had an attached container, and inside, there was a piece of metal with a strange symbol on it: a snake eating its tail, also known as the ouroboros.

        Ernest had just finished writing the first five hundred words or so, when he noticed a little black dot in the center of his computer monitor. At first, he thought it might be a speck of dirt, and he wiped the spot with a paper tissue. It did not help. Since he felt his Muse inspiring him, he didn’t want to stop writing, so he decided to ignore the black dot, and continued typing on his keyboard.

        After another five hundred words, the black dot could no longer be disregarded. It had continued to grow… Ernest hastily hooked up his external hard drive to save his text, just in case a crash ensued. He really hated losing two hours of work, and he finished just in time. The dot was now about an inch wide and growing. In a few minutes, the words Ernest had written began to disappear into what now seemed to be a black hole inside the monitor. He then dialed his friend Lucius’ cell phone to tell him about the strange development. Lucius suspected a virus, and said he’d be right over, but when Ernest looked again, the black dot had become a churning eddy that was swallowing up everything on the monitor!

        The famous writer thought all this somewhat strange, but he sure was not expecting what happened next. After the churning eddy had eaten up everything displayed on the monitor, he began hearing a whooshing, sucking sound. He stretched out his arm to touch the monitor and found the glass was gone. When he leaned in a little closer to better examine the machine, he felt a strong current of wind tugging at him, as if he were standing in front of a vacuum cleaner. Then, the objects on his desk began moving toward the monitor, and slowly but surely, papers, pencils, and then books, were sucked in and devoured by the intensifying vortex. Ernest’s glasses flew off his face, and his fountain pen flew out of his shirt pocket, both disappearing into the whirlpool. He pulled back, and watched as the vortex started sucking everything in: the curtains, the tablecloth, the napkin holder, the salt and pepper shakers on the table… Just in time, he set his wheel chair at top speed, and escaped from the house. As he reached the opposite side of the street, he looked back. He was not turned into a pillar of salt, but his jaw dropped, and he uttered a silent scream as he witnessed the unspeakable. The maëlstrom had already swallowed his entire house, and was now gobbling up his neighbor’s lawn, his dog, his car, his neighbor’s wife and children who had exited the house, the trees, lampposts, even the fire hydrant, and then, the very street itself! The more the vortex swallowed, the larger it became, and the more rapidly it churned. Ernest accelerated his motorized wheelchair as fast as it would go, but in the end, the maëlstrom caught up with him, and he was swallowed, too. And so were the clouds, the sea, the sky, the whole planet, and most certainly everything else in the Universe, but there was no one to witness it.

        At the moment he had been sucked in, Ernest had closed his eyes and kept them tightly shut. He had grabbed onto the chair’s armrests with all his strength, and clenched his teeth, expecting to be eviscerated, as if he had arrived at the event horizon of a black hole. However, it was nothing like that.

        After the initial shock of the centrifugal force, he was still strapped into his chair and sensed he was suspended in space. Feeling slightly less apprehensive, he tentatively opened his left eye and noticed there was an indefinable source of light that enabled him to discern a disparate collection of objects, animals, plants, and human beings, floating nearby him.

        Suddenly, he became aware of an utter silence and stillness. Then, a flash of lightning ensued, with an immediate, deafening crack of thunder. And everything was back where it was again, just exactly as it was before “The Event”!

        Just like that, Ernest was sitting in his chair in front of his computer and the monitor was displaying every word he had written, along with all the icons, widgets, and shortcuts!

        He immediately rolled himself out to the street where he met his gathered neighbors. They were all excitedly talking about what had happened, so he knew something had indeed occurred, and he had not merely had a nightmare. Of course, everyone had an opinion…

        Not being convinced by any of their theories, Ernest drove his wheelchair back into his house and turned on the TV. Everyone on the air had an opinion, too, but nothing satisfied him. Some religious groups denounced the event as a work of the devil. Others affirmed it proved the existence of God. Still others said it was all a hoax!

        Lucius, true to his word, arrived about thirty minutes later. He too had his own opinion, but it made much more sense to Ernest. In short, Lucius held that they were now living in a virtual reality!

        “Do you mean to say my computer swallowed our ‘real’ reality like a snake eating its tail, and we are now living inside the computer in a virtual reality, instead?” queried Ernest.

        And Lucius countered, “Who’s to say the reality we had before was the ‘real’ reality?” Then he philosophically added, “What is ‘reality’ anyway? How can we know?”

        Physicists bruited the virtual reality theory about, but in the end, nothing was truly settled, because after all, there was no way of knowing what had “really” happened.

        Time went by, life went on, and people forgot about the incident, until fifteen years later when another similar event began. Many who had experienced the previous incident were still alive, so there was a lot less upset afterwards, as the older generation counseled the younger one. And just as before, everything went back to business as usual for another fifteen years. Until it happened again!

        By now, people had come to accept that, whatever sort of reality they had, it would have a limited duration, and “The Event” would be periodically repeated approximately every fifteen years, but nobody ever found out how or why. However, Ernest Lee achieved enlightenment meditating on this new koan: What is the sound of one virtual reality being swallowed up by another? 

(2012)