To Revelation
Corryn thought she had the scoop of a lifetime in revealing to her audience the truth of the Light Web; little did she know how right she would be…
Corryn raised her cup of Lethe tea and toasted her audience of over three million viewers.
“To you,” she said with her patented half-smile. Gazing into the camera drone that hovered some two feet from her face, she recited her catchphrase:
“To revelation.”
Corryn had spent nearly a decade building her audience on the world’s most popular live-streaming platform I-Vid. She had developed a respectable following in her early career reviewing commercial products, but it wasn’t until she’d branched out into the growing genre of Extraordinary Claim Verification that her show really took off.
Pursuing the stories, myths and legends suggested by her “inner circle” followers, Corryn was never short of material, her most popular shows answering exigent questions like: “Are Millennial Grandparents Haunting Cyberspace?” and “Will an Android Become the Next Shakespeare?”
Although eventually edited and polished for streaming on partner platforms, the initial show featured live, real-time investigation. Hers was a simple two-camera operation allowing viewers to catch the action from Corryn’s POV via her iCamera contacts, or by way of the camera-drone interfaced to her NFC/RFID chip so that her actual face (and its many expressive responses) always remained perfectly in frame as she carried out her various investigatory tasks.
The high probability for tension, drama and social awkwardness fueled viewership of the live-streaming shows, even if it meant the audience might also be in for some long stretches of not much happening. During such times, Corryn found that the habit of talking aloud to herself, a tic once a cause of embarrassment, now served to placate the restless urges of her viewers to stray to other shows.
For this series, however, Corryn had little need to pad the episodes with extemporaneous content. She knew it was a gamble to go with such a relatively unknown phenomenon as “The Light Web” (subtitled: “The future of spirituality, or a Low-Tech Urban Myth?)”, but so far, every interaction had been rating’s dynamite. By the third episode, she had almost as many viewers as she’d had for her show on the revolutionary Santa Clause A.I. Drone (“Will Poor Kids Finally Be Getting More than Nothing this Christmas?”).
Corryn first heard tale of the light web via comments on her videos, most persistently from a viewer who called themselves Eko. Whether “Eko” represented a single gender-neutral person or some secretive organization, Corryn hadn’t had the gumption to ask.
“The light web is like nothing you can imagine, an experience beyond description,” Eko had written, and which Corryn had to admit, enticed her, despite other commenters declaring Eko’s claims to be “fake” or “BS”. Then a story emerged linking the light web to an underground drug trafficking network. It was said that a particular (and heretofore unheard of) strain of mushroom-related narcotic was somehow the key to connecting to the light web. Somewhat ironically, these drugs were being traded through the dark web.
An exposé on a new drug could make for dramatic viewing even if such content wasn’t generally in Corryn’s wheelhouse. Unable to stifle her curiosity, Corryn hurled caution to the ether and contacted Eko using the email address they had left her in one of their comments. She immediately felt deflated when their reply read: “We need to meet face-to-face.”
Corryn wasn’t shy about meeting the person(s), but with a worldwide audience, Eko likely lived too far away to make such an encounter feasible. And yet Eko stubbornly refused to give her any more information about the drug ring or the light web unless she agreed to meet with them in person. Corryn was just about to bail on the whole idea when Eko commented: “If you live outside of Buffalo as you say, then it won’t be a long commute for you.”
How oddly convenient, thought Corryn, and tried to decide if it fell under the category of suspicious, or serendipitous. Ultimately, she concluded that it didn’t really matter; she was potentially on the verge of a monumental discovery and so some risk had to be assumed.
With a modicum of trouble, she decoded the cipher Eko had sent instructing her where and when to meet them, and the very next evening she took an iCar to the low-tech sector of Squaw Island and met with her mysterious new acquaintance (“we’ll be leaning against the trash bin between Mario’s and The Black Sheep”).
Wearing a white rabbit mask featuring little horns above the eyebrows, Eko regaled Corryn with a riddle-infused story that kept her and her audience on the tips of their toes and the edges of their seats, respectively.
Corryn had summarized what she had learned in the show’s subsequent episode:
“I know this is confusing so let’s lay it all out. Ok, according to Eko, the light web can only be accessed in low-tech or no-tech sectors. Since no-tech sectors don’t exist outside of Antarctica, or wherever, I’ll be revisiting Squaw Island. I have an apartment key — look people, it’s an actual metal key! I hope I don’t lose it! Now, the place will be all set up for me, including a cup of what Eko called ‘Lethe Tea.’ The tea is non-psychoactive Eko has assured, but is meant to relax me and, (here she air-quoted) ‘induce my brain into an alpha state’ which is apparently super-important for the next step: ‘The Chanting.’ She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers, her half-smile in full effect.
“After I drink the tea, I chant these words — which I’ve memorized, you’ll be happy to know, and which was no easy feat since it’s in Sanskrit! Let’s see — I take a breath…and… Om-bhur-bhuvah-vah, tat-savitur-varenyam, bhargo-devasya-dhimahi, dhiyo-yo-nah-prachodayat. Wow, that felt kind of good! Maybe I should chant more often.
“Anyway, as you may recall, I asked Eko what the phrase means, and they shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘It’s the vibration that matters,’ and that ‘The true Trinity isn’t the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The true trinity is Energy, Frequency, and Vibration.’ Essentially, I’ll be ‘tuning in’ to the frequency by ‘increasing my rate of vibration’ via the chanting and the tea. I realize this all may sound like pseudo-science and hippy woo-woo mysticism, and maybe it is.
“But what if it’s real, folks? What if I can bring to you, my devoted followers, an experience ‘beyond anything you could ever imagine?’ Join me next week when I take the plunge into the light web and into revelation.”
Despite the confidence and devil-may-care attitude that Corryn managed to portray for her audience, she was in fact feeling somewhat trepidatious about the situation in general and the mushroom tea, specifically.
According to Eko the tea, known by the street name “Lethe” would simply relax and open her mind — a necessity if she wished to gain access to the light web.
However, if after consuming the beverage she began to feel anything other than what Eko had described, Corryn would activate what her tech producer called “an appropriate brain-receptor blocker” — essentially cutting off the chemical reaction triggered by the mushroom.
It was part of a software package that had been programmed into her wrist chip. Furthermore, Corryn had hired two bodyguards who would be parked outside the apartment, waiting for a voice text should anything go wrong.
And so here she was, on Squaw Island, outside her designated area by half a mile or so, but not inside a restricted area, per se. A restricted area was not a place she was prepared to risk exploring.
In this location, if she were stopped, she could tell the zone cop that she was visiting a friend. And if the cop didn’t buy her story, the worst she’d receive was a fine. Not something to wish for, but it was a penalty she could live with.
Or so she was telling herself as she exited the iCar. She had told the iCar to drop her a little way down the road so she could film the neighborhood. Fortunately, her PPM (pollutant particulate monitor) was registering in the “safe” range and so she did not need to don the ventilator mask she’d brought. Since low-tech areas lacked the air filtering drones found elsewhere, it was always a good idea to bring along the vent mask just in case.
The house that matched the address she had scanned differed slightly from the buildings around it, mostly old homes with peeling paint or shoddy siding, many constructed over a century ago and since then converted into low-income apartments. The one at 65 Pearl Street was an apartment complex that looked like a single-residential home. If Eko hadn’t told her it was an apartment, she would have been fooled.
“Apartment three,” she said as an unnecessary reminder, but comforting nonetheless. She walked up the crumbling concrete porch stairs to the front door.
“Do I knock…?” Corryn could tell she was in a low-tech neighborhood. “Low-tech” was a term that had over the course of the last decade, replaced all previous terms such as “projects”, “ghetto”, and “hood.”
Low-tech neighborhoods featured non-self-driving cars parked on the street and the wi-fi was largely stuck in 4G. The people often lacked wrist chips, and still used computers and phones, and actual devices to access the internet.
If you could trust the media reporting, low-tech neighborhoods were hotbeds for the most destabilizing viruses history has ever experienced, but if this were true the sick weren’t going to the hospitals. Corryn would know, as her sister regularly complained about her hours being cut as a nurse due to the lack of patients.
Corryn was about to switch on her iCamera when the front door swung open. Instinctually she moved to the right and grabbed the dented storm door to hold it open. In doing so, Corryn was granted a view of the vestibule beyond, including the thin black mailboxes lining the wall. She counted six.
A young Latina woman exited onto the porch without so much as glancing at Corryn or even uttering an obligatory “thank you.”
Corryn noticed she was holding a cell phone up to her ear — something she only saw in movies anymore.
“No se,” she heard the woman mumble on the way to her Honda Bolt with the front bumper clinging together with duct tape. “Revisa la dark web mientras puedas.”
A wave of adrenaline rushed over Corryn at the mere mention of the ‘dark web’, as if simply hearing the term was akin to exploring its highly illegal sites. Perhaps the only advantage of living low tech was that one had easier access to the dark web, (and the black market in general), an irony not lost on those who had the choice of living there.
If Corryn, whose head was forever linked to the cloud, attempted to access the dark web, she’d get nothing but an error message. Try two more times and on the third she’d be automatically reported and fined.
She entered the dingy vestibule and looked down the dimly lit hallway. Apartment 3 was located at the end of the hall, the door to which was fantastically decorated with an intricate, brightly colored mandala in the middle of which featured the Sanskrit symbol for Ohm.
“Yup,” Corryn whispered. “Hippies.”
She straightened her back and said “lights-camera-action”, effectively switching on her I-Camera. She replayed her recording of Eko explaining the knock code and followed suit.
***
The tea went down with an earthy tang that reminded Corryn of wheatgrass juice, though less piquant.
“Oo, bitter, but not horrible,” was all she said, then smiled and winked into the drone camera. “So, I guess I better drink the whole thing, right?”
Despite the slightly acrid taste on her tongue, the Lethe tea soothed her throat and belly with each gulp. For the third time since arriving in the low-tech sector apartments, Corryn’s iCamera froze.
She could only hope that these glitches were providing an appropriate level of dramatic tension for her audience. She blinked forcefully and using her left middle finger, she gave her temple a series of rapid, light taps.
Her camera flicked back online and Corryn did her best to ignore the rapidly scrolling comments invading her peripheral — including the ones warning her that the tea she was drinking, if accurate to the Greek myth about the Underworld’s river of the same name, might cause her to lose her memory.
Addressing the glitches, Corryn said, “Sorry about that folks, but remember I am not in Kansas anymore and I don’t believe there’s even a router in this building much less an Ether-Wave.”
Corryn paused in her narration as a euphoric sensation blossomed in her belly and spread gently vibrating tendrils up her spine, soothing the back of her head and melting away any concerns she had.
“Wow,” she said breathlessly. “That’s some fast-acting tea. Okay…” she inhaled deeply, letting her breath out slowly, composing herself.
“Okay, on to the next step. Sitting in front of the hippy altar with the pretty blue crystal orb.”
Corryn lowered herself onto the cushion placed in front of a low table (the “altar”) which was bare except for the plum-colored silk cloth that covered it and a heavy-looking, three-legged stand upon which rested a brilliantly blue glass orb.
The cushion on which she sat was hard and unyielding and she wondered how a person was supposed to get comfortable enough to meditate on the thing, but after only a few moments, the cushion, along with everything else, softened as a wave of peaceful contentment gently washed over her, and she found herself sinking naturally into a cross-legged posture.
“Good.”
She heard a faint voice, not her own, in her head. Yet somehow… not.
“This is new,” she heard herself say, surprised by an accompanying thrill that bloomed in her chest. She couldn’t believe how good she felt. Good, and peaceful, and content.
It was reminiscent of the time during her early twenties when she first started taking Bliss pills for her taedium vitae syndrome. Unfortunately, the pills were recalled after a high percentage of people blissed out so completely, they couldn’t be bothered to do anything else.
She focused her attention on the cobalt orb directly in front of her. The orb, about the size of a bowling ball, reflected the entire room, including herself.
“The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.”
She heard the voice again as if she were on a call.
“Can you guys hear that?”
Judging by the confused comments scrolling across her peripheral, they could not. In fact, her audience seemed to be having issues with the entire viewing experience. She should care. She should do something. This was her chance to break open the truth about the light web, but the idea struck her as trivial and even meaningless, especially when compared to all these wonderful feelings firing off throughout her body and mind.
Sandalwood and rosehips caressed the air she inhaled. She relaxed deeper and deeper still, her gaze half-aware of what she was seeing, and half-aware of her own thoughts that drifted by like clouds in the sky of her mind.
As she sunk deeper into this almost dreamy, relaxed state, she noticed without any alarm, that the orb was elongating to form a kind of cone-shaped beak that stretched slowly, soundlessly, subtly towards her head. Simultaneously, she felt a magnetic tugging sensation as if what was happening to the orb was happening to her own head as well!
“Recite the chant,” the voice said gently.
“Oh yeah, the chant. I researched the translation. I should share that with my audience. My beautiful, supportive audience…”
“You are the only audience that matters at this moment,” the voice said reassuringly. She smiled.
“That is good to know, voice in my head. Okay, I’m going to chant now…”
After the second round of chanting, she replaced the Sanskrit with English.
“We meditate on the transcendental Glory of the Supreme Living Vibration, who is inside the heart of the earth, within the life of the sky and inside the soul of Reality. May it stimulate and illuminate our minds.”
Something incredible happened.
Corryn felt as though her consciousness — her point of awareness — was being tractor-beamed from her forehead, stretching toward (or pulling?) the cone of light emanating from the orb. She felt the point of the elongated cone tip as it made contact with the spot between her eyebrows, not as a physical entity but as a beam of energy that resonated throughout her entire being, creating a winding tubular pathway that sucked Corryn right through.
The sensation was not unlike how she felt during a game of Warp Drive, except with that game, she was hooked up with VR goggles and an entire software package was engineering the show. But this. This was something else entirely. For one thing, she wasn’t hooked up to anything which meant that this feeling of exhilaration was coming from, her. And she couldn’t be certain, but she might have been screaming. Screaming in rapture.
No sooner than it had started, the ride was over. All her questions about what was happening evaporated in the face of her surroundings.
Corryn found herself in the middle of a lush, beautifully landscaped courtyard, a moat making up the perimeter and populated with gigantic lotus flowers floating atop crystal blue waters.
She felt physically lighter, as though she had been wearing a suit of lead and had just removed it. Raising any arm up in front of her she saw that it was in fact the arm she expected to see, yet…not. It was more like an impression of her arm, of her entire body, in fact, was here in this place.
Corryn saw that she was standing next to a circle of white marbled statues frozen in dance-like postures around the largest fruit tree she had ever seen, its branches weighed down by wide green fronds and an array of exotic fruits none of which she recognized.
Beyond the tree, Corryn saw a fountain depicting the archetypal Fool from the classical Tarot deck, with water cascading in all directions from the single rose the Fool held high between thumb and forefinger. Next to the fountain, a group of people dressed in shimmering silver robes paid rapt attention to what appeared to be a child performing sleight-of-hand tricks for those assembled.
The fact that the child’s skin was the color of blue azurite was interesting enough in its own right but what Corryn found especially astounding was the fact that he or she was hovering cross-legged roughly ten feet above the ground and weaving intricate geometric patterns from strings of crackling chromatic light summoned from thin air.
Before she could process any of what she was seeing, Corryn heard a familiar voice directly behind her.
“Hello, Corryn. I’m so glad you came.”
She turned to find a tall man with a red tunic and elegant white robes holding what Corryn recognized as a Caduceus — two serpents winding around a central winged staff, their heads meeting open-jawed around a large pinecone-shaped crystal.
“Eko?” She breathed.
She didn’t know how she knew since when she had met with Eko near the garbage bin that one evening — so long ago it now seemed — they were wearing a mask. Eko’s entire body, Corryn noticed, was enveloped in a translucent egg-shaped field of shifting and shimmering violet energy.
Corryn smiled in awe, despite her mental confusion. In fact, her mental state seemed almost irrelevant in relation to how she felt. Like a cat cradled in the arms of its human companion, Corryn felt only nurturing comfort. No drug. No digital program. No experience could compare to the peace, calm, and joy that hummed inside her chest and seemed to be the very essence of this place.
“It’s a feeling you deserve, my friend,” Eko said, or rather, Eko seemed to say. She had heard their gentle, familiar voice as if it lacked any discernable source, but instead was riding the air molecules and projected from each atom floating around and inside of her.
“The light web is our birthright, the birthright of humanity.”
Corryn wanted to speak, but she could barely even think — at least not in the manner she was accustomed to. All she could do was feel and it took all her strength not to respond to those amazing feelings with laughter.
Yet as soon as she attempted to speak, the suppressed laughter rippled out from her soul’s core and she found it difficult to stop.
“Let it out Corryn. You deserve to laugh, for joy is always a blessing.”
Laughing between words, Corryn responded, “Yes.. it is… but… what is this… amazing… program…?”
Eko chuckled affably.
“This isn’t a program. The world you momentarily left behind is the program. This is — for lack of a better word — reality, the reality of consciousness unleashed. Think of it as a parallel dimension that for humans trapped in Maya — the world you know — was impossible to access. Now, because humanity is slowly awakening to its full potential, this dimension — the dimension of ultimate reality — is much easier to access.”
“But I’m not actually here, here, right? I mean, my body is still in that apartment. Right?”
“Your consciousness is in your etheric body which looks like the way you’re accustomed to it looking — for the most part. Your lower-vibrational, physical body, in the meantime, is sitting in meditation, yes.”
“What do you mean, for the most part?”
“Well, for one thing, all those transhuman gadgets that everyone can’t seem to live without, they don’t work here.”
This statement struck Corryn as absurd, for either this was a dream — an incredibly vibrant dream more intense than any waking experience she’d ever had — or some very advanced cyber technology was somehow involved. The more she considered it, the more obvious it all seemed.
“You don’t have to say another word, Eko, I’m sold. Let’s talk advertising numbers later if you don’t mind, but yeah, this is the best pitch anyone’s ever given me. You will definitely be my number one advertiser. So, what’s it called and how much more time do I get to play?”
Eko raised a bushy black eyebrow and stroked their goatee, their kind eyes seemingly capturing Corryn’s entire being in their gaze.
“The only technology that matters is the mind, Corryn. Unlike with technology, the only limit to the mind is the imagination.”
Eko indicated the space around them with a dramatic wave of their robed arm.
Corryn looked from Eko to the levitating child and noticed for the first time that although everything was vitally clear and bright there was no sun in the sky. Rather the sky was like a giant movie screen displaying a swirling vortex of spiraling misty stars and great multi-colored orbs revolving around each other at a diversity of speeds. Corryn was reminded of an old engraving she had colored in elementary school called the Flammarion. The lone figure in the picture was peeking his head through the firmament to see the universe in all its splendor.
Corryn opened her mouth to ask more questions but was interrupted by some force smacking the top of her head. While not painful, the impact was unwelcomed, and judging by the look of concern wash over Eko’s face, it was a bad sign.
“They’ve come for you.”
“What?” Corryn wondered why she wasn’t feeling panicked by that statement. She looked around but saw nothing that would indicate concern.
“Before you go, let me give you one more gift.”
Without taking so much as a single step, Eko was standing not two feet away, lowering his staff so that the tip of the crystal pinecone touched Corryn’s forehead directly above her brow line.
Her entire awareness was immediately engulfed in white light and a magnetic force circumnavigated her skull in a rapid tornado-like fashion that sounded nothing like wind, but rather like a thousand angels harmonizing into one brilliant note.
She felt her jaw open and her own voice joined the chorus in a long exhale. Then, a second later, the light, the magnetic whirling, the angel song, all vanished, and Eko was standing where they had been standing prior to touching her head with their staff.
“What. Was. That?” Corryn burst into a giant smile, her point of awareness expanding beyond a point, beyond the confines of her head, and outward to encompass a larger seemingly borderless expanse. All worry and concern, all fears and anxieties completely transformed themselves into an orchestra of blissful acceptance.
Then, wham! Her head jerked back as if hit again. This time, by a much more determined force.
“Don’t worry,” Eko said, sounding farther away somehow. “Now that you’ve been to the light web, you can always return. I cleaned your pineal gland of all toxins; your third eye has been opened. They can’t stop you from tuning into this dimension, and soon we will all be vibrating in the infinite strands of the light web.”
Corryn was being pulled away by unseen hands. She didn’t want to leave. In fact, she desperately wanted to stay, to explore this wondrous realm for just a little longer. It wasn’t fair, she thought, to have seen this place and now to be taken away against her will. Could she really come back whenever she wanted? A frightening thought occurred to her.
“What about the tea? How will I get it?”
Eko’s voice sounded now very much like his namesake as if he were on the other side of a very long tunnel.
“You won’t need it now that it’s made its initial contact and transformed your brain’s physiology. Your mind will remember. Just chant the words to activate the vibrations and the light web will reveal itself. After all, my lovely friend,” Eko spread their arms wide and said triumphantly, “We are the light web.”
Corryn didn’t understand. As she was being pulled further away, her mind seemed to close in on itself, restored to its singular place within her skull, and yet, who exactly was she?
Eko sang: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
Her entire reality began to spin. A rising nausea. An all-consuming darkness.
Corryn “woke” to find herself being escorted from the house on Squaw Island in handcuffs, two bulky officers in full riot gear on either side of her.
A sea of reporters was swelling on the other side of the police barricade, shouting a cacophony of questions.
“What can you tell us about the light web?”
“Are you part of the cartel?
“What will you tell your fans?”
“My fans,” Corryn mumbled and for some reason, the very idea of “fans” struck her as hilarious. She started to laugh, nestling in her heart the last words she had heard from Eko. She laughed and she didn’t stop laughing even as she was shoved violently into the back of a police cruiser.
“After all my lovely friend, we are the light web.”
