“You haven’t really lived until you’ve lived your Other Life,” stated the announcer for the online ad that Mavis had clicked on.
“Be the person you always wanted to be,” it continued.
Up to a few seconds earlier, Mavis had been looking at videos of cute cats but had been side-tracked by one of those ‘clickbait’ links always present on web pages these days.
The advertisement from The Genesis Corporation was for a “Brand new virtual experience.”
The announcer went on to explain that, for a reasonable monthly charge Mavis could be one of the thousands of people worldwide who had already signed up to this twenty-first century phenomenon that was taking the world by storm – but to hurry as this was a once in a lifetime offer.
Intrigued, Mavis drank a few more mouthfuls from her second glass of red Lambrusco and watched on.
As soon as the video had finished, Mavis clicked on the link, signed up and purchased her new existence in Other Life.
Two days later all the paraphernalia: virtual headset, DVD, cables, controllers, password and documentation arrived by courier at the solicitors where she worked in the word processing department. With just a little bit of help from Steve in IT, Mavis had installed the software on her laptop and was ready to go.
Mavis Bracegirdle had lived alone since her mum died; alone that is if you didn’t include her seven cats. The wrong side of forty, and dress size twelve a distant memory, thanks mainly to a diet of junk food and chocolate, she appeared a lonely figure. She’d never had a boyfriend – well not since Colin when she was seventeen, and even he hadn’t been what you’d really call a boyfriend. They’d only gone out the once, to the pictures, where he’d tried to get his hand in her knickers in the middle of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. She’d stood up with a shriek, tipping most of a shared giant tub of buttered popcorn over a crestfallen Colin. Running out of the cinema, she’d never again set foot in one since that night.
Mavis finally got to see the whole film when it had been on the telly a few weeks back. Even after all these years, it had immediately brought back memories of that night: Harrison Ford, the smell of buttered popcorn and Colin’s short-lived fumblings; she’d idly mused that these days she might quite like a hand in her knickers.
The cinema incident had put her off men for a while and then her mother got ill; a mean spirited, self-centred person at the best of times, she had turned into a demanding, selfish harridan and it was a relief for Mavis to escape the house to go to work each day. The demands of her mother in the evenings precluded any sort of social life but, ill or not, the old witch had hung on for another twenty-odd years, and it wasn’t until she’d just turned forty-one that Mavis was finally free of her.
By the time she buried her mother, she’d just simply got used to not having a social life and, lacking in self-confidence, wasn’t even sure she’d know how to start one. The other girls in WP had always tried to coax her out for a drink on a Friday night and involve her in their out of work activities but Mavis had always cried off, citing her sick mother as the reason. Since Mum died, she’d started using the cats as her excuse for rushing home. She was affable and friendly enough with the other girls: joining the lottery syndicate, bringing cakes in on her birthday and sponsoring their charity walks – all the usual stuff of office life – but at going home time she had done just that and gone home.
The day the software was installed, Mavis travelled home on the tube, aware of a frisson of excitement as she felt the weight of the laptop in her bag. She arrived home burdened down with a takeaway pizza she’d stopped off for, a bottle of red Lambrusco and a family size bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. Struggling through the front door, she pushed it shut with her backside, narrowly avoiding tripping over two of the cats as they attempted to weave between her legs. Dumping her purchases on the kitchen counter, she made a fuss of the cats that were present, filling the bowls with dry food and, while a few more cats drifted in through the cat flap in the kitchen door, checked and refilled a couple of water bowls.
Cats fed and watered, she grabbed a wineglass and carried her evening meal into the living room. Shucking off her coat, she let it fall to the floor, where it was immediately claimed by one of the cats. She plopped onto the sofa and set about pouring the wine and pulling off a wedge of pepperoni pizza. Mouth full of pizza, she pulled her laptop out of her bag, opened it and switched it on.
Since placing her order she had avidly read the forums of other users and discovered all sorts of useful stuff. For instance, in the alternate reality world, all the usual laws of physics still applied, so, just as in the real world, no one could fly or have super powers and, when a user was not signed in, their avatar waited to be animated like some lifeless virtual puppet.
Before putting on the VR headset she went to the online store to pick out and personalise an avatar, which she named Emma Stone. Emma was a dress size ten and looked remarkably like Mavis herself had at the time of the cinema, knickers, popcorn episode. Avatar designed, Mavis followed the instructions to upload Emma into the system and, switching on the wireless headset, with some trepidation, put it on.
And from the very first time she hesitantly walked into the universe that was Other Life, she felt she had come home.
Over the next few years Mavis created in Emma Stone the complete antithesis of herself: a confident, attractive and gregarious twenty-something, world-class, (well, Other Life world-class), gymnast who regularly represented her nation in the sport. This gave Mavis the opportunity to live vicariously through Emma and experience a life she would not otherwise have enjoyed.
A keen and enthusiastic citizen of Freedonia (the fictitious country Emma inhabited), Mavis had crafted a much loved, admired and respected member of the virtual community; indeed she had even pursued and now enjoyed an intimate relationship – as intimate as one could be in a virtual world – with Guy Manley. Guy had, in a landslide victory, just been elected President of Freedonia. In reality, Guy was Kenny Pratt, a flatulent, greasy, twenty-stone security guard from Rhyl with a dodgy comb-over.
Following Guy’s election victory, a huge inaugural ball had been planned and was being held at the virtual Government House. Naturally, as Emma was Guy’s significant other she’d been invited to sit alongside him at the main table while he gave his acceptance speech. She’d arrived early and was shown into the Round Office – Freedonia’s equivalent of the Oval Office. Mavis didn’t know it at the time but Guy was being briefed by his defence chief on the intricacies of their nation’s nuclear deterrent launch system. As this was a social function, the defence chief wasn’t in uniform, instead she was wearing a strapless black ball gown which barely restrained her enormous breasts. Freedonia was an equal opportunities nation after all so why shouldn’t the defence chief be a stunningly beautiful woman called Norma Stitz? As a side note, Norma was in real life a pre-op transgender sex worker from Dudley called Barry – but I digress.
To Mavis’s insecure eyes, the tableau that presented itself appeared to be a way too intimate tête-à-tête. Mavis’s self-doubt took over and, immediately leaping to the wrong conclusion, she experienced what can only be described as a crisis of faith in herself and the life she had created.
Back in the real world, sitting on the sofa of her ground floor flat, Mavis was in shock. Reaching up to snatch the virtual headset off, she accidentally knocked over the generous, nearly full glass of Lambrusco that had been on the arm of the sofa, emptying its entire contents over a soundly sleeping Cuddles, one of the aforementioned cats. Now, if ever a creature had been misnamed it was he. Cuddles was neither good-natured nor cuddly, in fact he was one of the most miserable animals one could ever have the misfortune to encounter, only tolerating Mavis because she fed him.
So, given Cuddles’ temperament, it would be something of an understatement to say he was not best pleased at being woken from a deep sleep, quite understandably taking exception to the entire contents of a glass being dumped on him. In a display of agility that belied his advancing years, he leapt up with a hiss and a howl and darted across the coffee table where Mavis had her laptop. Scrabbling over the keyboard, his feet managed to hit the precise key sequence required to propel Emma, at great speed, into the Round Office. Hurtling towards the two occupants, she hit them with such force that all three tumbled onto the floor where, in the resulting melee, one of Norma’s voluminous breasts unfortunately escaped from her strapless gown and accidentally pressed the launch button.
As this was supposed to be just a demonstration of the system, the missiles had been targeted on Gigantia, the largest nation in the whole of the Other Life universe. Gigantia had, up to this moment, been an ally and strong trading partner of Freedonia – indeed its ambassador was attending tonight’s inaugural ball.
Events took their course – Gigantia retaliated as did their allies, likewise Freedonia’s allies and, over the space of a very few minutes, the peaceful world of Other Life was destroyed.
Footnote:
The Genesis Corporation are currently creating Other Life II.
Mavis Bracegirdle’s application for membership has been declined.
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