Virtually Dead

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The air was suffused with the pink glow of sunset. They were well into their game and the sun seemed no lower on the horizon.

Chas: Does the sun ever set here?

Doobie: I’m not sure that it does. I know that night falls in other parts of the island, but on the chess terrace it has only ever been sunset while I have been here.

The circle of columns around them glowed warm in the reflected light from the water below, and each chessman was highlighted in amber. On Doobie’s advice, Chas had zoomed back, adjusting his POV so that he was looking at the two of them facing each other across the chessboard, with the light of the dying sun shimmering on the moving surface of the ocean beyond.

Doobie had changed her outfit yet again. A long, black dress, sleeveless, with a dipping neckline. Her skin seemed to shine like tinted ivory, her hair piled high on her head. For a time Chas forgot the game and examined her. He had seen more glamorous AVs in his short time in SL. But there was something different about Doobie. There was almost beauty in her face, a serenity in her expression that he knew was more than animated pixels. In some way that he couldn’t quite understand, her personality was colouring his perception of her appearance. He followed the line of her fine, full lips with his eyes. Her cupid’s bow, the slight upturn of her nose, her liquid brown eyes. The tiny heart-shaped birthmark high on her cheek, below her right eye. And he thought that she was very lovely. And that if he had been a man on his own looking for a woman, he might have found her. He was a man on his own, certainly, but the only woman he had ever really loved was lost, and he doubted that he would ever find another.

Doobie: Chas...

Chas: Yes?

Doobie: It’s your move.

He glanced down at the board and saw that she had shifted her knight to C6. But he barely had time to consider the consequences of her move.

Doobie: I sense a sadness in you, Chas.

He looked up. How could she sense anything across the ether? He had known her for such a very short time, and their exchanges had hardly been intimate.

Chas: How do you detect my sadness?

Doobie: It’s in your tone.

Chas laughed.

Chas: I have a tone?

Doobie: Yes. We transmit so much about ourselves, in the way we construct a sentence, in the length of a pause, in the speed of a response. I have become sensitive to these things in SL. It is the only real way I have of gauging other people. We can seldom trust what they tell us: the man posing as the sensitive young lesbian; the night club gigolo who is really some decrepit old man. So we develop other means of divining the truth.

Chas: And what do you divine about me?

Doobie: That you are still a young man, perhaps in your thirties. That there has been some tragedy in your life, something I don’t really think you have come to terms with. And there was something in an exchange you had with Twist that led me to believe that maybe you have just returned to work after a long absence. Perhaps an illness. That you are wealthier than most forensic photographers, but that you still have financial problems.

Chas was stunned to silence. That she had managed to infer so much about him from so little, it was almost frightening.

Doobie: Am I right?

Chas: You’re pretty close. A good guesser, perhaps.

Chas Chesnokov smiles.

Chas: You know, I spent months in therapy, and I don’t think my therapist could have summed me up that well. Actually, she’s the reason I’m here. Group therapy sessions in SL.

Doobie: Was it a death? The tragedy. Did someone die?

Chas: My wife.

Doobie: Oh. When?

Chas: A little over six months ago.

Doobie: How?

Chas: A very short illness. Cancer. By the time they diagnosed it, the damned thing was too far gone for treatment. She barely lasted ten days. Long enough that I felt her suffering through every long, painful moment of it. But still not long enough to say goodbye. Not really. Not properly. I was still in shock when she went, as if she had been taken from me in an instant.

Doobie: So you’re still saying goodbye.

Chas: I suppose I am.

Doobie: Because if ever you finish your farewells, then she really will be gone.

Chas was silent for several long moments. He had never thought of it that way. In all the hours of therapy he had undergone, it had never occurred to him that his problem could be that simple. Angela had only ever encouraged him to talk. And he must have repeated himself countless times, going over and over the same old ground.

Chas: I’m not sure I would know how to do that now, Doobie. After so long.

Doobie: You go to her grave, Chas, and you close your eyes, and you imagine her there in front of you. As clearly as if you could touch her. And in your mind you do. You reach out and feel her warm skin on your fingertips. You run them lightly down her cheek, and take her chin, turning it up a little toward you. And you lean in to kiss her. So softly. Conveying in that touch of your lips all the love you ever felt for her. Then you take her in your arms and hold her, and let the tears run down your cheeks. Don’t be ashamed of them. And when you are ready, put your lips next to her ear and whisper, “goodbye darling.” And let her go, Chas. Just let her go.

Somewhere on the far side of the screen, in a world beyond pixels and images, he felt real tears trickle down his cheeks. And it was some minutes before he found words again to work his fingers.

Chas: Sounds like you might be talking from experience, Doobie.

After a long silence new text appeared.

Doobie: They send our troops to some far-flung corners of this RL world, Chas, and sometimes it’s so damned hard to figure out why. Young men, some of them barely old enough to vote, many of them not old enough to drink. Certainly without any understanding of the issues that led the politicians to send them in the first place. So many of them die without ever knowing why. A long way from home and the people who loved them.

Chas: What happened?

Doobie: He wasn’t even a combat soldier, Chas. Supplies and inventory. But it meant he wasn’t usually in the firing line. So I didn’t worry too much.

Chas: Were you married?

Doobie: Engaged. We were going to be married when he finished his tour.

Doobie Littlething shakes her head.

Doobie: The irony is, it wasn’t the enemy that killed him. It was an accident. Damn chopper ferrying officers from base camp to the airport. Came down with engine failure. Eighteen young men. All gone. In that instant you talked about. And I never did get over it. He had left me with child, from his last home leave. And I thought, at least I will always have a part of him.

Chas waited. He knew there was nothing he could say, no question he could ask. Whatever she had to tell him would come in her own time.

Doobie: I miscarried in the sixth month.

Chas: Oh, Doobs.

He wished he could reach out a hand to touch her. And for the first time in this Second Life, he felt confined by it. Limited, frustrated.

Doobie: I had no chance to say goodbye to either, until I knelt in the grass by his grave and held them both in my arms, and told them that one day I would be with them. And that although we were saying our goodbyes now, we would all be together again someday in the not too distant future. And then I let them go.

After another long silence Chas began typing.

Chas: People keep saying to me, Doobs, “You’ll meet someone else”. But I can’t imagine it. How about you?

Doobie: No. Me neither. I never have, and I never will.

Chas: Never is a very long time.

Doobie Littlething smiles.

Doobie: It is.

Chas: So I guess you are an American, then?

Doobie: Oh, now you’re starting to divine things about me.

Chas: You said, they send our troops.

Doobie: Well done, Mr. Detective.

Chas: And I guess since you seem to be online pretty much around the same time as me, you are West Coast rather than East? Pacific time zone?

Doobie Littlething smiles.

Doobie: It never ceases to amaze me how curious people are in Second Life about the real lives of others, but hardly ever wanting to reveal anything about themselves.

Chas: It’s only human nature, Doobs. I suppose people are just people, whether in RL or SL. We’re just the same.

Doobie: Not necessarily.

Chas: No?

Doobie: The real world has become so complex, Chas, that it’s harder and harder for us to be ourselves, to express ourselves freely. SL removes the conventions. And here’s the irony. In a world where the reality is virtual, and completely unreal, it is far easier for us to be our real selves. If you spend any time in here, you will come to see that.

They sat for a long time in silence then. Chas returned his attention to the chessboard and found himself running and re-running a sequence of moves around his head, each time arriving at the same conclusion. He moved his bishop.

Chas: Checkmate.

Doobie looked at the board, and studied it for several long minutes. Then she looked up, and Chas saw her animated smile peeling lips back across her teeth.

Doobie: You distracted me.

Chas: You distracted yourself.

Doobie: You cheated.

Chas: No. I beat you fair and square.

Doobie: Grrrr!

Chas: Hahaha. It’s a long time since I beat anyone at chess.

Doobie: Who did you play, before you started playing against yourself?

Chas: Mora.

Doobie: Your wife?

Chas Chesnokov nods.

Chas: I think I beat her twice. But that was early on, just after I’d taught her.

Doobie: You taught her to play, and then let her beat you?

Chas: Oh, I didn’t let her beat me. She just did. Time after time.

Doobie: A mere reflection of the innate superiority of women over men. The only reason you beat me today was because I was not giving the game my full attention.

Chas: Yeh, yeh, yeh. You realise that you will now have to number me amongst your potential suitors.

Doobie: Oh, will I? And why’s that?

Chas: You told me, that last time, that you would never fall for a man who couldn’t beat you at chess.

Doobie: Yes, well, it’s a matter of respect, isn’t it? But that, of course, would only apply if I was actually looking for a man. Which I’m not.

Chas: You don’t need to. You have men all the time.

Doobie: For sex and money, yes. But anything else is strictly off limits. I’m not in the game for a relationship, Chas.

He felt himself unaccountably disappointed. Unaccountably, he reasoned, because how would it be possible to have a relationship in a world that only existed somewhere between the mind and a computer screen? Disappointed, because there was a big empty place inside of him that needed filled. And he liked her. Without rhyme or reason. He thought for a few moments.

Chas: Is it hard to buy a penis?

Doobie: LOL. Well, it’s not hard when you buy it. Only when your lover touches it.

Chas: Ha. Ha. Ha. You know what I mean.

Doobie Littlething looks at Chas inquisitively.

Doobie: You really want to buy a penis? What for?

Chas: Just curious.

Doobie: Uh-huh? Sit tight. I’ll send you a TP.

Chas dropped down from a night sky into a winter landscape. Snowflakes fell all around, accumulating on the roofs of wooden ski lodges gathered around an area of ice sculptures and snowmen. People stood around in groups chatting. An IM chinged on his screen.

Chas turned around to find himself facing the entrance to a sprawling stone-built store with a high, steeply pitched wooden roof. The doorway was flanked by giant posters. What’s Hot? THE X3 NIPPLES! ANAL TOYS. And beyond it, a photograph of a couple making love above the legend, Xcite! The Finest Sexual Equipment. He waded through the snow to make his way inside.

Arched entrances opened into different areas of the store. Nonhumans. Boys. Girls. Upgrades. Chas walked past a fire smouldering in an open hearth and through the arch into the boys’ store. The walls were lined with depictions of various versions of the Xcite penis, which advertised itself as The Sculpted X3 Cock. There were pierced penises and textured ones in different colours. Penises in cages and tied in ribbons. There were even penises that came ready-fitted with condoms and accompanying colour changes.

Doobie was idling impatiently beside a free-standing poster for a Male Starter Pack that boasted the inclusion of a Sculpted Cock, X3 nipples, a HUD Control Panel, and an “Xcite Me’ Club Shirt.

Doobie: For a mere 1200 Lindens, you too could be a real man. Actually this one’s pretty good.

Chas: How do you know?

Doobie Littlething tuts.

Doobie: Use your imagination. Are you going to buy it or not?

Chas: I don’t have any money.

He heard a cash register, and saw that Doobie had just paid him 1200 Lindens.

Doobie: You now owe me 2200, Chas. And since I have an investment to protect, I’m going to have to make sure we keep you safe from the mob. LOL.

Chas: Very funny.

Doobie: Go ahead and buy it.

She waited a moment.

Doobie: Done it?

Chas: Yes.

Doobie: Okay. I suppose I’d better show you how it works.

Chas: Here?

Doobie: LOL! No, of course not, you idiot. At my place. I’ll TP you.

Michael was suddenly transported from another world, another dimension, another persona, and found himself crashing back into RL with a start.

The phone was ringing.

He dragged his eyes away from the screen and the wall of sculpted cocks, to look at the info panel on the handset on his desk. It was Janey, calling from her cellphone. He had the sense that it had rung several times without impinging on his consciousness, so deep had he been in the character of Chas. He hesitated to answer it, drawn by a strange excitement and a curiosity about where this sexual interaction between Chas and Doobie was leading. But in the end, he decided that Janey wouldn’t be calling unless she had something to tell him. He picked up the phone, but was greeted only by the dialling tone. She had rung off.

“Damn!”