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1. 

   Etienne Lombard
   PHIL 489
   January 22, 2018

   “try the oculus rift. It’s the most incredible piece of technology I’ve ever worked with, you can do anything, be anybody”
   The comment startled Trent. Having just finished a game on the internet, he closed a few tabs and addressed the box with pop-up text. Fingers wrapping the keys:
   “I know, so great”
   “So, have you tried Rift or Vive?”
   Shifting the weight in his chair, placing behind him on a bookshelf the smelly empty yogurt container that was distracting him, Trent lied “only Vive”
   “So you like the Oculus Rift?”
   “I more than like it. I’m not joking, this is the most incredible tech I’ve ever seen.”
   Excited, Trent checked his bank account on his phone, quickly becoming fearful that he would be found out for his chat room perjury. Trent knew he would have to get a VR headset somehow, otherwise his Discord channel would know he was behind. Money seemed to come and go, he didn’t even know what was paying out anymore. Trent ran an amalgam of chatrooms and updated a few websites here and there. He never tried to do anything bigger then that. Jobs came and went, nothing more, nothing less.
   Trent confirmed the debt limit on his credit card, he just needed to move money from a few accounts and he could get the headset. His otherwise dark apartment bedroom flashed blue and yellow from the light of a chatroom where other people’s video posts interrupted the otherwise absolutely still world of apt # 454. Just as he moved the last remaining hundred to make room on his credit card, from darkness came a flash of light. The front door swung open, but nobody stood in the frame. Trent jumped up, knocking aside an old coffee into the dormant radiator. Another pop-up came, this time asking him to join the VR chat he expected to be invited to. His alerted sensibility panicked at the thought that he would have to make up excuses for why he couldn’t join the chat. He needed to get this headset, or his online presence would be destroyed. He was having a hard-enough time finding new work.
   In this situation Trent was able to tell the truth to the chatroom, he had knocked over his coffee and was busy. This had saved him for now, but he needed to make his way to the store. He closed the door that hung open but now his eyes had adjusted to the light, so he flicked the switch. An old mirror he had intended to throw out leaned against the shoe rack next to him revealing his looks to himself. An all too familiar feeling crept up on him… familiar, but unwelcome. Each corner of his body reminded him of failure. “Frankenstein” said the boils on either side of his face. “Maybe next time” said the flop sweat that ran down from between his arms, though he hadn’t moved in hours. He changed his shirt and put on the hat. This did little to quell the tide which moved from underneath him.
   In the other direction, the direction facing away from the mirror, the direction to which he turned his head to avoid the mirror, was the other half of the apartment. It hadn’t been touched in three years, but he left it untouched incase his step-mother returned to use the place for whatever reason. “Whatever reason would he have for using it anyways?” he thought to himself. Trent had completely forgotten what it is she does, or why she way away.
   He gathered his nerves and stepped out into the hallway, only to be pushed back inside by a pair of eyes that hovered behind the darkness of an ajar apartment door. He snagged an umbrella and opened it in the apartment hallway, shielding himself from the eyes. He shuffled as quickly as he could, toward the stairwell, wielding his umbrella in the direction of the eyes as he shuffled. He figured he could have 15 uninterrupted minutes of silence in the stairwell. He had timed it out in the past. Nobody took the stairwell. He needed to breathe.
   Breathing deeply in the stairwell he collected his thoughts. He considered the worst-case scenario. He would run into someone he knew, from before the illness, or a friend of his deceased family. They might recognize him, assault him with questions as to what he has been doing, why they haven’t seen him in so long. Then he imagined the best-case scenario. He would walk the three blocks to Best Buy, it would be raining outside to he could keep the umbrella close to his head, blocking any possibility of recognition, and at Best Buy nobody would be working that he had worked with before. Before the illness. Finally, a resignation, he had no option either way. Taking a big step outside he was delighted to hear the drops of rain on the top of his still-open umbrella. Life returned to him, no longer mentally stuck with those eyes in the darkness of the open apartment door, he let the umbrella down to hide his face, as he had imagined he would. Paying keen attention to the path below him, and taking a few steps at a time, he was able to piece together his surroundings and what direction he needed to go.
   He counted 5 people walking past him in the 3 block stretch which he had now covered. Reminding him of his bedroom, lit up by the glare of his computer screen, the Best Buy sign streaked with blues onto the wet dark parking lot. Stepping in, he paused between the two sets of sliding doors. He was forced to act, because the greeter was beginning to stare at him, judging his queer behavior. He had to put the umbrella down, gun it for the VR headset. The greeter’s words cut through him, he didn’t even meet her gaze, or make sense of her words. He looked up far enough to see the signs. TV, Appliances, Photography, each more disappointing than the last. He would have thought about the last time he actually appeared in a photo, but he was building up a stress, a welling up of anxiety within him. Each person that past him seemed to be forcing dense molten lead into the back of his head.
   Not being able to find it, he had done a few laps in the store, gaining speed, he would wreck the whole store to uncover this one artifact of ultimate importance. His task took on massive weight as the people in the store began to screech at him like crows. On his 3rd lap around the store his shoelace came undone and he tripped. He looked up in an attempt to gain his footing, and there he was. Almost exactly the same. The same boils, the same flop sweat, but he had a smile and a Best Buy jacket. Unfathomable horror. He knew he had lost it now, torment itself had manifested this crow and he needed to kill it before it ate him alive!
   A hand reached out, and inexplicably, he used it to get to his feet. “what can I help you with?”. He was so struck with disbelief he answered it in a normal tone. His voice came out metronome, and it required no speaker, so it came out as computer might narrate a poem. The man bent down to tie the laces of his shoes. I thought, now was the time, now was the time knee him right in the face and get back into the rain. It was the only moment of his past he could remember. Shoes tied, the man asked again, “what can I help you with?”. V…..VR……VR headset, Trent droned in a well-timed stutter. It turned out they were standing right next to it. Trent snagged one and receded backwards away from his lighthearted copy. Credit card in hand, wielding it like a broken dagger beneath his sleeve, he avoided the smile of a register attendant and went straight for the self-checkout.
   A few more steps and he was free. He made it outside and hid below his umbrella once more. However, he was stuck, he couldn’t leave without confirming what had just happened. He peered inside and saw his copy. His copy was talking to customers, laughing with coworkers, and even seemed to be flirting with the greeter lady. Astonished, he dragged his feet home to his cave to start his life again. To revel in the piece of new technology, to be anybody but himself.