The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (8 page)

I invite Kiz to meet me at the Coliseum, and when she arrives I show her the place that Panzer and I tried our best to get it on, and I tell her about how futile Physical Life feels to me, and that I’m really glad that I was the one to greet her the day she first logged on to Virtual Life.

“It’s no use feeling so desperate,” Kiz tries to console me.

“I don’t know, Kiz. It’s just—”

“You just have to keep busy,” she advises. “That’s what I do. That’s how I cope. Not with silly, insignificant things. You must work at something meaningful. Whatever strikes you as being…useful. Whatever you think is important!”

“And that’s it?” I ask.

“Yeah, more or less,” says Kiz.

As the febrile sun sets on Imperial Rome (Is this fulsome garnet in the western sky a flaming chariot headed for a splendiferous crash in the Sea of Antiquity, or is it actually a Phoenix Rising?), we stand together in the shadow of the virtual Coliseum. And a very long shadow it casts! (I feel I must here draw attention to a fundamental distinction: I speak now from Virtual Life, which is a computer simulation. My emulation is standing in the Virtual Life recreation of modern-day Rome, which includes, as does PL Rome, the ruins of the Imperial City. Therefore, my emulation is standing before the recreation of a ruin. Curiously, I, Amy Birkenstock, might visit the PL Eternal City, and I might even experience this very scene with my PL senses. Do I consider the distinction to be important? No, I do not. I suppose that someday somebody in VL might reconstruct the entire Imperial City, with its Forum, its gods and goddesses, its Holy conquests, and its gladiatorial games. Or maybe that is not really necessary, as maybe it’s already been done in PL.)

Eating gelato in front of the recreation of a ruin that was once an enormous bathhouse, a place where citizens went after a day’s work not only to bathe, but also to relax and socialize and discuss the important events and issues of their lives, Kiz paints a vivid verbal picture for me of how people with different perceptual biases might indeed see the same events and imagery, yet interpret them in vastly different terms.

“Each of us looks at his environment and sees mainly what he sees. Seldom does he question whether anybody else, who might be looking at the same images, perceives them as he does, or whether one might react to those stimuli as he reacts to them. Invariably, though, there is variation—sometimes not so significant, but sometimes quite profound. It all depends on one’s particular frame of reference. Does one tend to see the world in literal terms, or is his perception grounded in mostly symbolic terms? Does he define what he sees in terms of sensory information (I can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell this, therefore it must be real), or are his definitions formed in metaphors (I can see, hear, touch, taste or smell this; therefore it must refer to a feeling or an impression)? We each see the world from both contexts, but each individual also sees it predominantly one way or the other. This is an important distinction, but it is one that few people recognize. If we were able to acknowledge and accept such divergent forms of perception, then enhanced empathy would be the result.

“In PL, most people perceive and deal with the world in very literal terms. That is why consumerism—the feverish pursuit of money and the insane race to acquire more and more material possessions—is more or less dominant there. It’s also why there are so many conflicts, so much bloodshed, so much hunger and inequality. PL is basically a Darwinian construction, and there is a fair amount of the NL ‘eat-or-be-eaten’ mentality remaining.

“Some of that literal mentality is carried over into VL, too. That’s why we find REPs that are little more than digital reconstructions of PL commerce. In VL, however, there is also a different element, one that is less literal, one grounded in metaphor. Consider the creation of a species such as the Quinngen. VL quite naturally allows the incorporation of one’s fantasy, and corroboration by the five senses is not necessarily required. In fact, sensual perception is sometimes severely limited by the medium, so we must learn to depend on more intuitive and more symbolic frames of reference. Finally, a world not defined and governed by our sensual limitations and our more primitive social constructions!”

“Kiz, I had no idea!”

“Come on, Fizzy. You may never have thought to verbalize it as I just have, but this is something you know innately. You tell me that you have trouble dealing with PL issues and dynamics, but you take to Virtual Life like a fish to water.”

Bottom line: We seem to be caught in a vicious circle. In PL we find it increasingly difficult to connect with Natural Life; in Virtual Life we recreate portions of Physical Life with a few innovations derived from vision and fantasy, even as we find it all but impossible there to connect with any aspect of Natural Life. Meanwhile, Natural Life is rebelling precipitously against Physical Life, even as we in VL try feverishly to forge a lasting testament, a time capsule, of all that we are as a culture! If Natural Life ultimately renders humans expendable, what is to be our legacy? Is it an abandoned oil refinery or a munitions factory? Is it a dead forest? A festering swamp filled with toxins? Or might it not be the sum of all the hopes and dreams and visions and noble creativity that we can pour into VL in the presumably short time we have remaining?

And just who are these emulations walking so confidently through varied and diverse simulated environments? Certainly, they are not physical beings. Nor are they manifestations of mental life. Are they perhaps our spiritual bodies, now visible as digital representations? Are they the summation of every human who has ever walked the face of the earth? Are they representations of all we have ever been? Or of all that we presently are? Or all that we might become?

Virtual Life: Heaven In The Clouds? Or is it Phoenix Rising?

I can’t wait to find out!

TRANSFERRING TO LIT-A-RAMA, my EM materializes at Grove Press Square, a village green surrounded by numerous, tastefully appointed shops. Among them is
Foresight Publishing
, the VL version of a PL book publisher in London. (And there are other PL publishers renting shops in VL:
MacMillan & Co
. and
Bantam/Dell
are two noteworthy names on the REP’s tenant roster). Lit-A-Rama’s hostess, Jeannine Greene, operates the Foresight shop. She also coordinates many of the events staged at various Lit-A-Rama venues, as well as renting out shops to tenants with literary interests and helping those visiting the REP feel welcome and comfortable.

Also located on Grove Press Square is a shop called
Genealogy
, which is becoming an ever more important entity here in Virtual Life (for obvious reasons). Day and night (relative temporal designations here in VL as it is possible to regulate sunlight and darkness with a keystroke), any number of researchers can be found searching the archives for information relating to family histories. At
Genealogy
, the entire genealogical library maintained by the Mormon Church and located at Salt Lake City is available online.

A short stroll off any of the streets leading from the Grove Press Square Quadrangle will reveal interesting shops operated by proprietors with various interests. On George Orwell Alley, one finds
Lilly Pond Books
, as well as an exhibit highlighting the work of author Robert Anton Wilson. On Shakespeare Street,
Pomegranate Princess
offers a unique literary perspective, and on Barbara Cartland Close, one might visit the shop of
Yoko Oh No!
On Louis L’amour Lane we find
Worlds 2 Go
, a Swedish art publisher, and
Poet’s Row
.

Open Books is located a short walk from Grove Press Square on a small street called Jeff Bezos Alley, but instead of going directly there, I cross the green and head for the Writers’ Pen Café. This morning I’m meeting Crystal for cappuccino and conversation. We often meet at Writers’ Pen to discuss publishing strategy, or to relax together in an environment that is less formal than the shop itself. Today we shall be reviewing a list of classic titles that we are considering for online publication. It’s not that we are overly presumptuous in selecting which classic books we publish (after all, these literary efforts have all stood the test of time), but since we have only a limited amount of time to devote to the Open Books Project, and since we also realize that we can never publish every piece of classic literature we might want to offer for posterity, it is of course necessary that we make selections that we feel not only portray the literary tradition in its best light, but also those that will appeal to readers both present and future.

Also on our agenda for this morning’s meeting is the planning of a party. Even though the Open Books Project is already well underway, and even though the Virtual Life shop has been open to visitors for more than a year, we have never really had a Grand Opening celebration, and Crystal and I have determined that such a soiree is long overdue.

Entering Writers’ Pen, I see that Crystal has not yet arrived, so I draw espresso from the machine located on a sideboard, and then froth the milk to make my drink complete. At the moment, I am alone in the café, but that’s of little concern. I take a seat and look out the window at an unrestricted view of a tranquil sea. I really like this view, as it seems to lend itself to the musings of those involved in the creative process. Hey! That’s me, isn’t it? Though in real life I would never in a million years have envisioned myself a publisher of classic literature, or a contributor to the artistic community at large. After all, in real life my job is boring: I work at a medical billing office. And my education is limited (remember that I dropped out of high school midway through my final semester). So I have Virtual Life, but more specifically Crystal, to thank for my current interest and involvement in the creative arts, which I must admit has given me a renewed idealism that literally defies Physical Life’s limitations, large or small.

As I watch my friend and partner walk through the doorway at Writers’ Pen, I admire the obvious confidence she displays through her emulation’s upright yet relaxed posture, in her discerning sense of fashion, and her careful yet still understated grooming. Sometimes I tend to forget that in PL she is European. What must it really be like to live in Copenhagen?

“Sorry I’m late,” she says as she moves to the espresso machine.

“No worries,” I tell her. “I just got here myself.”

What I know about Sonja Jörgensen’s life would fit inside a thimble. Of course here in VL such details are not supposed to be important. Still, I sometimes can’t help wondering who is sitting at the computer putting his (or her) emulation through its Virtual Life paces. I once asked Crystal to send me a photo of Sonja, and she promised she would, but so far I’ve not received it. I suppose I might remind her, but I don’t want to intrude where I may not be welcome. The friendship we share in Virtual Life is very precious to me, and I don’t want to do anything that might spoil it. Anyway, I get a big rush every time I see Crystal’s EM in VL.

Today, neither of us has brought an attaché case. Nor have we brought folders filled with lists or schedules. Our world is a digital one, and whatever facts or figures we need are stored on VL note cards that can be displayed on our monitors at any time. Our first order of business is to determine our list of publications for the next quarter. We have each nominated four books. My candidates include the
Collected Stories and Poems
of Edgar Allen Poe,
War of the Worlds
by H. G. Wells,
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and
Our Town
by Thornton Wilder. Crystal’s list reflects her European upbringing:
Madame Bovary
by Flaubert,
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy,
The Memoirs of Giacomo Casanova
, and
The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer. We will ultimately choose four of the eight books for publication on the Open Books web site, and each of us will be responsible for publishing his two nominees. After publication we will announce the new editions on as many Internet sites as possible, thereby creating the necessary links to place the books on search engines so that anyone can find them and read them free of charge.

After deliberation we determine that of my selections we will publish
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
and
Our Town
; of Crystal’s nominees we will publish
Madame Bovary
and the
Canterbury Tales
. We both understand that to publish four books in three months’ time is a tremendous amount of work, but we have already completed similar projects on several other occasions, and we each feel up to the task. I must admit that with each new book I publish online comes a degree of anticipation and excitement familiar to me in no other way. I’ve come to crave the work involved in publishing these books, because the emotional high I get each time I see a new publication online makes every hour I spend preparing these texts seem worthwhile and fulfilling. I know that I’m not the only one who feels such a rush at seeing new (classic) works appear on the Open Books web site. In fact, there is a group of no less than ten thousand people who anxiously await each new book, and that number grows with each publication. Of course ten thousand readers is quite a small number when you consider how many readers there are in the world—or even in Virtual Life. Still, there is no doubt in my mind, nor is there one in Crystal’s, as to the value of our effort, and we consider it a privilege to continue this work!

As for Open Books’ Grand Opening party, Crystal has an idea to make the event one not to be forgotten. Setting her coffee on the table before us, she turns to me, folds her hands and places them on her lap.

“What’s the one thing that will make an event like this a sure draw?” she asks.