I Wrote a Trippy Little Story About a Kid Lost in a Quantum Grid.

How a child philosopher named Shankara got lost in matrix-esque rooms.

"I wrote a fictional story called 'As the Fractals' Radiance Enveloped Him' inspired by an article I wrote previously about the fractal nature of neti neti:

I hope you like it.

From the moment of his birth, the great Indian philosopher Adi Shankara seemed destined for greatness. As an infant, he rarely cried and often sat staring with intense focus, as if pondering mysteries beyond his tender age. When he began to speak, the child pontificated on spiritual topics, reciting scripture from memory in a voice both innocent and wise. By age three, Shankara had already demonstrated such precocious wisdom that his father decided to initiate him into the sacred initiation ritual.

During the ceremony, Shankara remained perfectly still and serene as his father chanted ancient verses and draped a simple cotton thread over his left shoulder. Shankara felt the coarse fibres against his skin as his father tied the knot that would bind him to spiritual life. After the ritual, his father gazed upon his son with pride, confident this was no ordinary child. Then little Shankara fell into a long and peaceful sleep.

Shankara opened his eyes to a pale blue sky. He sat up slowly, taking in his surroundings. He appeared to be in a large, empty square room with white walls and floor. The only features were evenly spaced lines that formed a perfect grid across every surface. 

As Shankara stood, he noticed his reflection in the wall—everything about him appeared normal, but somehow off. His edges were too sharp, his colours too saturated. He ran his hands over his body and clothes, feeling nothing but a smooth, hard surface.

A wave of panic rose in Shankara's chest. Where was he? How did he get here? He struggled to remember anything before waking in this strange room. He paced the perimeter, searching desperately for a door or any clues, but found only more gridlines extending endlessly.

Shankara took a deep breath to steady his nerves. Falling to pieces wouldn't help. He needed to think logically and systematically explore his environment. He walked methodically along the grid, counting his steps, and examining each line and seam for any deviations or weaknesses. Nothing stood out. The room was consistent, unwavering perfection.

As Shankara crossed back toward the centre, his foot caught on an irregularity in the floor. He knelt to investigate. A single square was fading, its lines flickering in and out like a glitch in a screen. Shankara ran his hand over it and the room shifted dizzyingly.

When his senses cleared, Shankara found himself in an identical room, but the grid pattern was rotated 45 degrees from the first. He spun around, bewildered by the disorienting change. As before, he began mapping the new grid meticulously. This time, a square flickered in the wall. When he touched it, the room flipped again.

Over and over, the room transformed each time Shankara encountered an unstable grid point. The sense of déjà vu grew stronger with each reset. He felt certain he had experienced every possible configuration, yet there were always new variations. With growing desperation, he raced from glitch to glitch, swapping rooms faster and faster.

On his hundredth shift or perhaps his thousandth, Shankara stopped in the centre of a room, numb and exhausted. It was all the same—an infinite regress of white grids, randomly shuffling but leading nowhere. He curled into a ball on the floor and wept. How long could he endure this endless maze before losing his grip on reality entirely?

As Shankara cried, he felt the vibrations of his sobs resonating through the floor's hard surface. He pressed his ear closer, discerning minute variations in pitch and tone. Methodically, he mapped these resonant properties across the grid, noticing subtle differences corresponding to structural fluctuations. An idea began to take shape.

That night, Shankara lay with his eyes closed, feeling the room's resonances flow through him like a silent song. He committed its pattern to memory until he knew it as intimately as himself. When he sensed an unstable square forming a discordant note, he moved toward it purposefully. Each time the room changed, he quickly oriented himself to the new song and continued his methodical exploration.

Over days and nights of patient listening, Shankara mapped the entire hyperspace of the grid's possible quantum states. Where before was chaos, he now perceived order. He began to see past the illusion of randomness to discern the mathematical logic governing its transformations. With growing intuition, he learned to anticipate shifts and manoeuvre strategically between configurations.

One night, as Shankara drifted through a familiar resonance pattern, he noticed a new harmonic emerging in the distance. He followed it eagerly, picking his way across the vibrant structures of sound. The notes grew strangely dynamic, changing in unexpected ways that defied the grid's normal behaviour. As he zeroed in on their source, the floor fell away beneath his feet.

Shankara landed gracefully in a small, hexagonal antechamber. A single curved wall glowed with dancing fractal patterns that pulsed in time to his heartbeat. He stepped closer in awe, watching symbols and motifs emerge and combine like the pieces of some vast, incomprehensible puzzle. As he lost himself in their dizzying beauty, a presence seemed to stir in their shimmering depths.

A voice echoed gently within his mind. "You have journeyed far, child, navigating realms beyond most souls' comprehension. Your perseverance and intuition have served you well. But this journey nears its end. What is it you seek?"

Shankara stared silently into the fractals, forgetting himself in their swirling complexities. Slowly, memories surfaced through the haze—his home, his family, his simple life before being tossed into this surreal dreamscape. Tears welled as he understood how far he had strayed from reality's familiar comforts. 

"All I wanted was to go back," he said softly. "To wake up from this strange place and find myself somewhere real again."

Warm reassurance flooded through him. "Fear not. You have awakened to wisdom through your ordeal and need not suffer its terrors any longer. Open your eyes, beloved child, and return home at last, that seems real but it is not."

Shankara breathed deeply as the fractals' radiance enveloped him. When he opened his eyes again, dawn was breaking over gentle green hills he knew like his own soul. He was home.

Fundamental Quotations.

“That the enumerated forms exhaust the forms of Brahman is what is denied in 'neti neti'. Far from denying the forms of Brahman the statement (by Badarayana) asserts the infinity of the forms of Brahman. 'Neti neti' is negative in the letter but embodies a super-abundance of affirmation in spirit.”

 Introduction to the Vedārthasangraha of Sri Ramanujacharya

“By such sentences as "That thou art," our own Self is affirmed. Of that which is untrue and composed of the five elements - the Sruti (scripture) says, "Not this, not this."

Avadhuta Gita 1.25

I have woven tales to share, for any who care to read them. My books await you on Google Books. Check also my stories on Medium.com.

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