The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (10 page)

The party itself is scheduled for nine o’clock on Saturday evening, but Crystal and I arrive at the shop just after noon to begin preparing for the event. With no real sense of how many might attend, we have high hopes for a big turnout to see and hear our celebrated guest of honor. On the shop’s second floor we place folding chairs in rows ten across and fifteen deep, while Kiz lays a table at the back of the room with hors d’ouvres and boxed wine. Our friend Tooltech helps us set up the PA, over which Mark Twain will give his lecture.

As the red sun dips below the aquatic horizon on the Lit-A-Rama REP, everything seems ready—everything, that is, except the single most crucial element of the evening’s festivities: the emulation of Mr. Mark Twain has neither appeared at the shop, nor has it been seen anywhere in Lit-A-Rama. In fact, nobody has spoken with either the author, or with his agent, Mr. Houston, during the past week. If the esteemed author fails to turn up, we know we will look like fools—or frauds! Worse yet, Open Books’ reputation might suffer a serious setback, and we hardly want that to happen. Even as Crystal Marbella, perfectly composed and ever optimistic, seems to take Mr. Twain’s failure to appear with equanimity, Sonja Jörgensen of Copenhagen, Denmark confides to me by IM that she’s indeed sweating bullets over the writer’s unexplained absence, and that she is not at all happy at the prospect of being stood up, even by one as auspicious as Mark Twain!

By seven-thirty more than one hundred EMs have gathered inside and outside the Open Books shop to see and hear and take part in a presentation that I have presumptuously billed as the ‘
Event of the Season
’ in Virtual Life. Assessing the crowd, I can hardly believe that all these people have actually come to hear a writer that’s been dead for nearly a hundred years. (In reality, and though I never fully understood it as I was planning and promoting Mark Twain’s appearance at Open Books, Crystal and I were staging what might well have been the literary event of the century—or any century! Without question, Mark Twain is the quintessential American novelist, beloved by generations of American readers, and revered by as many generations of aspiring and accomplished writers and authors. How had I not recognized the impact of bringing this literary giant to our humble little stage at our shop in Virtual Life?)

With each EM dressed in his most colorful and stylish clothes, the crowd on whole resembles a school of colorful tropical fish swimming about in a rather exotic aquarium. Some transfer upstairs to find their seats, or mill about the large room eating whole wheat crackers with salmon pâté and sipping Chardonnay from plastic wine glasses and talking with friends, or reading note cards, or looking out the second floor windows at even more people gathered in the street outside the shop. Another large group, perhaps never before having visited Open Books, or some maybe logged on to Virtual Life for the first time, wait inside the shop at street level. Sitting side by side upon the couches Crystal made to furnish the shop, they look like birds on a line waiting for the loud bang of a gun to send them winging to the Four Winds!

Turning to Crystal, I say, “I sure hope this doesn’t turn out to be the ‘
disaster of the season
’ in Virtual Life. How embarrassing it will be if he doesn’t show up!”

“Don’t worry, Fizzy. He’ll show up.”

“I sure hope you’re right.”

“In fact, here he comes now!”

Crystal points her finger at a man with longish white hair, a white beard and moustache, and dressed in a white suit making his way through the crowd. He seems to be in no hurry to reach the stage as he greets and converses with many along his path.

“It’s Mark Twain!” I exclaim gleefully. My schoolgirl blush reveals my excitement, which is a surprise even to me!

As the esteemed author finally reaches our position, he holds out his hand first to Crystal, then to me, and says, “Good evening, ladies. It is my pleasure to be here tonight, and I thank you for the opportunity to address this rather auspicious crowd gathered in your, shall I say, ‘unique’ salon.”

“Good evening, Mr. Clemens,” says Crystal. “And welcome back from the dead!”

Mark Twain smiles for the first time tonight. His black eyes twinkle beneath bushy, raised eyebrows. In his posture, the hint of a bow. “Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow. All say, ‘How hard it is that we have to die’—a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live. Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.”

“Mr. Clemens,” says Crystal, “the reputation of your wit precedes you. We are indeed happy you could join us tonight. Please accept our most heartfelt welcome to Open Books.”

“Ladies, the pleasure is all mine.” From his coat pocket he produces a small silver flask. Turning away momentarily, he takes a quick nip of the beverage contained within the vessel. Then he replaces the cap and stores the flask once more in his breast pocket. He clears his throat before again speaking to Crystal and to me.

“I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead—and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and they would be honest so much earlier.”

Crystal lays her hand gently on our guest’s shoulder. “It certainly sounds as if you are ready to begin your talk, Mr. Clemens. Let me see if I can assemble the crowd inside our far too cramped auditorium, and let’s see if I can bring this gathering to some sort of order.”

Mark Twain again clears his throat. “Allow me to take a seat onstage to go over my notes, and I will await your introduction, my dear lady.”

Crystal and I transfer downstairs to announce to the crowd gathered in the shop and outside on the street that Mark Twain has arrived and is nearly ready to give his address, and that they should proceed at once (in orderly fashion, if possible) to the upstairs event center. “The transfer device is at your disposal,” I tell them. “Please form a line at the center of the shop.”

“Don’t worry,” Crystal announces, “we will not start Mr. Twain’s lecture until everyone has transferred to the second floor and found a suitable place to see and hear the presentation. One at a time, please!”

It takes at least fifteen minutes for all those downstairs to make their way to the upstairs auditorium via the transfer device, and another ten minutes for them to find a place from which to watch the presentation. An overflow crowd (for which I’m feeling both relieved and redeemed) has made it necessary for a majority of those in attendance to stand, thereby making the count of attendees quite a few more than the one hundred fifty for whom we had provided chairs. Crystal has made her way onto the stage, and she is conferring with Mark Twain. Kiz is tending bar and passing out hors d’ouvres, as I survey the multitude gathered in our virtual lecture hall.

Among the throng of emulations seated on folding chairs, as well as those standing shoulder to shoulder in the wings and at the back of the room, I see many familiar faces. Seated front and center are Six Fables and Winter Heart whom Kiz and I met at the Burning Man REP. Standing near the refreshment table is Ego Ectoplasm. Also in attendance are Jeannine Greene and Sly Sideways, as well as the entire crowd from Dirty Nellie’s Pub. Near the back of the room I notice Panzer X. standing next to Igloo Iceman, and next to the transfer device (Is he planning a quick exit?) stands the enigmatic kid from La Paz, Bolivia (or the displaced nun from Ohio), Omar Paquero.

Also present (and quite to my surprise) are a whole host of very distinguished literary personalities. Is it totally unexpected that such a propitious lot has chosen to attend tonight’s event? Probably not: after all, this is to be Mark Twain’s first public speech since the start of the twentieth century, so why wouldn’t the literary intelligentsia of our time want to be present? Within the crowd (and returned from the dead) I observe the emulations of Eugene O’Neill (deceased in 1953), Ernest Hemingway (deceased in 1959), William Faulkner (deceased in 1962), Jack Kerouac (deceased in 1969), Truman Capote (deceased in 1984), Frank Waters (deceased in 1995), James A. Michener (deceased in 1997), Saul Bellow and Arthur Miller (both deceased in 2005), William Styron (deceased in 2006), and lastly Kurt Vonnegut (deceased in 2007). Also present to hear Twain’s first twenty-first century remarks are the emulations of Nobel winner Doris Lessing (88), Ray Bradbury (87), Norman Mailer (84), Gore Vidal (82), Philip Roth (74), Margaret Atwood (68), and Stephen King (60). At once obvious to me is the fact that the literary brain trust of our time (or what remains of it) is decidedly advanced in years and probably not long for this world. Which brings to mind a single burning question: Where is the new generation of writers that will carry the torch into the future? Apparently, they are
not
included in the greater marketing strategy of Random House or Houghton Mifflin.

Impressed and quite pleased by the number of people who have chosen to attend the party, Crystal takes the stage to welcome our guests and to introduce our esteemed speaker. She blows on the microphone then taps it before addressing the overflow audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention?”

Conversations quickly abate; most of those assembled would much rather hear the remarks of Mark Twain than the sound of their own voices.

“Needless to say, tonight is a very special night for us at Open Books. Though we have been operating for more than a year, and though we have already published a total of twenty-four titles online, this is our official Grand Opening. I would like to thank each and every one of you for attending tonight’s festivities, but even more so for your support of our publishing project. Of course we all recognize the importance of preserving classic literature, and in today’s publishing environment, where profit often takes precedence over content and quality, it is perhaps all the more important that the great works of our time do not fall into obscurity. What’s more, we take this opportunity to offer these works to all the people of the world—especially those that might otherwise not have the chance to read them—absolutely free of charge!

“Of course we all know that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Or so the saying goes… And that is why we must ask for your generous (and voluntary) support. Our unique
adopt-a-book
program offers you that opportunity, so please take some time to review and to consider the program.

“Now, I know that you’ve not come here tonight to here me pitch our program. No, you’ve come to hear the godfather of American Letters give his first address in nearly one hundred years. And what a treat this is for us all! Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm Virtual Life welcome to Mark Twain!”

Mark Twain stands and approaches the podium to a resounding round of applause. Crystal shakes his hand before withdrawing. Twain stands before the microphone acknowledging the generous ovation. He clears his throat before speaking.

“I must admit that during my lifetime I never saw what to me seemed an atom of truth that there was a future life, and yet…I was strongly inclined to expect one. However, this is not exactly what I might have envisioned. Nevertheless…

“Before I go much further, I would like to thank my lovely hostesses, Miss Crystal Marbella and Miss Fizzy Oceans, for giving me one more opportunity to speak my platitudes in public. I would also like to thank you, this fine and noteworthy audience, for coming to hear my diatribe, though why you’ve chosen to put aside more enjoyable pursuits is a question I will not endeavor to answer…”

Subdued laughter ripples through the room before he continues.

“Because of the express purpose of this gathering tonight—and perhaps for no other reason—one might be inclined to ask the question: What is a classic? It is my opinion that one can find in a text whatever he brings to it, if he will stand between it and the mirror of his imagination. In short, a classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”

Again, laughter. Twain waits for the laughter to subside before beginning the body of his address.

“My given name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and I was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. I was the sixth of seven children, and only three of my siblings survived childhood. When I was four, my family moved to Hannibal, a port town on the Mississippi River that would serve as my inspiration for the fictional town of St. Petersburg in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
and
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
.

“In March 1847, when I was just eleven years old, my father died of pneumonia. The following year, I became a printer’s apprentice. In 1851, I began working as a typesetter at the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper that was conveniently owned by my brother Orion, and I was allowed to contribute articles and humorous sketches for publication.

“When I was eighteen, I left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cincinnati. In the evenings, I educated myself in public libraries, finding wider sources of information there than I would have found at a conventional school.

“At twenty-two, I returned to Missouri, and on a voyage to New Orleans down the Mississippi River, the steamboat captain inspired me to pursue a career as a riverboat pilot. This vocation I undertook wholeheartedly, and I also convinced my brother Henry to join me. Tragically, this decision inadvertently led to the death of my brother, when the ship he was working on exploded. Because I had foreseen this event a month earlier in a dream, I held myself responsible for his death. For the remainder of my life I fervently engaged in studies of parapsychology (with the esteemed researcher Nikola Tesla as my mentor) and became one of the founding members of the Society for Psychical Research.