Second Life

Rewritten story

Second Life

Snow fell like frozen tears from colourless skies; windows frosted over in the cold. A shadow shifted on the kitchen wall mirroring the movements of a man alone in his cottage. A kettle clicked off as it boiled. At the bottom of the garden, through and on the other side of the apple orchard, was the border with the rest of the world.

He poured hot water into a waiting mug, glancing up as he stirred coffee. The view was an attraction, one that made things bearable. From a tiny kitchen, he would stare out at bushes and bramble. Wild flowers ordinarily peppered the vista: lilac and orange, blue and yellow. In these days of winter, harsh weather would reduce flora to only the hardiest of survivors; in some ways, he saw himself in their life cycle. Sitting down on a wooden chair that sat under a small dining table, he picked up a book:  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley seemed appropriate enough for the circumstances.

There was a time before but he simply couldn’t remember it. The only existence he knew was the cottage with its garden and what lay beyond. Here there was no conflict, no threat, no concerns. Rising, he scraped the chair back and drifted into the living room. On occasions he felt like a ghost. A beige settee and accompanying chair took up most of the space. They were positioned next to an open stone fireplace and coffee table; a television was perched in the corner. At the edge of his vision he noticed a faint shimmering, a blueish hue. It was like a fading of the surroundings that passed in a micro-second. Like one of those subliminal ads that was banned. He stood for a few moments thinking, wondering if it was just a trick of the mind. People living on their own invariably went mad, didn’t they?

He had brought his book and planned to read a few more chapters this morning. Time passed as he turned pages. Now and again, a break was taken to contemplate things. How long had he been here exactly? Why was he here? What had been before these times? He often had these thoughts without coming to conclusions. However, things felt different of late. Something was happening. He wasn’t sure what but the certainty each day brought was being eroded somehow. Today seemed more unsettling than usual.

He blinked….and…..was……suspended in a void with no boundaries, just a white space of which he was the only inhabitant. There was a sense that he was inside something; somewhere that stretched out to infinity but with no apparent substance. Like he was in Heaven’s waiting room or at the heart of a star. He couldn’t recall experiencing anything like this before. It was like a fissure opening. Opening his eyes, everything was as it should be once more.

Day passed into afternoon and then evening. He stood over a colander with potatoes in it ready to peel. He couldn’t remember where the food had come from. He never went out shopping; it was always just there. He thought again about the glitch earlier. It was as though he was surrounded by a veil-thin membrane that was just visible from time to time. Maybe this was normal; maybe this was completely routine. He knew he must have memories but they were always just out of reach. It was like something disappearing around a corner before he could catch up with it. He continued making stew.

Looking out of the window, he played his favourite game. Each day brought with it a contemplation of what the weather would be like. It had felt like snow and it had duly arrived. Now he watched as a giant sun glowing a fierce orange slipped below the horizon. Darkness would often bring clear skies and constellations to fire the imagination.

He would always eat at the kitchen table. It seemed formal considering he was on his own but he liked the clinical aspect of having everything laid out properly, cutlery flanking crockery, wine glass on the right and place mats all where they should be. Sometimes he would imagine someone sitting opposite, asking him to pass the salt, exchanging conversation about their respective days. It was these times that made him feel like a prisoner in a gilded cage. It was never clear why there was no attempt to look beyond the boundaries of the cottage. His emotions were generally listless. Perhaps he was tired of running away from something. He knew he wasn’t good at dealing with conflict. Confrontation was an anathema to him.

Forking a piece of chicken into his mouth, he glanced up. The room was shimmering again. Shifting. The atoms that made up the air seem to be displaced. And then a sharp pain shot through his head. His awareness pulled away from the present and he remembered:

His mobile phone was ringing. The name on the screen flashed DAD. He answered. The voice on the other end said “There’s been an accident involving your sister.” The world stopped spinning, time suspended for a few seconds. He listened to the words that sounded so far away, as though they were being said from the bottom of a swimming pool. He had been close to his sibling; very close. The man driving the other car had been drinking. Sian wouldn’t have known much about it. When the account had finished there had been a long silence. He had forgotten about the pain, the intense, excruciating agony of losing his sister.

Thoughts drifted away as particles that made up reality realigned. It felt stranger and stranger that he kept sliding in and out of the present. He went back to eating the stew choosing not to think about the past any more. Maybe he was dead and this was some kind of Purgatory. Maybe it was Hell. Whatever was going on, he was in a state of flux. This place was just a thin veneer hiding something. He knew that now. At the edges of his peripheral vision, the blue blur was becoming more permanent. It would soon be time to go to bed. Dreams never usually came. On this night, they did.

Dressed in pyjama bottoms and a white cotton top, he had slipped under the sheets in a bed in a room upstairs. After a while, he fell into a dream. He could see an image of himself sitting in a gaming chair again. A half-empty bottle of Jim Beam stood conspicuously next to a glass tumbler on a carpet. The screen in front had a coloured livery, an image of a metropolis and the words “Second Life” strewn across the top in big letters. He could see his hand drifting towards a controller. He was tapping out commands. A pop-up said “transfer” and, having acknowledged it, a further prompt read “delete memories”. A box had the words “Are you sure you want to delete all memories?” He had pressed “YES”. The headset he was wearing had made a rapid clicking noise. And then he was gone. His entire consciousness transferred to an electronic ether, to Second Life. His physical body left behind, slumped in his first life.

He woke up bathed in sweat. Glancing across at the clock on a table at the side of the bed, the time read 03:14. A story was emerging. He had lost someone. He also felt that he might be married. He didn’t know for sure but it was a creeping sense of déjà vu. The more he thought about it, the more real she became. Now he could see a woman in his mind’s eye; raven-black hair, aquiline nose, blue eyes, pretty face. A beautiful face. He drifted back into a broken sleep, his mind whirring trying to process these thoughts.

An alarm clock sounded at 07:00. He set it daily not wanting to waste mornings lying in bed. Throwing the quilt back, he eased into slippers and made his way to the bathroom. Every day he would go through the same ritual. His reflection would stare back from the mirror and he would ponder who he was. He estimated his age as late twenties, his fair hair now long and straggly with no discernible style. He would poke and prod at his eye lid, his cheeks, his mouth. He thought his expression was one of a man who had experienced lows, a man who had decided to opt out of life and live out the rest of his days in limbo. Something inside told him that this wasn’t going to happen. His past was catching up with him. Now everything looked blurred, a blue hue covering everything. This reality finally cracked sucking his consciousness back into his first life. He closed his eyes in one reality and opened them in another.

The room looked as it always had; a shrine to her husband. She would drift in from time to time, just wanting to sense his presence again. In a bed, the body of a man lay tethered to an intravenous drip. She yearned for the day he would wake. She had spent many hours waiting. She loved him and would endure as long as was necessary. On an ordinary morning in mid-December something finally stirred. His eyes opened. Slowly, very slowly, he held out a hand. Her heart was beating rapidly, an overwhelming sense of euphoria suddenly enveloping her. She reached and took his hand in hers. Craning his neck, he rose and whispered in her ear. Letting go, she moved towards the desktop computer nearby. It was here that he had spent many hours playing computer games. She booted it up, taking a virtual headset from a shelf. Putting it on, the screen lit up in front of her – “SECOND LIFE”. She followed his instructions. When it got to the question “delete all memories” she pressed NO. She closed her eyes in one reality and opened them in another.

****

They sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table eating, him wearing a black tee shirt and blue jeans and her a white blouse and pencil skirt. He asked her to pass the salt and revelled in the fact that she did. When they started to talk about things, words tumbled out. They had already hugged, kissed and made love again. Now was a time to decide on a future. Having eaten, they went outside.

The garden was unkempt covered in a thin layer of snow, green patches of grass poking through. On both sides, a border contained flowers of various types. Winter jasmine bloomed yellow in the harshness of the season while rose bushes and hydrangea waited for the return of spring. Beyond all of this was a forest that sprawled into distance. Tall pines caressed the skies. It was as though the cottage was the only place in the world.

They strolled down a path that was made from circular stepping stones. At the end was the orchard that led to seemingly endless woodland. They walked on, holding hands. The silence was broken by the sounds of crows cawing. Birds were perched in branches, daylight piercing an arboreal canopy. The ground was carpeted in brown leaves, foxes roaming, hunting prey. Breaking through the last of the trees, a brook babbled and was spanned by an arched wooden bridge allowing passage over it on foot. The man had never been this far from the cottage until now.

They stood side by side on the brow of the bridge, water running underneath. Several miles of desert stretched out towards the horizon. Cacti prickled amongst rocks and boulders. The sand itself was coated in a thin layer of snow. It looked like land that had been placed there, superimposed almost. Beyond was a vast expanse of steel and glass; Skyscrapers reached for cerulean skies, cars filed in lines on streets looking like worker ants in a nest. Smoke from factories punctured the atmosphere. Life was here in copious volume. For as far as the eye could see, cities sprawled, many millions living and working in conurbations and suburbia. They looked at each other and then back in the direction of the cottage. They could return or choose to stay. There was no way of knowing what awaited if they stepped forward and walked into the metropolis. Whatever the outcome, they would do it together.

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