The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (7 page)

“Now you’re talking AI—artificial intelligence—computers with self-awareness, thinking, feeling, reacting, with a desire to survive and procreate,” says Arctic.

“This already occurs,” says Winter. “In another VR game platform you can set your emulation to mining, leave, and three days, or a week, or a month later return to see how well it did while you were gone.”

“Really?” says Kiz.

“Perhaps in the future, when all home computers can act as severs, and the protocol is in place… Still they can only go by the math,” says Winter.

“Arctic, I’m still interested in why you call VL a game,” I say.

“Because it’s still nothing more than your imagination can provide mixed with whatever other people can come up with. Unless you develop a lasting friendship, or a relationship for the
game,
nothing you do here in VL has any lasting effect on your life. However, in PL everything you do has an effect on the whole in some small measure. Every word you say, every decision you make, has an effect on someone or some thing. Ripples in the pond.”

“Still, I find so many possibilities here, I cannot dismiss this as a game. For me, it’s no game. Others have said likewise.”

“Only in PL is it permanent,” Arctic reaffirms. “In VL, you turn off a switch and it’s gone.”

“What is permanent?” I ask. “Nothing is permanent.”

Winter Heart has her own example: “Like a child playing cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, Virtual Life is where you can be what you are not in real life, where you can do what you can’t do in real life, and gain some measure of satisfaction from it even though it remains a passive experience. But when you turn off the computer, you are still you, and the robbers, and the cops, and the cowboys and the Indians are just your friends—imaginary or real.” She shakes her head. “You can’t defend Virtual Life’s platform based on a not-yet-if-ever example of something that may or may not happen a decade or a century from now.”

Arctic speculates, “Sometime far in the future, VL may develop into something more than a game, but I believe that would be a perversion of its intended purpose, and I will oppose such a thing if possible.”

“No, no, no!” I protest. “VL is a place where a person can outgrow his physical limitations—perhaps mental ones too, at least the self-imposed ones. In VL, a cripple can fly! We’re not dealing with cowboys and Indians here in VL, we’re dealing with freeing possibility from Physical Life constraints!”

“At the start of computer gaming we used
Mario
to run through tunnels and to collect coins when it was too rainy to go outside and play,” Winter recalls. “We played in clouds and in tunnels. And in Egypt! Virtual Life is exactly the same, only with better programming.”

Kiz recalls, “When I was a kid we had
Chutes and Ladders
and
Mousetrap
.”

“Virtual Life,
Karena
,
ATiTD
and others have taken gaming further, so we can do things besides just talk, and it’s great. But it’s still not a replacement for Physical Life, not even close! And it will take a lot more advancement in programming to get it there,” says Winter.

“Okay,” I allow. “Maybe I am evolving applications a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing for replacement. I love the sensuality of Physical Life too; I just view Virtual Life as a different aspect of the whole: NL, PL, VL, or whatever might come after...all as aspects of One Life. Ah! Now there’s a new app—
One Life
!”

Winter smiles. “What a discussion! I’ve really enjoyed meeting you both, but I’m afraid it’s time for me to go. Gotta log off and tuck the kiddies into bed. PL calls… But I sincerely want to wish you both the best of luck.”

“Thanks,” says Kiz. “Likewise… Look us up again. You are always welcome in our (lives).”

“Wherever they are taking place,” I add.

Kiz and I watch as our three new friends transfer out of the Burning Life REP, but we are not yet ready to leave. Instead, we retrace the concentric circles leading to the absolute center where the Man has been burned time and again, year after year. This place is perhaps the very heart of radical thinking, I muse, and everything we now know, every idea, every philosophy and every invention was once somebody’s radical notion. Today, the world seems divided between those who desperately want to conserve the status quo, even as it crumbles all around them, and those who are willing to embrace a new way of thinking—in short, radical ideas leading to a more sustainable way of living. The symbolic burning of conventional ideas and practices is one way to begin to actualize change. Burning the Man himself is a symbolic reduction of ego, thereby making space for a new consciousness. But radical ideas always require time to gain acceptance, and I fear that we in PL do not have that time.

As we prepare to transfer out of the Burning Life REP, Kiz turns to me and says, “Fizzy, Virtual Life is really
nothing
like Physical Life.”

“Well, it is and it isn’t,” I tell her. “I think VL is a mirror of PL, but it also offers new paradigms. We are at once less and more than we ever thought. We are insignificant and vital, inconsequential and god-like. All our previous definitions of self become trivialized. What’s important, I think, is not the individual roles we play, but rather our essence as a culture and as a species. Now, as one play comes to an end and the curtain is about to fall, an even greater drama, with a greater theme and purpose, must be staged—one that suppresses and surpasses ego in favor of a collective response to the experience of temporal existence. What do you say we go to Dirty Nellie’s for a drink?”

“Is that possible?” Kiz asks.

“A virtual one, anyway,” I say.

“Bottoms up!” says Kiz.

Whoosh
!

IN VIRTUAL LIFE we can recreate ourselves infinitely; what we cannot do in VL is procreate. In effect, VL is a mirror of what already exists, if not in a strictly physical sense, then in a conceptual one. Physical Life is also a mirror: in Physical Life we quantize inner experience and express it as crude physical symbols. No new life comes from VL; nor does it come from Physical Life: new life can only happen in NL (Natural Life).

Which is why sex can be a somewhat difficult and troublesome issue in Virtual Life (not to mention Physical Life). Various representations of sex are evident wherever one goes in VL: just visit VL Amsterdam’s Red Light District to indulge in the deviation of your choice, or visit salons selling fantasy fucks at virtual Venice, California. Have a quasi-sensuous snuggle with the partner of your choice—or even two at a time! If one is really serious about VL sex, he can visit Heaven In the Clouds, which is a REP specifically designed for and dedicated to lovers, yet even with these approximations, emulations do not experience sensation.

In Physical Life people think they experience sensation, but sadly that is an illusion. What they experience in PL is an approximation of sensation, what is essentially a memory of sensation once experienced in Natural Life. Remnants of NL still exist; they are actually to be found pretty much everywhere. Except Physical Lifers have tried (and more or less succeeded) in nullifying NL odors and tastes, in masking NL colors and patterns, in buffering organic form and function, in anaesthetizing ambiance, and in gentrifying sensual experience—all in the name of morality, or decency, or religion, or fear, or even sanitation! One criticism of VL is that everything there is only a symbol of something authentic found in PL, but even in Physical Life we experience a version of virtual reality: just turn on your TV! This seems obvious to me now, but that was not always the case. In fact, before I began spending time in VL, I was like everybody else in PL: I thought that whatever I experienced there was definitive. Then I had my first romantic encounter in VL, and my understanding of sensuality changed forever.

I met Panzer X. about a month after I first logged on to Virtual Life, and even at first glance his EM appealed to me in a way I did not fully understand. Of course I’d felt sexual attraction countless times in Physical Life: besides being married for six years I’ve had several PL lovers, two of which sent me over the moon with desire. But such experiences were certainly dependent upon the physical senses, without which there could have been no attraction at all. With Panzer X. it was different. Just looking at his stance made me feel weak in the knees (and I am always seated at my computer terminal). Yet even as I typed those initial messages to him (we were standing together at midnight in front of the flood-lit coliseum in Rome), I felt a lump in my throat that would surely have prevented me from uttering a single syllable had speech been necessary.

Panzer X. lives his Physical Life in Poland. He owns a bread bakery in Krakow. As I’ve already said, I live in Seattle, where I work as a medical billing clerk. Panzer’s command of English is rudimentary at best. I, of course, speak no Polish. So communication was difficult in the traditional sense. Yet it seemed that between us words were superfluous from the start; something else, something quite unexplainable yet profoundly powerful, filled the gaps left by our inadequate language skills: pure chemistry!

How could such a thing be possible? Emulations can’t actually feel sexual desire for one another, can they? I’ll say they can! In fact, the desire I experienced for Panzer far surpassed anything I ever felt in PL. And I’m quite sure the feeling was mutual. Our only problem was finding an adequate means of expression. Neither of us had the faintest idea how to proceed. We were like the first man and first woman, alone in the splendid garden on the morning after Creation and not yet accustomed to our new bodies. And it was that very metaphor, in fact, that led us to understand something quite profound not only about our physical bodies, but about our spirituality as well.

Even as we normally experience ourselves as whole beings, we are in fact an aggregate of different manifestations—part matter, part energy, part essence, and part eternity. Body, mind, soul and divinity: these are the elements that make a human being.

For the sake of continuity we tend not to see ourselves in fragments, but take away any part of our humanity and we would cease to function well within the human community. And it is through our physical senses that we experience the rapture of being alive, so tell me, please, how a digital representation can experience sexual attraction and sexual longing? Remember, in VL we can recreate, but we certainly cannot procreate. Which is not to say that as emulations we don’t still feel the longing to experience our divinity through the sexual act? Access and method is the problem here in VL, but you’d probably be surprised just how inventive two people (emulations) can be. Blind with lust, Panzer and I wound up snogging in the grass in the shadow of the VL Coliseum, and My God it was ecstatic! But it was decidedly less than private, so the second time we met for virtual sex we transferred to a REP called Heaven In the Clouds.

I’d never been to Heaven before, but Panzer X. certainly showed me the way. Arriving at this place for lovers, we took a few moments to look around and gain our bearings. Heaven In the Clouds is built from very large blocks of gleaming white marble. Decorative statuary cast in explicit sexual poses lines the streets and pathways and staircases, and expansive green lawns with lounge chairs and blow-up mattresses (for sex in the open) contrast the buildings that include private salons to shelter lovers from public view. Billboards—all quite seductive and all touch-activated—advertise the services of escorts: Precious Qi, Lovely Luna, and Dhali Dharma. Madam Lily Corolla is the REP’s bodacious administrator, and she has posted advertisements offering seedlings work as Heaven’s Angeles.

Indeed, what might one expect to see upon arriving in Heaven? Well, the first thing I saw was a large ‘Welcome’ sign sporting a stark naked angel with feathery white wings and a glowing halo cast against a black backdrop inviting me to enjoy my stay (in Heaven). Why not?

Walking up the wide boulevard that bisects the REP, Panzer’s arm wrapped round my waist (I have no idea how he managed that because such a gesture is certainly not offered in
my
gestures menu), we came first to a marvelous dance floor built ‘outdoors’ and next to the sea. There were no walls per se, but a roof sheltered dancers from the sun, or the rain, or moonbeams, or whatever… The dance floor itself shimmered with a laser light show more intricate than any I’d ever seen, and a diverse selection of songs that spanned the decades guaranteed dancers appropriate background music for their particular steps. Panzer took me in his arms as the music suggested a tango, and before I knew what was happening, we were gliding over the floor as though we’d been partners for years and years: to then fro, a bow, a courtesy, a dip. I swooned, but Panzer X. adroitly caught me in his arms and swept me along to the pulsing rhythms of Omar D’Arienzo, the
Rey del campás
(King of the beat), playing “Milonga Sentimental”.

Once our dance was finished, we retreated to the Sex Dungeon. Inside a vast hall with a high ceiling, marble walls and floors gleamed in the ‘natural’ light that poured in through lofty windows, as carved pillars lent support to the greater edifice, and smaller curtained salons invited couples, or threesomes, or quartets onto vast beds for the sexual activity of their choice. In one salon I saw a Grand piano; in another a vast alabaster tub that would easily accommodate half a dozen bodies!

Panzer led me into a semi-private salon with a large sectional sofa arranged in a horseshoe shape in front of a fireplace with a roaring blaze. “Take off all your clothes,” he told me, “and lie down on the couch.”

“You must be joking,” I said, but he wasn’t.

“Take off your dress,” he reiterated.

“Panzer, I’m embarrassed. What if somebody comes into this room?”

“We’ll simply ignore them.”

“But they’ll see us doing it!”

“They’ll see our EMs doing it,” he reminded me.

“I don’t know,” I hesitated.

“Fizzy, I’m not likely to be in Seattle anytime soon…”

“I know!”

“And I doubt I’ll be seeing you in Krakow…”

“Not too likely,” I admitted.

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“Are you sure you want to do this, Panzer?”

“Fizzy, I’m so hot for you that I’m bursting out of my pants!”

“Really?”

“Just get undressed, will you?”

I have to admit that Panzer’s total lack of finesse or foreplay probably extinguished any romance that was imparted by our dance, but I must also relate that the anxiety I felt about somebody walking in and seeing our two EMs humping doggie-style on the sofa turned me on more than I might like to admit. In fact, by the time I was naked and spread-eagled on the couch, I was writhing with desire. As Panzer lay beside me and began kissing me on my inner thigh I was secretly hoping that somebody would indeed walk into the salon, and I was also hoping that whoever came in would be as bizarre as anybody I’d ever seen in VL, and that he would
not
turn away on seeing us fucking, but instead move closer and stand right over us, watching—and, yes, maybe even join in, because I’d always fantasized about having two guys at once. Of course who could guarantee that my imagined watcher would even be a guy? She might be a girl. Then what? Or maybe another couple would come into the salon. That was certainly not unlikely. Would we have the courage to invite them to join our
play
? Or what if a whole group of guys came in… Or a group of biker chicks… Or what if somebody I knew came in… The more I continued to fantasize, the hotter I got, and now sensing my deepening passion, Panzer kept after me, pounding inside me from one position then another.

(Just wondering: Are you envisioning me right now as Fizzy Oceans, the VL EM, lying on the couch fucking this Polish guy like there’s no tomorrow, or are you perhaps envisioning me as Amy Birkenstock from Seattle, sitting at my computer and fingering myself like a pathetic little nymphomaniac as I watch this cartoon guy pumping away at my cartoon pussy? Either way, I suppose you’re getting pretty hot over all this talk about EM sex, but let me tell you, we’re not even close to a climax yet, so allow me go on with the story, and once I’ve told it as it is—or as it was—then I’m pretty sure there won’t be any further questions about whether or not emulations can get turned on and have sex in VL.)

Without a doubt, VL is all about realizing one’s visions, right? So of course my silent but very wicked prayer was answered. How could the VL gods and goddesses (Are you listening, Farmers?) not have heard my one deviant appeal? And why would they not accommodate me?

So there I was on the sofa, naked as the day I was born, legs apart with Panzer’s big stiffy poking away at me (or at my emulation) as if he were trying to conceive something totally out of this world, and I’m all breathless and florid, and scared to death, and so embarrassed I could die on the spot, when in walks not one but three guys, each one clad in black leather, zippers shining and silver chains dangling from their hip pockets and breast pockets.

OMG!

And of course they come toward us, Panzer and me, both of us naked, fucking on the couch without shame! But we don’t stop, not for one second. Not for a heartbeat! We keep fucking like there’s no tomorrow, because for all we know there
is
no tomorrow. The three leather guys surround the sofa. I don’t care; I want them to see this kind of passion. Why? I don’t know, and I don’t know to this day, but I do know I not only wanted them to watch us, but to not take their eyes off us (me) for even one second. Yes, I desperately needed their eyes on me, and I needed something else as well!

What I needed was an orgasm. To come and come and come! Not Fizzy Oceans, the EM. Because Fizzy Oceans can’t come. Not fucking Panzer X. Not in a million years. Not ever! It was Amy Birkenstock that needed an orgasm—or two, or three, or four! Then and there! And by God I was going to have it!

At that moment I understood the reality of VL sex. And I never again saw Panzer X. romantically. Nor have I cultivated other romantic relationships in VL. Believe me, it’s best that way. You can take my word for it. In VL, we can certainly recreate, but we cannot procreate. That’s just how it is!

I suppose sex in VL is somewhat like reading a very steamy novel and experiencing heart-pounding lust generated on the printed page. Having had a hand in republishing some very torrid stories—
The Decameron
by Giovanni Boccaccio (in the original Italian),
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
by D. H. Lawrence,
Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller, and
Lolita
by Vladimir Nabocov—I do have a feeling for the vicarious effect that certain writers can convey. Yet sex in VL—by all accounts virtual sex—was still different than reading a lusty scene. Perhaps it could be compared to seeing a film portrayal of Constance Chatterley and her gamekeeper, as opposed to simply reading about their illicit exploits at his rustic cottage in the woods. Again, the senses: a glance if not the ecstasy of a touch; the sound of a lover’s whisper if not the force of physical love; the lingering memory of a scent, a taste, if not the ponderous weight of our physical burden on earth!

Since our encounter at Heaven In the Clouds, Panzer and I have seen one another only in passing. Because we were never able to speak to one another very effectively in the first place, silence is not unnatural, yet we dare not look one another in the eye, because we both understand that one glance can unlock the kind of desire that nothing here in VL can satisfy, and we are smart enough not to traverse such treacherous territory again.

Yet I feel exquisite in the knowledge that such passion is possible even between two digital representations, because it guarantees, no matter what happens to our race in physical terms, that at least a very vivid idea of sexuality will persist in all its glory. My experience with Panzer—mysterious and incomplete as it necessarily had to be—confirms something I probably knew all along: that sexual desire happens in the brain, not in the loins; and once such feelings are imprinted upon a nervous system, or even within an electronic network, a certain kind of exponential energy is generated which nothing can extinguish. Perhaps we can kill ourselves with negligence and stupidity, and maybe we can render our beloved and fragile planet inhospitable, but apparently we can’t extinguish the current of love, no matter how hard we try. What a relief!

Rome is known as the
Eternal City
, so a group of VL builders is working day and night to recreate it in Virtual Life as well. Dutch builders work to raise a virtual Amsterdam, as others create a virtual Barcelona, a virtual Vienna, and a virtual Paris. In Israel, plans are underway to construct a New Jerusalem. In Athens, an energetic congress of Greek builders is working to preserve the integrity of the Parthenon, as well as that of ancient Thira (which is now called Santorini and thought by some to be the remains of the Lost City of Atlantis), not to mention those who have attempted to recapture the allure of Mykonos Island in the sixties and seventies, because even in VL a stunning beach for gay guys will surely be needed. In America, VL builders have recreated New York’s Greenwich Village, complimented by a virtual Bob Dylan and virtual Joan Baez singing folk songs in smoky basement bars. Others have recreated Disneyland. Turning to South America, the beach in Rio is a popular REP. In Japan, builders have fashioned extravagant resorts for the enjoyment of all. While Down Under, VL advocates are offered virtual adventures in the Outback. In India we can visit an ashram or bathe in the Ganges River. So, when all is said and done, there is just no telling how much of PL will be rebuilt in Virtual Life, but even if it’s not complete, surely it will be quite impressive. And of course there are creations that have never existed in PL and exist only within Virtual Life. In VL, imagination reigns supreme, and cyber real estate is ridiculously cheap.

All this construction that is taking place in Virtual Life marks a building boom the likes of which the world has never known. Consider that cities like Rome and Tokyo and Calcutta evolved over many centuries. The Virtual Life builders apparently mean to duplicate such places in what might only be termed the
blink of an eye
—or whatever precious time we might have left before whatever is going to happen actually happens. Which brings to mind an important question: How much of PL is actually worth preserving? Might it not be construed as a public service to disregard altogether certain institutions? To preserve only that which is whole and workable, and simply trash the rest of it before it once again grabs humanity by the balls and squeezes till we scream?

My friend Crystal Marbella once asked me if I was more comfortable in Physical Life or in Virtual Life. I had to think about it for a while, but in the end I had to admit that I felt more comfortable in Virtual Life. “It probably shouldn’t be that way,” I told her. “After all, I was born into Physical Life, so that’s where I ought to feel grounded. But I don’t feel grounded there. So thank God I found Virtual Life. And thank God I found you, Crystal.”

“I feel the same way, Fizzy. Here we have something worthwhile to do. These days I don’t work to live, I live to work. There’s something to be said for having a strong sense of purpose. And good friends, too! Not just people you go out drinking with, or go to a movie, or a party. What I mean is knowing and working with others who value your particular kind of creativity and your special gifts as much as they value their own, and who also share your passion and your resolve to create a world that is not only more fair and more just, but also more sustainable. And whether we succeed or fail is actually unimportant. What’s important is that we’ve come together at this place, in this time, and that we are making the effort to create something better than we’ve known in the past.”

“Let PL go to hell in a hand basket,” I sang.

“And we’ll watch it fall from right here in Virtual Life!” she said.

“Except a lot of people are probably going to get hurt,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s the real crappy part about all this,” said Crystal.

Even though I make no effort to see Panzer anymore, I still like to visit Imperial Rome. Thanks to Virtual Life, it’s possible for me to experience the
Eternal City
as it must have been in its glory days, gleaming and regal, its citizens so full of themselves that they can’t possibly imagine a time when
their
Rome will not be pre-eminent in the world, even as demise looms just beyond the Palatine Hill.

Is Rome still the embodiment of the Eternal City? Certainly yes! Does Imperial Rome’s fate stand as an eternal example of what those who consider themselves invincible might expect? Positively yes! Speaking at the VBV, Dr. Adler alluded to no less than thirty previous world civilizations. The Hopi Indians are now preparing to leave the Fourth World behind and journey through a hole in the earth in search of the Fifth World, whatever that might mean. Standing here in a REP of Imperial Rome, a recreation though it may be, a virtual world, such things seem to make a bit more sense to me. I feel as eternal as the stones that form these ancient archways, these walls, terraces, porticos, colonnades and aqueducts. Of course I know nothing lasts forever, least of all any single civilization. The PL crowd acts like nothing’s wrong; they fiddle as
their
Rome burns. And I implore them; ask the Romans what an incredibly fickle mistress glory can be, and just how transitory the spoils of war may prove. Ask what songs they sang as the flames took all they had and more…