How I expect full-sensory VR to be in its infancy (notes toward an untitled sci-fi story)

The thing is this thing. I can almost see it, right? Like…like I’m pulling out of my skin, three-quarter top-down view, but I turn my head around and the scene changes, and it’s Freddie with his hand on my shoulder standing behind me saying, “I’ve been there brother, I’m sorry” like he knows. Maybe he does and I’m not imagining things.

Like the color wheel, early on you hear it’s red green and blue right? Then if you’re like us you go to cyan magenta yellow black and white or heaven forbid on to triple chains of 255 in hex if you're old-school, locking yourself to a perception of the universe in jagged stairsteps of color, 000 and fffing your way to a world that is totally devoid of anything resembling the smooth Roy G Biv transition of the visible spectrum.

One of the first things that you really realize isn’t an illness is when you realize that the construct that you consider to be your universe is actually composed of agents dispensed to control your existence and confine you to a point series of actions seemingly without pattern. I know that the deal behind the chaotic actions of that which we perceive to be reality is that patterns emerge period, our living breathing bodies are testament to the fact that in any chaotic system tremendously advanced patterns emerge and it’s all patterns, patterns patterns all the way down.

How many steps are in between your screen and the front door of where you are? If you don’t know either you aren’t home or you aren’t you if that’s your test method. One time I met a chick who told me, “I know the first three novels on all my bookshelves” as her control but it is whatever it is, and you pull back and it’s different, that second space where your screen is a tool and provides no enjoyment but wait and then you pull back further and Sarah’s standing in front of you and it’s all over it’s all “I don’t want someone who needs me” and anyway, “why now?” you ask as neon fractal tetris pieces blend together behind your eyes like the teeth on a zipper. It’s all in half-tone just-before-you-fall-asleep imagery, pulling closed-eye visuals from the endless black of felt-covered eyelids, and then it’s gone, it’s back in your body, it’s all breathing and skin and vision confined to a disgustingly narrow field.

Shit happens and I shake my head, ask Parker for the log so I can see spikes and shit, tracing curves and running this one shitty app that changes from domain to domain that some neckbeard off the forum wrote when he was an undergrad.

It’s Parker’s turn so I lock him down and boot him up, we run calibration and I’m telling him to name base geometric shapes, “red square”, “blue triangle”, “yellow circle”(which was really an octagon but circle is close enough). We already have a baseline but you know, it’s always good to adjust and anyway he’s really, really high.

So my fingers do this rote memory dance across the keyboard and switch panel, Parker shudders and sinks down, exhales and he’s in, phosphor waveforms red and blue, mixing down to green when the pattern’s right. I’m like, “OK, this is it” and punch him downstream, same wall. I can vaguely see what he sees, it’s abstract and way more fractal, he’s puzzling images together and doing the dirty work like he’s dreaming.

The thing is it’s always you, stuff you’ve done. Remember that one time you almost did that thing with that person, it was all dilated pupils and racing hearts and right there and you thought you’d die no matter which way it went down and more to the point you didn’t care? It’s like that. It’s like that all the time. And on the scope I see the vague outline of a hand in phosphor dots and swirling particle simulation, like it’s reaching down and Parker shakes it off and the scene changes only it’s frenetic and I only see snow. I open a patch and type a message off to him. He can send back but it’s extra hard and anyway my message was “Change to the sanctuary and I’ll pull you out”.

Parker dropped me like flatline and it’s jarring when that happens. It’s way better to get to your safe place, like mine is this garden, quiet and still with a little brook and a wooden bridge, blooming flowers and butterflies and clover and St. Augustine grass under a patchwork of elm tree filtered sunlight. I don't know what Parker's is, I never asked and he's kind of a mess, so I imagine if I did it would probably give me nightmares.

A homeless man talked to me today

Man it’s a hustle out here I tell you, you got a spare cigarette? Thanks man, I ain’t no doper, I’m just trying to get work you know, like real work with my hands not any of this…bullshit man. I’ll do anything you know, I’ll fucking…shovel cow shit, whatever. With no gloves even, with my bare fucking hands, for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT. I’m looking for a catholic church around here, but these people keep jiving me, telling me it’s this way, telling me it’s that way, just say you don’t fucking know, all right? I ain’t no con-man but I’ve seen plenty of con-men, I know how they hustle. Anyway, I’m not a catholic, I’m a scientologist you know, but scientology is like Catholicism really, I been fiending…I get fucking high off the Host man, for real, it’s better than dope…better than speed, but I need my fucking science. Cops here man, they don’t…hey, you gonna throw that away? City people, look at ‘em, fucking making garbage like…you ain’t like that man, I can tell. Anyway, I gotta look out for myself, me and my old lady. Heh, she ain’t an old lady though, you’d look at her, you’d say “how’d that ugly sumbitch get a hot little girl like that?” Seriously man. And the cops…I keep her, you know, underground, where ain’t nobody can find her ‘cause the cops, I mean, they’d like to get a hold of me, but they’d LOVE to get ahold of her, you know how they are. The other night I was playing piano down at the Hilton Anatole, and these business dudes, it was some kind of convention, and you know those guys. They thought they was talking shit, gonna take this old con for a ride, but I sat down and I played for ‘em and they loved it. I could teach you that shit, dude. In like two fucking hours. Twelve notes, one key (key of C) and that shit just fits together, it’s science man. You play piano? You look like a piano player. Anyway, this security guard comes down and he’s all “I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU IN THIS HOTEL AGAIN”, and dude I’m 50 years old, I know those wannabe cops don’t got nothin’ on nobody, they can’t do shit, but I played along, and these business dudes were all “come on, let the fucker play”, that’s how good I am. I’m a fucking, PhD, doctor of psychology, chemistry (heh heh heh), science, what the fuck ever. It’s fucking hard out here on the hustle, I tell you. Say, you got another cigarette? This guy gave me two dollars, I bought a coke ‘cause I was thirsty, I got a quarter for your cigarette. Ain’t that a bitch, fucking coke was cheaper than water, they gotta find ways to keep sending that poison into your brain, man, keep your shit cloudy, like…like if you thought too hard... Naw man, I got friends, I got friends in Deep Ellum, they’d help me out if I went into rehab. I don’t need rehab though, I don’t need dope no more, no whiskey,no food, I got the Host and a catholic church and that shit keeps you going. My old lady, she ain’t no old lady but she’s my old lady, you know what I’m saying, my old lady, she can’t get work neither and she’s a pretty little thing, and I coulda made the Anatole a million dollars traveling around and playing piano for them, I coulda wiped my ass with fifty dollar bills. Yeah, I’m into music, but that’s not all, I was in the movie business too and…man, you know if they got day labor here? I been doin that shit, it’s a racket man, I just want a full days work you know, I just wanna…work with my hands, like real men used to, you know, not like these fuckers, they’re all marks and rubes if they ain’t runnin’ something on you. I offered to put my own ma in a movie once, I act, direct, whatever. I offered to put my ma in a movie and she kicked my ass out of her house. Her own goddamn son, can you imagine that? I don’t…man I’m glad I ain’t never had no kids, could you imagine seeing your old man like this, fucking looking for work, ain’t got shit but a sweet old lady he’s hiding? Maybe you ought not to imagine it, I don’t know, shit sticks in your brain and you can’t get it out, like poison. Like dope. Maybe I should get into rehab man, but fuck, they don’t want you smoking cigarettes or nothing, not that I need it you know…what city is this again? Are we in Dallas proper or…you can’t even sleep in the bus stop here, I was sleeping the other night and these kids, they thought I was hurt and they called the cops. I don’t blame ‘em or nothing, you don’t know, but these cops started busting my balls, asking me all this shit, I just wanted to get to a catholic church so they told me where one was, but if they knew…if they knew where I was and what I was doing…hell