By age Fifty, Summs would come to say, he had grown sick of the mere magic tricks and parlor games associated with his mystic practice. He had made himself grow three inches, but had lost them again within the week. He had written two different personal letters in two separate corners of the world, and posted them to his guru in Russia, using only his mind, but the syntax had been childish and the handwriting sloppy (as his guru later informed him, first through an email then through a dream). Games! Summs thought, who expected far more. For what other goal could there be in attaining enlightenment than immortality itself or at least an unnaturally long life span? Or at the very least, a sense that life was not just — this.
Then he had heard through a friend of what was known as The Exercise, which was also known as The Position. Once you got into The Position, your pain increased and Time decreased until at a certain point Time actually stopped. Then, if you continued to hold it, Time actually became detached from you, you became “unlatched from its locomotive,” and you could move forward or back in it just like you could in space. You were no longer moving in the two directions the track allowed, but 360 — and who knew? maybe even up and down!
Summs had never gotten that far with it (though he knew people who had) but one time while practicing he found himself levitating, which was one of its better known side effects and indicated you were getting close. Button by button Time’s “straightjacket” was becoming unlatched. However, the downside was that The Position really was quite painful and Time could really seem quite excruciatingly slow before it became completely stopped.
Now there was a sudden knocking at the door. “I’m in The Position!” he cried back. The knocking became more pronounced, “please GO AWAY!” he said still more forcefully. Then he found himself levitating toward the door and unlatching it with a quick back and forth motion of his head, though he was so annoyed by his visitor he didn’t even realize his feet weren’t touching the ground. Opening the door, a package lay at his feet — what! It was his latest round of dietary supplements! His anger completely melted away in the presence of his latest delivery. Well that was quick! What amazing times we lived in, after all! Summs was indeed so awestruck with the conveniences of modern life that it sometimes seemed that, through the miracle of technology, Society itself was attaining the enlightenment that had so far escaped so many of its individuals. Maybe all we had to do, in the end, thought Summs, is lean back, relax and responsibly enjoy human progress. Enough of these games, indeed!
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 