Don’t look away
Clouds leaking rust
The kingdom of heaven reeks
Of burning witches and dust.

The Blood Brothers
“We Ride Skeletal Lightning”

***

The heat from the sauna at the University was powered by nuclear fission. In the reactor a specific particle is shot at a fissile nucleus—fissile being one that is capable of withstanding nuclear fission. It creates this spectacular reaction. The sauna was the enclosed area on the back side of the reactor. Fifteen feet of thickset, grey, concrete. Once the reaction had started the sense of calefaction came out of the walls. It was believed to bestow wisdom and knowledge equal to the amount of heat one could withstand.

And none withstood more than Doctor V. Patrocles.

His storied career began at the University in a time when pursuit of knowledge for the sake of itself, at minimum, with the hope and belief that any knowledge is valuable and worth collecting was fading.

Academia felt like a wilderness. Until Patrocles was brought on to teach theoretical physics. Under his tutelage he produced the names taught in primary schools worldwide.

By the fifth year of weekly visits to the sauna, Patrocles had become mute with knowing.

University students would stand as staff would sit together and watch his sessions through the door-shaped observation window. Unsure of what they would see. Would he self-immolate? Would the radiation cause his genius to lapse? Would it make him less immortal?

Now retired, he appeared on campus only to attend his sessions which were now monthly.

Patrocles had become thin, his collarbone grotesquely shelf-like. The shadows from his cheek bones resembled the shade beneath a cliff.

Distinguished, yet vulgar.

The seated crowd included familiar names. Mary Lane Joseph, Lester A. Kinley, Bacchus Aran, Sadie Torres, Soga Otero, Mohammed Yuserif, and many more. All former students of his had come to bear witness to their teacher’s end.

Perhaps that’s why the current University students were kicked out. With their spritely energy they saw these sessions as a spectacle to document and be accounted for. Acted as if they were his pupils without having learned from him. Somehow, they thought that by watching, they deserved recognition as well. The disciples, those former students, of Patrocles were offended by this. During the eighth year of his sessions the University finally caved and banned students from viewing the sessions.

Strange to see the same current students who were originally praising the sessions while they were allowed to attend, now protest and litter the entrance to the reactor. Saying it was inhumane for a man to choose to do that to himself. They invented possible side effects when interviewed by the outlets for news.

Beards and headscarves rustling was the only sound that could be heard in the observation room. Then after a couple of hours had passed with Patrocles in a lotus pose in the sauna the orchestra of viewers could only hear the music of Patrocles' breathing.

The nuclear fission that generated heat should not have been survivable after one hour. Not only did he survive, he made notes in a journal. The notations he made were composed of exciting hieroglyphs that did not match any known human language.

Bacchus Aran, one of the oldest and most distinguished students, was drawn back by his peers, dramatic as a classical painting, as he walked in front of Patrocles as he was exiting the sauna and begged, “Tell us what it says,” he sobbed shamelessly, “We can’t read it.”

Patrocles held out his notebook and left it in Bacchus’s hands. As he passed, he whispered telling him that if God is just beyond the limits of what we seem to know then the pursuit of knowledge is a holy one. Then kissed him on the lips.

Patrocles did not return for another session after that. But the University faculty continued frantically trying to reproduce the shocking wisdom bestowed by Patrocles to keep the research grant ball rolling. It stirred a madness that hasn’t stopped.

Since his final session, faculty have thrown a student in at a time to see if they can recreate their Patrocles, but with legible handwriting. When the student is chosen it doesn’t seem against their will, yet unpurposeful. Like falling down a hill. Accepting it. Trying to make a plan. But there was no plan.

They weren’t to be let out of the sauna until they produced a true sense or utterance of enlightenment. Something greater than or equal to Patrocles.

After the skin began to boil, the cellular structure of the student broke down their body finally burst into dust particles that continued to get smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

The floor of the sauna would have been lined with ashes if they didn’t get vaporized so quickly.

Immolated by a desperate, overly curious faculty. Who after every failed run always knew that they would find the one student who could do it.