The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (14 page)

“Can you imagine a more idyllic place to get married?” I ask both friends.

“Sure beats City Hall,” says Crystal.

“I married my ex-husband at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas,” says Kiz.

“I didn’t know you were once married,” I say.

“Seems like ancient history now,” she relates.

“I was married, too,” I tell Kiz. “But we divorced eleven years ago.”

“I was once engaged,” says Crystal. “But I broke it off when he got involved with drugs.”

“I never knew that,” I say to my business partner and friend.

:) types Crystal.

We take seats near the altar and wait for the other guests to gather for the ceremony. Today, Adrianne will preside over the hand fasting ritual, which ‘literally’ binds the couple together for a year and a day, after which, should they so choose, they can marry for life. As she ascends to the altar, she rings a handheld bell three times to signal the beginning of the ceremony. Rather than staying seated, all in attendance get up from their seats and gather round the altar. The couple enters from the east, Sly wearing a white suit, and Alegra a long red dress. Circling the altar four times, the priestess casts a sacred circle. She pauses at each cardinal point and repeats an invocation. Answering a prompt from Adrianne, both Sly and Alegra declare their intent to join with the other so that they may henceforth be recognized in the eyes of the God and Goddess, and in the eyes of family and friends, as one.

“Does anyone present know of a reason why this couple should not be hand fasted?” asks Adrianne.

No one raises his voice in doubt.

“Then the couple shall give their statements,” she says.

Sly is first to speak: “I come to you, Alegra, of my own free will, in perfect love and perfect trust, to bind myself to you as your partner in life.”

Alegra speaks to Sly: “I, Alegra, commit myself to be with you, Sly, in joy and adversity, in wholeness and brokenness, in peace and turmoil, living with you faithfully for all our days.”

To each in turn the priestess extends the silver chalice. They drink to symbolize the need for separateness and togetherness in their new life. Then they turn to one another and clasp hands. Viewed from above, they form a figure eight, the element of eternity. Adrianne places a red ribbon over their hands and fashions a loose knot. “If, after a year and a day, you choose to make your union permanent, then return to this place, and the knot I tie loosely today shall be drawn tight to symbolize the permanence of your marriage to one another.” Then she takes the knife from the altar and gives it first to Sly. Gently, he cuts a lock of Alegra’s hair and places it in the silver box. He hands the knife to her, and she performs the same ritual, the intertwining hairs within the silver vault to remain a symbol of their future union.

“Be understanding and patient, each with the other. Be free in the giving of affection and warmth. Be sensuous with one another. Have no fear and let not the ways of the unenlightened give you unease, for the gods are with you now and always.”

Then Adrianne turns to the guests: “Will all who are present support this couple in their new life together?”

All answer in unison: “I do!”

“Then I pronounce you hand fasted as husband and wife, in the eyes of all who are here today, and in the eyes of the God and the Goddess!”

After a kiss, the couple performs their first task together, the burial of the silver box at the center of the circle. That task completed, they replace the trowel upon the altar, join hands, and jump over the broomstick in a singular motion to symbolize the work and cooperation that will surely be needed throughout their journey together in life.

Banishing the sacred circle, Adrianne proclaims, “The circle is open but unbroken. May the peace of the Old Ones go in our hearts. Blessed be!” She rings the bell three times to conclude the ceremony, and then the couple proceeds clockwise round the circle greeting friends and family. After the reception, all repair to the Pooh Bear Inn for the wedding party.

Inside the large Tudor building that houses the old-style pub, the wedding guests gather to celebrate the occasion. Even as we come inside, the DJ is playing the music at an ear-splitting volume, and emulations are dancing wildly on the dance floor. Since Kiz has never before danced in Virtual Life, Crystal and I have to show her how to program her gestures bank, but after a single click of her mouse her EM is whirling in time with the music. Crystal and I move to the bar near the huge stone hearth where we are each given a mug of Wild’s Irish Ale.

“For me personally,” I tell Crystal as we stand before a recreation of Waterhouse’s ‘Hylas and the Nymphs’, “marriage was not that great. I got married as a matter of circumstance, so of course the outcome was predictable. Even so, I’ve never understood why someone would want to get married in Virtual Life. The limitations are rather obvious, not to mention the fact that you can never really know just whom you are marrying.”

“But that’s also the case in PL,” Crystal observes.

“Far too often, yes,” I have to agree.

“Maybe VL partners arrive at the altar with a little less baggage in tow,” Crystal speculates.

“You think so?”

“Just a thought. But since we are borne into VL already in the form—more or less—that we’ll assume day-in and day-out—”

“You mean, since we don’t live through a so-called childhood… Or have parents…”

“Exactly!”

“You’re saying you think emulations are borne into VL in a state of purity?”

“No, not exactly. But each person has the opportunity to re-invent himself, and therefore the opportunity to leave certain painful, or detrimental experiences behind. If a person wishes to start his Virtual Life with a clean slate, it is possible.”

“I suppose that depends on how much denial one is willing to embrace. I’m not interested in a world as perfect as that. We’re all balancing the positive and the negative, I think. We might learn about unencumbered joy from the former, but we take our strength of character from overcoming the latter.”

“I guess I agree in principle with that, Fizzy. Yet sometimes the pain of the past is so crippling that a
second chance
is nothing short of reclamation.”

“You wouldn’t be talking about yourself, would you Crystal?” I venture.

“Here in VL we don’t have to admit to anything we actually want to forget or deny, Fizzy.” Crystal’s gaze is fixed for the moment on a place well beyond the walls of the Pooh Bear Inn, or the boundaries of the Pagan Morning REP, or even the VL World; rather, her critical eye seems to glimpse a place neither physical nor digital, but a place where the terrain is a little less definable, and sometimes a little more difficult to navigate. “Virtual Life is all about actualizing our visions,” she says. “Whether they are intellectual, or mechanical, or interpersonal. We envision and we experiment. When, as children, we play make-believe, nobody gets cancer and dies, and nobody is rendered helpless from emotional trauma. Maybe in PL Sly is actually married to someone else, or perhaps Alegra is really a guy. In VL, none of that is important if we choose not to make it part of our VL persona.”

“Everything by degrees… Is that what you’re saying, Crystal?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“One foot in this world, another foot in that. And always tethered to one another—and to ourselves, whatever
self
actually means—by an invisible ribbon made of fibers rare and precious.”

“You wax poetic, Fizzy!”

“It must be the sentimentality of the occasion,” I alibi.

“I bring out the best in you, Fizzy Oceans,” Crystal jokes.

“You know that ribbon I was talking about?” I ask.

“A lovely metaphor…”

“Yeah, but I have a way of tying myself in knots with it,” I tell Crystal.

And talk about ‘Saved by the bell…’ From across the room Kiz types a frantic message: “My EM has fallen and can’t get up! How do I stop it from break-dancing? Help!”

Fizzy Oceans to the rescue! I send Kiz step-by-step instructions on how to release her EM from the dance program. A moment later, she is standing at my side. Crystal joins us, and we turn our attention to the table of the bridal party, as a toast to the newlyweds is about to take place. Sly’s best man, Brainstorm Goatherd, raises a glass of champagne and calls for all to hear his tribute and to raise their glasses too. By degrees, the room grows quiet, and finally all present are ready to hear BS pay homage to the happy couple.

“I met Sly Sideways on my first day in VL,” says Brainstorm, “and since that fortuitous day our relationship has been anything but lateral.” Many in the gathering type laughter and smiley faces into conversation bars. “But seriously,” says Brainstorm, “Sly Sideways has become one of my very best friends. Never mind that I’ve never laid eyes on his physical face or body… And never mind that I don’t really know whether
he
is male or female, gay or straight, young or old… Of course, none of that really matters… I don’t have to remind any of you about that. But I know one thing! I know that the day Sly met Alegra Nevermore was his lucky day! It was LUV at first sight, ha, ha, ha! And I know Alegra felt the same way, didn’t you honey?”

Alegra does not answer Brainstorm’s prompt. In fact, her EM is slumped over the table, listless and unresponsive.

“Alegra?” Brainstorm calls. “Knock, knock? You in there, honey?”

In fact, a slumping posture in Virtual Life is usually the result of a computer crash. Because the VL program is large, and because so much data is often coming through filters at speeds too fast for the machine’s RAM drive, a freeze occurs, and it is necessary to re-boot. It happens to me sometimes; it happens to most people. Usually at the most inopportune time—like your wedding reception just as the groom’s best man offers his toast!

“It appears that Alegra has left the building,” Brainstorm jokes. We all know we simply have to wait for her to re-boot her computer, so the festivities can continue.

“Maybe I should do a little stand-up routine,” Brainstorm improvises.

“Spare us, please!” implores an EM called Whisper Donato.

All eyes are now on Alegra’s lame emulation. We’ve all been through this before. This is down time. We wait. We begin to talk amongst ourselves, and conversation bars begin to flip over like the credits at the end of a movie. We wait five minutes. Brainstorm is still standing at the head of the bridal party’s table, glass in hand and ready to continue his toast. Alegra’s EM has not yet budged, and without the bride’s attention (or attendance) it seems rather futile to offer congratulations. The minutes tick away. Is she coming back? Or is this actually a…situation?

Sly seems relaxed as he chats with another groomsman, Shifty Gearhead. As a longtime VL resident, he too understands the nature of the problem. There is nothing to do but wait for his bride’s return. Though Brainstorm’s toast remains unspoken, Sly sips his champagne. He loosens his cummerbund. He searches the faces of the guests. Confidence seems the best antidote for moments awkward as this one.

After fifteen minutes go by with no return of the bride, and her emulation slumped at the table like a marionette left idle by a puppeteer, the guests begin to grow a bit restless. A few dare to type out their speculations for all to see and contemplate.
Has she had a change of heart? Did she get cold feet? Has her PL husband suddenly (and at just the wrong moment) discovered that she’s married somebody else in Virtual Life?
Stuff like that actually happens. It’s true! We’ve all heard about such circumstances. And most of us have also seen the abrupt departure of a familiar EM from VL. For whatever reason…

After twenty minutes pass without a sign of the phantom bride, some of the emulations give up the wait and leave the reception. Sly Sideways, not long ago a confident and love-struck groom, is now moving from guest to guest and asking if anyone has any idea where his VL wife has gone. Nobody seems to know what to tell him, and all the while the rather gruesome spectacle of Alegra’s emulation slumped over the table looms as a testament to her unannounced departure. Her fate masked in obscurity for the time being, each guest, one by one, makes his apology to Sly Sideways and heads lickety-split for the door. What is one supposed to say at a time like this? Just leave the gifts and go. Those who are intimately involved will just have to work it out, and we will presumably hear all the gory details at some later date.

Crystal and Kiz and I return to Lit-A-Rama, where we have cappuccinos at the Writer’s Pen Café and discuss the abbreviated wedding reception. We all agree that Sly must be humiliated. And we wonder what had gotten into Alegra to bolt from the barn without so much as saying good-bye or good luck to her hapless groom. Will he ever see her again? Only time will tell.

Next day, I receive an IM from Adrianne Hardwood requesting me to transfer to the Pagan Morning REP as soon as possible. When I arrive, Adrianne escorts me to the Pooh Bear Inn. Inside, the pub is now deserted—except for an emulation slumped over the long table at the front of the cavernous hall. “She’s still here,” says Adrianne in a hushed voice.

“So I see…”

“All night long she never moved.”

“Gone is gone, I guess.”

“You don’t suppose it’s something more…”

“You mean like, she died?”