\nIt was easy to fall in love in the V. Everyone was gorgeous, their bodies crafted to be in peak physical condition. There was no body odor, no hunger, no bathroom breaks, no death. Every moment belonged to you and the people you chose to share it with.\n<\/p>\n
\nI saw him on the first day of one of my weekly years. An hour in here was a minute out there so entire lifetimes could be lived in just a few weeks Six hours per six days was the maximum a brain could handle, however. People who stayed longer without unplugging tended to end up drooling and immobile. I had too many responsibilities back in the Real for that.\n<\/p>\n
\nSix hours at home with your head plugged in was a nice 360 days in the V, more than long enough to develop real feelings.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe smoked a cigarette across the bar from me. I liked the way the smoke hung in the air as he watched me, creating a fog through which I could barely see his hazel eyes. He said something to the bartender, our eyes never breaking the stare. A moment later a drink appeared before me. I raised my eyebrows in a thank you and watched him watch me take a sip. Like all the drinks here, it was the best Old Fashioned I ever tasted.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen I looked at the red doors that led to the auditorium where we would be part of the 1956 Academy Awards audience, he came to stand beside me. He wore a white tuxedo and fedora, a perfect match to my tight black dress.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou seen this movie before?\u201d he asked.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhich? Lots of nominees.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe one that\u2019s going to win. Marty<\/em>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI nodded and took another sip of the drink. \u201cIt\u2019s one of my favorites. About two ugly people who find love with each other. It\u2019s very sweet.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe took my free hand and held it for a second. \u201cBased on a true story?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNot in this world.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI watched his full lips return to the rim of the martini and felt a quiver in my own mouth.\n<\/p>\n \nWe skipped the show and went straight to my hotel room. The V was designed for pleasure, and I had had my share of affairs, but none felt quite like this. When his hands were not on me my body yearned for his touch like a stump crying out for a missing limb.\n<\/p>\n \n360 days, 360 hours, 360 minutes. Time lost all meaning with him, replaced with a million wonderful moments. We ate sushi carved from fish plucked directly from the sea and served to us on silver platters on a cruise in the Sea of Japan. We skied naked from the top of Jade Dragon. We jumped off the Burj Khalifa and soared over Dubai.\n<\/p>\n \nThere were plenty of people who would rightfully point out that it is easy to fall in with someone when all you do is have a good time. And to them I say, so<\/em>? It felt good to catch feelings for someone while narrowly avoiding getting chomped to bits by wolves in the middle of a national park or during a shootout at the Long Branch Saloon. Even simulated near-death experiences had a way of sorting the chemicals in our body so that the heart, brain, and loins all fired up in the same way as in the Real.\n<\/p>\n \nThis was different, though, and we both knew it. There was a primal nature to our feelings. I desired him with every fiber of my being like a person stabbed and bleeding out desired the sweet release of death: overwhelming, all-powerful, inescapable. Our souls were one, tethered through time and brought together by Fate to the V. The settings were fantastic, the bodies imaginary, but the feelings authentic.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019ve had good times with people I met in the V before, but never like this,\u201d he told me toward the end of that year. We sat across from each other in a bathtub filled with pink champagne, our legs intertwined, our arms stretched around along the rim so the edges of our fingers touched. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing, actually.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat is?\u201d There was an unfamiliar sparkle in his eye. I had stared into those eyes for countless hours in the V and was stunned something about them could still surprise me.\n<\/p>\n \nHe leaned forward as if to kiss me but paused when inches away. \u201cEvery time I look at you, you\u2019re better looking at than the last time I looked at you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nAnother perfect line. <\/em>\u201cOptical illusion in the V,\u201d I responded with a smirk. He laughed. I grabbed his face and kissed him as I felt the familiar burst of warmth in my chest. Life had become the Before and the After. Before Him I was little more than an animal wandering the world, surviving on whatever scraps I could scavenge. After Him I had discovered fire and was now fully a human being, fully a woman.\n<\/p>\n \nWhen our lips parted, I could not help but utter the words, \u201cI wish-,\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe cut me off. \u201cCome on now, you know this is this and that is that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nIt was an unspoken yet firm rule. Out there was to remain out there and in here, in here. The V was the pure, safe, sacred place. The Real was the dirty, unsafe land of obligations and responsibilities. The V was beautiful, the Real was ugly. To try to combine them would irreparably tarnish both. \u201cWhen the timer\u2019s up, we are strangers again.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBut what if we didn\u2019t have to be.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe looked away from me and stood up, his chiseled nude body shiny with droplets of bubbly. He stepped out of the tub. \u201cNo.\u201d His demeanor chilled. He walked to the bedroom of our suite in Rio. I could hear people outside celebrating Carnival. I reached over the edge of the tub and grabbed my champagne flute. I scooped a full glass from the tub and threw it back. The bubbles tickled my throat.\n<\/p>\n \nI got up to apologize. He was right. This is this and that is that. <\/em>Nothing in the V was really real, no matter how it felt. \u201cHey, look, I\u2019m sorry-,\u201d I dropped the glass on the carpet. The cold liquid splashed my feet.\n<\/p>\n \nHe was gone.\n<\/p>\n \nI clapped three times and said my password aloud.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe worst part of returning to the Real was the diaper.\n<\/p>\n \nAs soon as I removed the V-Hat, a black motorcycle helmet with no visor, I felt the wetness and smelled the remnants of meals past. While my mind was fully plugged into the V, I was able to ignore my physical body. No matter where my brain went, my bodily functions continued while central command was distracted. Sometimes a one-hour session left me clean but a five hour one like what I just finished left a terrible mess.\n<\/p>\n \nI recalled the way his muscled chest felt against mine and thought, Worth it, <\/em>as the rank stink of digested pizza and salad attacked my face.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow was it?\u201d my husband, Fred, asked. A lumpy man in with a too-thin mustache, he looked like he was just getting back from taking the kids to a park: tan shorts and red polo with dark sweat stains around the crotch and pits, respectively. Unlike me, he was the outdoorsy type in the Real and shunned the V. \u201cI just don\u2019t trust it,\u201d he told me once. \u201cIt\u2019s putting all this information and stimulus in your brain, but at what cost? What is it taking out?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nMy ability to deal with your crap, <\/em>I thought when I remembered that question. Allegedly they took nothing, but tech companies had lied for generations about what they did with user data and information. This could not be any different.\n<\/p>\n \nTake what you want. <\/em>The V was worth any price.\n<\/p>\n \nHe <\/em>was worth any price.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMommy!\u201d my five-year-old, Sherise, exclaimed while squeezing my legs. With a head that reached my waist, she was in the perfect position to catch a whiff. \u201cWhat\u2019s that smell?\u201d She pinched her nose and leaned her face away from my body.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThat\u2019s just Mommy\u2019s peepee and poopoo from helmet vacation,\u201d my seven-year-old, Sharonda, said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cEw, Mommy. You need a shower.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIndeed, I do,\u201d I said. My husband gave me a knowing wink, as if he had any idea of what went on during my time away. I wondered sometimes what he would do if he knew the truth about what I was up to in the V.\n<\/p>\n \nProbably tell me he was happy I was having fun.\n<\/p>\n \nIn the shower I thought of him. <\/em>He had told me his name was Derrick, an alias (mine was \u201cBernadette\u201d) for the V, but I heard someone call him Joseph in Egypt, at the bar at the foot of the Sphinx. His face changed and he rushed off to talk to the guy whom I never met. He came back with a wide-eyed, twitchy smile. \u201cWho was that?\u201d I asked him.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cJust an old friend from out there. We went to high school together.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you ask him to join us?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBecause I don\u2019t want him to join us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nA new round of drinks appeared and that was that. It was early on in our time together, easier to let things slip.\n<\/p>\n \nJoseph in the Real, Derrick in the V, where are you? <\/em>My hands slid down under my belly as I pondered the question while memories of his face and body rushed at me like the rain from the showerhead.\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n\u201cBack so soon?\u201d my husband asked when I returned from the V after barely a half an hour. \u201cEverything okay?\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI think I need a few more days off,\u201d I told him before going to the bathroom to change.\n<\/p>\n \nI went back a week later to find my Derrick\/Joseph, or DJ as I began to call him in my imagination. If I knew his full name or User ID I could do a search, assuming he had not blocked me, but I never caught them. We had too much fun with our bodies joined like puzzle pieces I gave no thought to tomorrow. Our connection felt <\/em>eternal so why couldn\u2019t it be<\/em> eternal?\n<\/p>\n \nI started my search back at the 1956 Oscars. He was not there. I browsed through every Oscar ceremony but could not find his face in the crowd. I knew he was a fan of celebrity awards shows so I tried the Emmys, the Tonys, and the Grammys. Nothing.\n<\/p>\n \nYear after year, nothing.\n<\/p>\n \nHe could have changed the way he looked and smelled, but I believed it would not be enough to fool me. I would recognize that stare that sent a shudder neck to knees. I could not rest until I felt that gaze again.\n<\/p>\n \nOther men approached me, of course. One man had hair so thick and shiny I imagined chopping it off with a dull blade and making an incredible wig out of it. There were places in the V where you could do that sort of thing, for a fee . . .\n<\/p>\n \nNo. That\u2019s not the kind of guy he was. What kind of guy is he, then? <\/em>Smooth as silk. Hilarious as the best comedians in the world. Gorgeous as the ocean under the full moon.\n<\/p>\n \nThe ocean. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHe loved the open sea. He loved the way saltwater caressed his skin. He adored swimming with all manner of creatures, from giant Blue Whales the size of buildings to sharks with dagger-like teeth. One trip, to see colossal squid at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, came with a tour guide and required a reservation with a guide. Most who did guide work were AI-generated, but DJ insisted we work with a real person. \u201cGives it a sense of authenticity,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \nI headed to the guide, praying for a clue.\n<\/p>\n \nThe guide\u2019s office was decorated like a travel agency from the 1980s: Pan American Airlines ads, a 24-7 1-800 number for travel-related inquiries, and large posters of gorgeous beaches with neon text that asked questions like, Isn\u2019t it time for some you-time? <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nThe guide\u2019s name was Art and he wore a neon green visor and chain-smoked cigarettes at the desk, though the place smelled like tropical breezes and suntan lotion.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCan I help you?\u201d he asked, not looking up from the Sports pages of a Post <\/em>from the 1980s proclaiming Mets Win! <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDo you remember me?\u201d I asked. \u201cI was here last week in the real world but maybe like a decade ago in this place? I can\u2019t keep track of the math.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe looked over the top of the newspaper. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I see a lot of beautiful women come through here . . . and a lot of average-looking ones.\u201d He closed the newspaper. \u201cWhat do you need?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI was with someone. He said his name was Derrick, but it might be Joseph or someone else entirely. I need to find him.\u201d It felt weird to utter those words out loud, to hear myself need <\/em>a man.\n<\/p>\n \nSince when have you ever needed a man? <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nA memory flickered of the two of us down in the trench, peeling off our suits and embracing in the darkness, my legs wrapped around his waist, his lips on my neck.\n<\/p>\n \nSince now. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHe shook his head. \u201cIf a guy runs away from you in the V, there\u2019s probably a good reason. I can\u2019t help you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI took a deep breath. There had to be something. \u201cPlease, it\u2019s important. Can you send him a message?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t think so. I think you should leave.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cJust tell him I will be watching the rockets in exactly one V year from this moment.\u201d I grabbed a pen from the counter. On the edge of the newspaper, I wrote down the location code.\n<\/p>\n \nI paused to read a comic strip next to my urgent, scribbled handwriting. It was one of those old single panel comics of an absurd scene: two bulls, dressed in medieval outfits, standing over a field, preparing to fight. A cow in a dress watched them with an anxious look on her face. The caption read, \u201cThis milk better be worth it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \nAnother week of soccer practice, ballet practice, teacher-parent meetings, sitting in traffic, sitting in drive-thrus, drifting through the supermarket, laying on my back as the man I married pounded away while my mind drifted elsewhere. Another week of nursing minor cuts and bruises and breaking up fights between the two piles of toothpicks that were my daughters.\n<\/p>\n \nPlugging into the V was freedom. One minute I was awash in obligations and restrictions and the next, unbound and unrestrained, a being of limitless potential in an unlimited world. I could walk on the moon or the sun. Nothing mattered. Everything felt good and nothing hurt.\n<\/p>\n \nNothing, except other people. In a world like the V where everyone was invincible and omnipotent, the power people had over one another grew exponentially. I did not believe that <\/em>until I felt this. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nI sipped a margarita poolside at the Cocoa Beach Hilton while the rockets took off from Cape Canaveral a few miles away. I came to see Apollo 11, the one that took our people to the moon. I read once it was supposed to be the dawn of a new era for humanity, but it was decades before humans considered returning before ultimately abandoning space exploration when the V came along. Much simpler to put on the helmet and pretend than to invest in a trillion-dollar project that only a handful of people would ever get to experience.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAre you her?\u201d The voice was stern and commanding; I would not have been surprised if her next words were an order to drop and give her twenty. She was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a green tunic and carrying a sharp spear with a golden point. Her hair was up in a bright purple mohawk. Her yellow, star-shaped pupils twinkled in the hot summer sun.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t know. Who are you looking for?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cArt sent me. You need to leave him alone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWho are you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nWife?\n<\/p>\n \nGirlfriend?\n<\/p>\n \nBodyguard? <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDoesn\u2019t matter.\u201d Her gruff exterior seemed to crack a moment as she sized me up. How I must have looked to her: lovelorn and sunburned, half-buzzed and desperate, though I could change most of these details with the snap of a finger.\n<\/p>\n \nPitiful. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t know why you\u2019re doing this or what you got going out in the Real, but your life will be better off if you face your problems instead of chasing strange in the V to avoid them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI stood up and threw my drink to the ground. The glass shattered with a loud crash before the mess vanished without a trace and a new drink appeared on the table next to my lounge chair. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe smirked. \u201cYou\u2019d be surprised.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe vanished.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe yellow star-shaped pupils meant the mystery woman was an Adult Verified Account, one of millions able to monetize their interactions across the darker corners of the V. I only had to find which corner.\n<\/p>\n \nAdult World looked a lot like the old pictures of Times Square in the 1970s: sex workers in feather boas promising the night of your life; movie theaters with marquees advertising every fetish imaginable; leering creeps in alleys with shady promises of fulfilling one\u2019s deepest, darkest, most private fantasies. The sky was perpetually black and starless, with the only light coming from billboards advertising things like \u201cDiscount Body Part Indulgences\u201d next to suggestive photos of armpits. The air smelled of rugged musk and cheap flowery perfume.\n<\/p>\n \nI walked to the Information Booth, where a man in a blue suit and conductor hat sat in a tiny glass room amidst the heightened-hormonal chaos. \u201cHow I may I help you?\u201d he asked with a bright, white smile. His skin and teeth had a certain synthetic sheen, the oily complexion that AI assistants wore to differentiate them from real humans.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m looking for a woman.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nA floating screen popped up alongside the AI assistant\u2019s face. \u201cCan you be more specific? We have many millions.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cShe was tall, with red hair and green eyes. She carried a spear and wore a green tunic.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe floating screen looked like a rolodex as the number of possible candidates dropped. \u201cCan you be more specific? We have many thousands.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNative English speaker?\u201d It was impossible to tell where someone was from because of the V\u2019s universal translator, but something told me she and DJ were both Americans like me. He had no reason to change his accent, and she probably figured that she was so deeply buried in this directory that it did not matter if I saw the \u201cactual\u201d her or heard her \u201cactual\u201d voice.\n<\/p>\n \nThe screen flipped like a rolodex again. \u201cCan you be more specific? We have thousands.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI scrolled through the headshots lined up in little boxes on the floating screen. It could take hours but if she was here, I would find her.\n<\/p>\n \n \nSmalltown was a part of the V I had never heard of before. Everyone was shrunk to about an inch tall. Rats like dinosaurs chased a group of people using needles as swords to fight them off. A group of screaming children zoomed past me, desperately holding on to the hairs on the neck of a Boston terrier. A group of drunks shared a thimble of vodka dispensed from a bottle the size of a school bus outside of Gargantua\u2019s, <\/em>a neon-tinted brick building. A tiny door with its own tiny knob nestled in the center-bottom of the front door.\n<\/p>\n \nI walked inside and entered a black square room with a high ceiling illuminated by a pink light that shone like the sun. A man in a black and white striped suit and top hat approached me. Shirtless under his suit, his torso was straight out of an underwear catalog: shredded and hairless. \u201cMay I help you?\u201d His teeth were large and spread apart, jutting out like broken piano keys. I wondered what they were like in the Real and why he chose to have these in the V.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m looking for Stacy?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWho?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cStacy McCammon?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThere\u2019s no Stacy McCammon here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI was confused. I spent hours searching through the profiles and went back and reviewed my own footage from that conversation. The faces matched. Stacy was-\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m sorry. Goddess Gargantua. I am looking for Goddess Gargantua.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe beamed. \u201cOf course! The Goddess is here. Do you have an appointment?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYes.\u201d If it meant finding him and feeling him close to me again, any price was worth paying. Stacy had information I needed and I did not want her to run away because of some impatient client.\n<\/p>\n \nHe pulled a tiny spiral notebook from a back pocket and leafed through the pages. \u201cAh, yes, right this way. The Tuesday Special. Good choice. Very popular.\u201d I followed him to a far corner. He parted a red velvet curtain and gestured for me to walk through. \u201cEnjoy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe room was a typical kitchen: wood table with four chairs, kitchen counter, sink, old-fashioned yellow refrigerator, cheap white cabinets with curved bottoms instead of handles. If I were not so tiny it might not be a bad place to fix a meal.\n<\/p>\n \nAn earthquake knocked me off my feet. As I pushed myself up from the floor, a deep voice bellowed, \u201cWhere\u2019s Mommy\u2019s tiny baby?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nWhat in the what-?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nStacy, aka the Goddess Gargantua, emerged from around the edge of the kitchen counter, this time in a red tunic and a ruby crown. She carried a bright red trident. She looked down at me and lifted a bare foot. \u201cDoes my little lady want to get stomped?\u201d She wiggled her toes. \u201cOr does my little lady want to get-,\u201d She stopped suddenly, dropping character with a groan. \u201cWhat are you <\/em>doing here?\u201d She picked me up and held me in the palm of her hand.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHi,\u201d I said, nervous, wishing I had thought this through a little more and prepared something. \u201cWhat is this place?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe put me down on the counter. \u201cYou\u2019re into this? I did not think Dad-er-um-Joseph was into this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDad?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nDad?\n<\/p>\n \nDAD! <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nI wanted to dance. A clue, a clue, a real-life bonafide clue. Stacy McCammon\u2019s father was the man I was looking for. Victory. <\/em>It felt so good I could almost taste it, like his minty breath blowing a cool chill down my throat.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cPretend you didn\u2019t hear that.\u201d Her face reddened to match the tunic and trident. \u201cYou need to get out of here. I have real customers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat do you do here exactly? Just threaten them?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDo you know what \u2018vore\u2019 is?\u201d I shook my head. \u201cIt\u2019s short for carnivore. You should look it up.\u201d Before I could respond, she tossed me into her mouth with a flick of a finger I slid down her tongue and esophagus, landing in a hot, smelly liquid.\n<\/p>\n \nStomach acid. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nI screamed as I pulled off the helmet. I looked at my arms. The flesh had begun to melt almost instantly, but when I looked at my body there were no burns or scars. It\u2019s just the V, crazy. Relax. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nMy husband ran into the room. \u201cIs everything okay?\u201d He was in a Kiss the Cook <\/em>apron and carried a dirty spatula. I smelled grilled meat and gagged.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s fine,\u201d I said, bringing a hand up to my mouth as I marched to the bathroom.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSomething weird happen in the V?\u201d He sounded genuinely concerned. Poor guy could never in a million years guess I got eaten while looking for the man I wanted to leave him for.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou could say that, but it\u2019s nothing, honest. When\u2019s dinner?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \nDad. <\/em>She called him dad. How old is she? How old is he? She had to be at least 18, which would put him at least around my age of forty. Everyone looked twenty-one in the V, though. Could they be younger? Or older?\n<\/p>\n \nJoseph McCammon. <\/em>Assuming her last name was not from marriage and the Joseph name was true, that was my guy. A quick online search found over 10,000 men over the age of 18. I needed to narrow it down. Through Stacy I could do that.\n<\/p>\n \nThere was not much online about Stacy McCammon but Goddess Gargantua had a ton of fan sites across the web. There were pictures and videos of her squeezing her fans between her Volkswagen-sized toes and mansion-sized breasts. People raved about being consumed by her, how the esophagus felt like a warm, comforting waterslide that led directly to a flesh-melting hot tub where one\u2019s body could become part of Gargantua\u2019s.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter a few days down that rabbit hole, I found an old video of someone called \u201cStacey Mac\u201d, a mukbang artist who once a week ate a 20,000 calorie meal before thousands of fans in an old Roman colosseum. In the video, a man who I quickly recognized as my DJ, her dad, wheeled carts of pizzas, burgers, and fruit pies to the dining table where she did her work.\n<\/p>\n \nOld videos included metadata that helped identify the people in them, an early problem in the V that allowed for people to more easily track others. Simpler days. <\/em>From this video I was able to pull old user IP information and get myself an address.\n<\/p>\n \nBingo. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHis home was a trailer surrounded by a rusty chain-link fence and a decrepit lawn that seemed to have been neglected for a generation. The mailbox was open. Inside I found an electric bill addressed to \u201cJoseph McCammon\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \nWho still gets their bills sent via the snail? <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nThe front door creaked open and out stepped an ancient man in torn, faded dungarees and a straw hat. \u201cHello,\u201d he called to me. \u201cSurprise.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe was at least twice my age, maybe older. In his left hand was a cane and his right the handle of an oxygen tank on wheels.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDerrick?\u201d I asked, confounded. A sinking feeling crept in my stomach. This <\/em>was the root of all my desires, all my wet dreams and waking nightmares? This was the man who dominated my thoughts for so many weeks out in the Real, years in the V? The man I fantasized leaving my family for?\n<\/p>\n \nThis? <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHe let out a little heh-heh-cough-cough-heh-heh<\/em> laugh. \u201cMy closest friends call me Joe.\u201d He crept down the stone path that led to me at the gate. The journey seemed to exhaust him; he stopped to catch his breath halfway. When we were inches apart, he raised his hand from the oxygen tank to stroke my cheek. \u201cYou are even more beautiful in person.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI wept. I wanted to turn away from his foggy blue eyes but could not because through the cataract film and surrounding wrinkles and liver spots, there was the guy, my love, my same kind of lame.\n<\/p>\n \nWe were on the Trans-Atlantic highway, racing in our red convertible from Quoddy Head in Maine all the way to the cliffs of El Beddouza in Morocco. At a hundred miles per hour across the vast expanse of the ocean, the air was fresh and salty and tasted impossibly clean. We took turns driving, climbing over each other without stopping whenever one of us felt like taking a turn at the wheel. We were never hungry, but we loved the savory taste and sticky texture of Pete\u2019s Best Peanut Butter Crackers, <\/em>a brand out of business in the Real for over twenty years. As I sat in the passenger seat feeding them to him, we shared memories of eating them as a child, alone, our nose in a book.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMy family was military so we moved around a lot and I never had any friends,\u201d he told me. \u201cI was so alone for so many years I had no choice but to bury myself in horror movies and comic books.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m the youngest of five. By the time I was born, my parents had basically retired from paying attention to their children. Left to my own devices, I drifted to scary movies and comics.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDo you think that\u2019s why we get along so well? Two lost and lonely souls drifting through the wind, consuming trash alone until we found each other in this strange space?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s that complicated. I just think we\u2019re both the same kind of lame.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSame kind of lame,\u201d he laughed and nodded. \u201cSame lame.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSame lame.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSame lame. <\/em>It was not just movies and books and solitary childhood. It was the music we danced to and the jokes we laughed at. It was the way we liked being touched and talked to in our most private moments. It was the way we snorted when we laughed and screamed when we were scared, screamed when we were thrilled, screamed when our bodies collided and became one. I saw in him a reflection of the person I wanted to be. He looked at me in the way I always wished the person I loved would look at me.\n<\/p>\n \nSame lame. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou see why I didn\u2019t want to do this?\u201d he asked me.\n<\/p>\n \nI nodded, unsure of what else to do. How could I be so stupid? What was I chasing? How would I have felt if this man showed up at my house and my husband saw him?\n<\/p>\n \nMy husband. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nWhat would my daughters say if a strange, lovelorn man showed up?\n<\/p>\n \nMy daughters. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I said. \u201cI just needed to see you again. You disappeared . . .\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe placed a bony finger under my chin and lifted my face so we could lock eyes. \u201cI feel what you feel, but there\u2019s no future for us. What\u2019s there stays there for a reason.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI pulled away from him and stepped back, aware of the mistake I had made. I allowed the V and all its pleasures and temptations, all its thrills and illusions, to trick me into thinking that what happened in there meant something out here. I looked up at the orange-tinted sky, ravaged by decades of wildfires, and regretted every action that led up to this moment, all the way back to the Oscar ceremony I did not even watch.\n<\/p>\n \nSame lame. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHe looked pained. \u201cWhat now?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI said nothing. I turned and walked back to my rental car and headed back to the airport to go home to my husband, to my family, to the Real. I could no longer live in the V. I had a life to live. I had to stop chasing fantasy and embrace reality.\n<\/p>\n \nAs soon as I got home, I buried the helmet in the back of our attic.\n<\/p>\n \nIt would be fifteen years before I saw it again, under a pile of old clothes set aside for charitable donations and ignored. It was part of a pile of memories that I would attend to one day, just not that <\/em>day.\n<\/p>\n \nI plugged in to see what it felt like to be back in there. Why not? In the years since, I devoted myself to motherhood, to my husband, my job, and found a new happiness in the Real. I was no longer dependent on the V, no longer needing an escape from reality to find my bliss. I discovered it inside myself, in the million tiny moments between sleep: my children\u2019s laughter, a well-prepared meal, a comforting word to my husband.\n<\/p>\n \nBut I never did get to see one my favorite movies win Best Picture, so I returned to the show I never got to see. I was welcomed to the 1956 Academy Awards by a smile uttering the question, \u201cYou seen this movie before?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI smiled and nodded. I had seen this movie, but this time it would end differently.\n<\/p>\n Alex J. Barrio is a political consultant and progressive advocate living in Washington, DC. He is a Cuban-American who grew up in New Jersey and spent most of his adult life in Florida. He can be found onTwitter for poetry (@1001Tanka) and fiction (@AlexJBarrio). His stories have been published by Four Palaces Press, Roi Faineant, Bullshit Lit, Hearth and Coffin and Unstamatic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was easy to fall in love in the V. Everyone was gorgeous, their bodies crafted to be in peak physical condition. There was no body odor, no hunger, no bathroom breaks, no death. Every moment belonged to you and the people you chose to share it with. I saw him on the first day …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107945,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20131],"tags":[20132],"class_list":["post-140297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-49-autumn-2023","tag-the-colored-lens-49-autumn-2023","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140298,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140297\/revisions\/140298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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