Belly of the Volcano

It’s in the intricacies, mind over matter has erupted and spread ashes all around for the masses to inhale. Intermingled in the psyche, with the help of visual, audio, and emotional stimulus to support absolute belief.

Waking in an induced utopia, medically termed- induced virtual reality coma, IVC, for a prescribed amount of time proves miraculous. It’s in the simple yet complex ways of coaxing the mind into belief.

It’s the familiar things we know to be true, the sun rises and sets and the beauty of every given day and night is wedged between them. That much we can believe, that is where the cure lies, in lingering beauty we’re not robbed of time.

Brainwaves coasting on an endless stream of positivity wouldn’t earn my faith but, it doesn’t matter. Life expectancy is 150 for men and 157 for women, virtual fantasies are the fountain of youth. Everyday people you pass by have a belief in the beauty of life, and life has extended.

“Beautiful day isn’t it Omar?” Neil heads out the building behind me as I head to my car.

“As always,” I reply.

“Don’t be so glum chum. You’ll never reach 150 like that.”

Neil, my neighbor, shares my southern wall. We both have balconies overlooking the ocean. He is eighty six years young and recovered from the delusion of leukemia. Illness cured by the mind is also created in the mind.

“Not glum, just going for a coffee. You headed to the beach?”

“Life’s too short to be stuck between four walls.”

“Still?”

Neil laughs and waves as he parts for the ocean and I open the door to my car.

Starting the ignition I wonder at the way the engine hums beneath the hood. When time takes a toll on my vehicle can I fix it with mental intention? No, my automobile runs on a system that is not meant to last forever, just as we are not. We may have extended life but we will eventually return to ash, and my car will run down in due time.

I pull out of my building’s parking lot, the warm air through the sunroof makes me feel akin to the palm trees I pass along my drive to the diner. Life is sweet when you’re raised by the saltwater air and disciplined by the sunshine and rain.

Today the sky is lit pale blue by the piercing rays of the sun. The air against my skin is as comfortable as a baby’s blanket complete with a cooing lullaby with every revolution of my wheels along my journey. I feel as if I am hitching a ride on the wings of a hummingbird. I am practically dancing along the street.

Induced virtual reality is the body of the volcano that pulled the medicine from the depths of the earth, and every day you can see its remnants sparkling on the horizon. After six months of living in a superimposed reality, like a twenty three year old in your seventies, the chains that bind your physical reality dissolve and release the mind of any strain associated with it.

I pull into the coffee shop and out of my chariot, that according to today’s life expectancy I will outlive ten times its lifespan. Stepping into the diner I take a seat at a booth next to a window. The waitress Dorthea mods at me before she comes over.

“Coffee black Omar? Or today are you having a latte?” She chuckles a little too long at her own joke as she fills the coffee mug in front of me.

“Who needs cream when you have those clouds in the sky?”

“You having a danish or eggs and toast today?”

“Eggs and toast, thanks Dorthea.”

Indeed, those clouds are gorgeous. If I had leukemia I wonder what reality could find the cure. In the details is how the mind is maneuvered but, is there joy without pain? If there is no disappointment, how do we know when life is sweet? If I don’t bleed do I exist? From the way I hear Neil tell it his toughest challenge in IVC was keeping up the pace with his virtual reality neighbor on their morning jogs. I can’t imagine competing with an avatar for the most miles run.

If you’re going to convince my mind that what I’m experiencing is real give me ecstasy with heartache, inebriation with cold hard reality, the opposite pull of pleasure and pain.

“Eggs up.” Dorthea drops my plate on my table.

But then again, there is beauty in even these yellow fluffy eggs, appearing before me like an extension of the clouds. The spirit of a new lifetime is palpable, even when you’re just looking down at a plate of eggs and toast.

That’s what we have today that keeps us alive, seconds spent in the real world admiring the night sky although nothing compared to an induced fantasyland, suspends time. I take a bight of my eggs… perfect.

Seated back in the arms of my graceful dance partner, I bring her to life and she assures me of her mortality with her song.

She makes sense to me. Her mechanics, her technology. She operates on a system similar to mine, except she’s living a life more natural than mine. Her wear and tear will not be shaken by a will to live or by coaxing her awareness. She knows that beauty is fleeting and nothing lasts forever. Her death will be like lava encapsulating her at the foot of a volcano frozen in time; she does not need an extension.

I pull into my apartment building’s parking lot and head back to my apartment. Neil is probably lost in joy on the top of a wave. And what comes up must come down. I open the door to my apartment and throw my keys on the counter eyeing my southern wall. No matter what age you live in, we’ve always been here to keep the equilibrium. When everything’s nectar of the fruit and pollen of the bloom, there must be boundaries. When beauty abounds it must be maintained.

A flick of my wrist and the wiring job in my southern wall will send flames traveling up the surface. And there is beauty in the destruction. There is a cure in the grief of loss. I’ll relish Neil’s descent from the crest of a wave. It is what I know to be true. How I’ve reached the mouth of the volcano and belly laughed at the stirring in the both of us. I know joy, this year I turn 126.