Entering the Portal

Sounds and Visions

Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash

His ears imagined he was listening to a robot play a bongo drum that was about to be discarded due to boredom, but the drum was never discarded. 

It must have been a character walking in a game on the other side of a wall, made thin by the greed of a developer who couldn't be bothered to fill the wall in to create audio privacy.

A real human pressing a button to make the character walk.

A real human desiring something so greatly in those moving pixels that they played every day.

And the condo complex was named after a wood dense enough that the sounds wouldn't travel through the walls had they actually been constructed of that wood. 

A human made the choice to make the walls flimsy. 

The choice was: Fuck ‘em. Build it cheap and move on. 

The character encountered things. Other creatures or pixelated humans?

Walter wasn't sure.

There were grunts and shouts.

At least the grunts and shouts alleviated the tedium of the walk sounds as Walter Chellam took another pill to help him sleep. 

Rarely, but often enough that Walter had it committed to memory, a pleasant female voice told the plodding character: “You are entering the transversion portal.” 

Marlene in Process Engineering heard Walter complaining about the gaming neighbor and presented him a fleece sleep mask to cover his eyes and ears. 

The mask came in the original box, but that box had been opened. 

A long brunette, hair curled from the mask. It smelled like Marlene,which wasn't entirely unpleasant, but foreign.

The mask was used. 

It felt dirty, almost invasive to both of them.

Walter counted the pills in the pale orange vial. There were nine left. His refill wasn't due for 21 days. 

The transmission portal entry came with a pleasing sound, similar to a carbonated beverage being twisted open. 

Shortly after the entry, Walter heard both the character and the human responsible for the character’s movements scream in agony or disgust. 

More robotic bongo.

Thin wavering swishes like a weapon being brandished and real human grunts and screams Something unreal but very real to the neighbor was disintegrating

Silence.

The pleasant female voice asked: Would you like to sacrifice the orb to regenerate? 

Would you like to sacrifice the orb to regenerate? 

The thought of regenerating sounded appealing. 

He reached for his laptop and would search for the game, using that term as a starting point.

Walter Chellam woke the next morning and stumbled to the bathroom. 

Marks from his laptop's keyboard made a pattern on his face. 

He leaned on the sink.

There was no pleasant female voice to tell him where he was, offer him options or remind him he was late for work. 

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