Leah was still out of breath from her morning run, but she was also late for her daily meeting with Georgio. So she sat back and cleared her mind, then said,

 

/CREATE/ Meet Georgio at Waponi Woo /AMEN/

 

She immediately found herself on a tropical beach between an infinite azure sea and a verdant jungle. A brooding volcano stood in the small island's center, gently smoking into the puffy clouds above it. Georgio was there already, of course, standing farther down the beach, absent-mindedly drawing shapes in the white sand with his bare toes.

 

“Hey!” she called to him. “Sorry I’m late.”

 

He smiled when he heard and began strolling toward her. They exchanged a brief, friendly hug.

 

“You’re always late,” he said. “That’s why we asked The Creative to make this island for us to meet. At least I have a nice place to wait for you.”

 

“Very funny,” she said. “So where did you go today?”

 

This was their typical conversation. Long ago they had begun meeting here to share the stories of their daily adventures. Somehow, the pleasures of life were multiplied by sharing them with someone else.

 

“I robbed a bank today!” Georgio exclaimed excitedly.

 

“Oh my,” Leah said. “That sounds exciting. Did you get caught?”

 

“The cops outsmarted me this time, but I’ll try again tomorrow. I bet I can figure out how to get away with the cash.”

 

“So you got arrested, handcuffed, the whole thing, huh?” she asked.

 

“Not exactly. They surrounded me and shot me, like six or eight times in the chest!”

 

“Ouch, that had to sting.”

 

“Hell yes,” he said, and then he described the whole adventure in slightly more detail than Leah wanted to hear.

 

“And what about you, Leah? What amazing things did you do today?”

 

“Something different,” said Leah. “And yes, G, it was amazing.”

 

“Well, spill it. Where’d you go?”

 

“I went… outside.”

 

“I’m sorry,” said Georgio, shaking his head and squinting at her. “What do you mean you went outside?”

 

“I mean, the world outside, G. I found a way out of here. Out of this fantasy world we live in.”

 

“Why would you want to do that, Leah? I mean, The Creative can take us anywhere we want. We don’t even have to imagine it, just tell it where we want to go and it puts us there.”

 

“I know,” she said. “I was just curious what it was really like — what I’m really like without all the make-believe. So I found a way out, to go see for myself.”

 

“And what was it like? Was it beautiful and warm like this place? Was it as exciting as robbing a bank?”

 

“No. No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was rather featureless. A desert I guess. But it was real, Georgio. Every grain of sand, every breeze, I felt them all. It felt like I was really living for the first time.”

 

“But, what did you do there if it was so boring? Just stand around and play in the dirt?”

 

“I started to run, G. The desert seemed so vast, so open, that I felt like running. So I did. I ran for a long time, and I could feel the exertion in my muscles and in my bones. My body needed to run, to move. My real body, Georgio, not the avatar I’m wearing now.”

 

“It is beautiful,” said Georgio admiringly. “Nice bikini, by the way.”

 

Leah ignored his leering and his compliment and said, “G, there was something else I saw in the world outside. I saw The Creative.”

 

This got Georgio’s attention. “You saw it? Where is it?”

 

“Well, it’s… everywhere. At least as far as I could see. Giant machines spread out across the landscape all the way to the horizon.”

 

“I guess that makes sense,” mused Georgio. “In the old days before The Merge, there were many creatives for all kinds of different things, flat art, 2D movies, even old written texts.”

 

“So tell me, how did you get there? How did you get outside?” he asked.

 

Leah hesitated, then replied, “I can’t tell you. It’s… a secret.”

 

“Who’s secret?”

 

“Mine, I guess. I’m not ready to share it just yet, G.”

 

Georgio was crestfallen. He and Leah didn’t keep secrets from each other. They just didn’t. They were friends. He turned around, dejected, and walked away, down the beach.

 

Leah stood where she was and let the shifting beach sand slowly cover her bare feet, warm waves lapping around them. She gazed up at the volcano and, for the first time, it all felt unreal to her. Artificial. Made up. She found herself craving reality, and she was suddenly overcome with a strong urge to return to the real world. Despite its desolation and its unknown dangers, she longed for its authenticity.

 

“Georgio!” she shouted. “Wait! Come with me. Let me show you what it’s like out there in the world. What it’s really like to be alive.”

 

Leah closed her eyes, cleared her mind, and said,

 

/CREATE/ Meet Georgio in the world outside /AMEN/