Smoke.

A tiny cloud of artificial smoke comes into the scene. Some beams of

light rise from the floor. Music is deafening and epic. The initial notes of a

composition, much like the Mozart Dies Irae, are made wide in the room

transforming a loud and impatient audience into a unique, silent and fully

concentrated entity.

Finally the smoke starts thinning out leaving the place to a precious

wooden stage, a small raised and hexagonal platform.

A dozen of enormous displays, showing a shiny logo, are dropped from

the ceiling.

This logo seems like eye shaped. Two particulars symbols are set at the

inside of the eye. One seems like claw shaped and the other one appears as

the stylized imprint of a paw.

From the smoke appears a person. He is Neil Shawn, a man of about

fifty years with tiny back-combed hair, little light brown goatee between the

mouth and the chin, skinny long-limbed body. So was the president and

founder of The Atlantide Corporation.

In front of five thousand people and cameras of about three hundred

television broadcasters (mosto of all from the Web) Neil was about to

introduce Katalepsis to the world.

The audience starts clapping. Neil basks among the praises without any

shame or fear for a minute. Then he raises his hands and starts signalling to

the audience that it is enough. Neil is used to all this, the role of the

"frontman" is like a second skin.

Silence turns up in the room. Neil strolls solemnly scrutinizing all the

audience as he really could stare at every single person, from the front line to

the last one. After finishing the "catchwalk" he stops at the center of the stage

giving the side to the public. Then he takes a deep breath and begins to pitch

his speech.

– I don’t understand.

Strange debut, nothing to say.

Neil takes a little break, like trying to induce someone in the public to

comment. Succeeding it, though.

Suddenly the slight buzz is interrupted though.

– I swear I don’t understand.

Neil’s voice lowered as if he slowly resigned to his own words.

– I have been trying to understand for all my life.

Understand my friends, my sons, my wife, you customers...

Understanding, which is getting in touch with the thoughts and

sensations of the others, understanding them even just partially.

And I know for sure that I am not the only one afflicted by this problem.

The truth is that we have few empirical tools to reach such difficult

conclusions. We have the sight of a weeping woman, we have the feeling of

having made a mistake, but above all we have the dialogue, this archaic

system with which we try in every way to explain each other what comes

through our minds.

We try to translate into a phonetic and limited to million of thoughts and

states of mind language just to allow our neighbor to be part of our lives.

The result, my dear, is evident: millennium of misunderstanding!

Millennium of wars, divorces, misunderstood children and betrayed friends.

Just because we weren’t able to express ourselves.

Sorry, just because we could not speak.

Neil marks that word with great ferocity. It is part of the staging, of the

studied tone for its presentation. he calms down and positions himself on the

edge of the stage, as if he wants to be the closest to the audience.

– Allow me a cliché my dear ones: Today everything is at the point to

change.

Neil pulls out something from the pocket of his jacket.

It is something little laying in one of his hand, a sort of pendrive with

the shape of the logo over the screens.

The object is almost completely made of black plastic. Above the plastic

structure there are two silver buttons with two claw and hoof symbols

engraved. Neil puts the device up in the air, holding it between the index and

his thumb. he shows it to the proud audience as if that object was one of his

children.

–Katalepsis, that’s its name!

The writing Katalepsis suddenly appears over the screens.

- This small object will crown one of the eternal dreams of humanity:

the comprehension

Neil goes back quietly to the stage holding Katalepsis in his hand as if it

is the remote control of a car.

–Katalepsis, this little remote controle will light up the comprehension

in your mind. I need a volunteer from the audience in order to show you how

it works.

A dozen hands of volunteers scattered between the positions of the first

row stand up, they seem almost afraid to try the novelty, a social behavior,

quite unusual in this kind of technological presentations.

– so, the ginger hair man dressed in a grey suit in the third row... yes,

come here, put him a microphone, please.

The man goes on the stage from the small stairs on the right, and a clerk

steps up to install a brooch microphone on the lapel of the jacket.

The man stays with his arms open during the operation. The clerk is fast

in his job and, once the installation is finished, he indicates the volunteer to

lower his arms and to go to Neil. The man goes to the center of the stage, he

is visibly excited.

– Good Mister...

– Robert, just call me Robert.

– Robert, nice to meet you, Neil Shawn.

Neil tightens his hand.

– Now, my dear Robert, I’ll show you how Katalepsis works.

Neil gives Robert the device holding it between his index and his thumb.

The symbols are arranged so that they have the claw in the side of Robert and

the footprint on the side of Neil.

– Good, now I’ll push the button in the shape of a bear's mark and I will

hold it down, as soon as I do it you have to press and to hold the claw-shaped

button. You will feel a slight electric tingling, as when licking the tip of a

battery, but you will only feel it all over the body. Do not worry, it's

harmless.

Robert doesn’t say a word.

Neil presses his button and soon after Robert followed him into action,

obeying the provisions.

Robert's face is initially impassive, the man feels the tingling but he does

not understand what's going on. After a few seconds he begins to assume an

incredulous expression in the face. It seems like nothing is happening. And

like him, the audience who, for the first few seconds after the pressing of the

buttons wih the breath-taking, begins to rattle.

Neil smiles nervously, he no longer looks so sure of himself as before.

Suddenly he decides to disconnect his finger from the button but he continues

to hold on the device. Even Robert, without saying anything, stops his finger

and puts his hand back on the body.

Neil takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and then he turns to the public

with new confidence and nonchalance.

–Gentleman, it is all here. Katalepsis is all here. You don’t have to do

anything else.

The audience continues to rumble and not understand.

-Our Robert crossed various emotions in the seconds when he was

connected to Katalepsis.

He was scared and embarrassed, he was thoughtful, incredulous, and

confused.

Finally he was reluctant.

But more importantly he thought of something special, he thought of a

person, I could distinctly feel the perfume of this person in my head, a female

scent, a fragrance, a mixture of lavender and vanilla

I think that this person isn’t in the room.

I think Robert was wondering if this person was at home watching the

show. The sense of melancholy advanced during the connection. You haven’t

seen him for a long time, have you Robert?

– But how you... – Robert asks softly, stopping to pronounce the

sentence as he was finally understanding.

- That’s Katalepsis. A connection bridge between two people. A

translator of precise electrical impulses that are exported from a brain and

sent to another within the time the two users are connected. All your

sensations, your moods and even in some cases your memories, if they are

strong and well-defined, are digitized and transmitted through Katalepsis to

the person on the other side of the bridge.

The audience rumbles no more. A surreal silence dropped into the hall.

Not everyone can believe in their eyes. Some suspect it's all a sham.

The doubt is assaulting however these last individuals. Could such a

famous company arrange such a big event like this to fool its shareholders?

The risk of losing everything to Atlantide Corp. is too big, if it is a lie.

Everyone is making is own idea, is increasing his curiosity and is trying

to understand as much as possible peering Neil and his own product.

–Gentleman, I don’t need this – pointing his new devide – to understant

how much surprise there is now in your heart .

I still can not believe what we have been able to do.

But it is here and it works.

It’s simple, intuitive and brilliant. Katalepsis has some little simple

rules: it is not possible to store feelings and memories in the device and then

block them, Katalepsis only works when we are connected. It isn’t even

possibile to make some copies of our sensations in order to live them againg

in the future, Katalepsis is not a media player to review the movies of your

holidays, it has much more enlightened purpose.

Finally, the free will with Katalepsis is respected.

Just as you can choose not to hear the words spoken by your neighbor,

the brain is able to decide after a couple of uses whether or not to receive the

device information when connected.

The ethic is important for us of Atlantide and we know that it is like this

for you too.

Neil puts his hand on the shoulder of an incredulous Robert.

– Robert you were helpful and I thank you for your help, you can now

sit back. It was a pleasure knowing you.

– My pleasure, Mister Shawn.

Robert goes back to the stage clerk to get the microphone off.Neil turns

again towards the audience.

–Katalepsis will be on sale on the Atlantide-Islands all over Monation

exactly in sixty days.

In two days we will held a press conference where we will officialy

answer to all the questions you’ll have, and I think that they will be a lot, so

we will take an entire day for it.

Now I leave you behind the show.

Ladies and gentleman it was a pleasure today being here to introduce the

future.

It was a pleasure being here introducing such an historical event.

It was a pleasure showing Katalepsis at the entire world and I suggest

not to hide your enthusiasm. We of Atlantide are the only one who can

completely understand you.

Saying it, Neil smiles heartily and then kisses the device. He finally

shows it to the audience. Music similar to Mozart's music comes back

triumphant. The smoke machine starts up.

Neil turns around and goes to the clouds, disappearing with the future of

everyone in his hand ...