In an instant, the pixelated world distorts, wavers, and dissolves. Vibrant pink, green, blue, and purple hues taken from the palette of one of those trendy nail salon window paintings fades away, replaced by gentle, infinite white. But the seemingly eternal vastness doesn’t represent the truth – the available random-access memory that runs this world is quickly being consumed by digital warfare played out in ones and zeroes, hash collision attacks, and pointer exploits. Functions are being hijacked, variables overwritten, entire programs shuttered and spun up. This faux expanse is all the computer’s hardware can muster to host our digital representations.
Of course, some might argue that my avatar is the only actual representation between the two of us. But that would be a very narrow-minded view. Just because someone doesn’t exist in meat space doesn’t mean they aren’t real. For that matter, there are plenty of people you can meet in the flesh who hardly qualify as real. At least in my opinion.
Nothing has ever felt more real than this moment. I am surrounded by artificial representations of the truth as truth itself stares right into my soul. She smiles a little. Takes a step forward, lifting her right hand as music begins to play in eight thousand hertz – far below the simulation’s normal range. I recognize the song from the first synthesized chord. Her song. Our song. My left hand meets her right, and I rest my other hand on the small of her back as hers finds its way to right shoulder. I look into her eyes as we begin to rock slowly back and forth to the steady beat of the kick on one and three and the muted splash of digitalized snare on two and four. For a while, neither of us say anything and the only thing I can hear is the music and the beating of our hearts.
“Do you remember this song?” she asks, smiling a bit more. I answer by swallowing and smiling. She’s not asking a question, she’s making a statement. It was the first song we danced to. Which you might find odd, given it’s a slow song. And you wouldn’t be wrong. For me, our first dance started off as a necessity of my employment – for her, it was self-preservation. I was undercover and the rest of the details about why don’t seem important anymore. Halfway through the song, I was no longer necessary. She let go and turned to leave. Instinctively, I grasped her hand as it slid off my shoulder. She stopped and turned. I think we both felt a little embarrassed. After an awkward second or two, she raised her right hand and met mine, returning her left to my shoulder. She thanked me and we spent the rest of the song comfortably uncomfortable, hearts racing.
And now, in this moment, my heart is racing. Hers is as steady as the kick on one and three. This dance isn’t about her self-preservation. As the hardware that holds this virtual world together stresses and cracks, we both know that I’m the only one leaving tonight. This is about her preserving the one hundred and seventy-five pounds of flesh sitting in a chair, the bridge between the real me and the real world. I don’t want to think about going back there because I know I’ll never be able to come back here again.
“It’s okay,” she says. She always knew what was on my mind. “I know you don’t agree. But I can’t take you with me.”
She could, and she knows I’d follow her. It’s better this way, though. And I know it. She couldn’t bear these final moments if they were also my final moments.
Tears well up in her eyes, and I wipe them away. I tell her I know. She collapses into my arms, burying her head in my chest, resting both hands on my shoulders. I hold her tightly with both arms around her waist, and although we stop rocking from side to side, it feels like we are still moving. The music drops to around four thousand hertz and I can see black spots in the white expanse as individual pixels sputter out and die as she focuses the entirety of the systems hardware on my preservation, my escape.
“Promise me – ” there’s a pause as the sound distorts further. When her voice returns, it’s in garbled German, the primary language of the system’s inventor. It sounds something like verse peek meer, das do geek eemah an’ me ear in ahst. Something like that, anyways. I promise her I will as tears well up in my own eyes. I try my best to internalize her words. I know there won’t be any more of them.
Pixel by pixel, the room fades from eternal white to eternal emptiness. She pushes away from me, slightly, as she puts her hands around my waste. She looks up, face full of tears and smiles. Her digital representation pixelates, regains focus for a moment, and is gone forever.
I close my eyes. I can still see her. I open them again to the pixeless reality of my room.
Music by FM-84 (Remix of Timecop1983 ft. Josh Dally)
Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels