Story (2): Life and Work

Karl hated driving, normally. There was always pressure to get somewhere on time, always the fear of driving down the wrong road. always. He knew that if he could just drive, using only a compass, with no particular route in mind, and if he could master his fear, then another nail could be removed from his coffin.

***

Ever day since graduation, he'd felt the nails being driven in. Masters in Philosophy, summa cum laude from University of Toronto. When you live in Scarborough, it's not much of a commute. Most of the people Karl knew lived within 30 minutes of his house. His life was there. A teaching assistant, living in his grandparents basement. Mom and Dad travelled so often they decided to just sell their house altogether. They'd come back every once and a while, for the holidays. But otherwise... it was Karl, and Grandma (Grandpa was on a respirator, and senile as well).

This life Karl had come to know consisted of minute intellectual scraps he had with his self-proclaimed Buddhist, and newly liberated atheist undergrads. A few papers to mark, a few classes to prepare for, and such life went... for a while.

After cut-backs and staff changes, one day the budding would-be professor found himself without a job in academia.

***

It's amazing how quickly things slip through your fingers sometimes, and sure enough Karl was working at a Warehouse job packing skids of industrial cleaning supplies. He was told that he should be grateful in this economy for a job at all, his father reminded him, and according to mom some 'real' work would do him good.

As a metaphysician Karl knew only too well the dichotemy between every day life and the 'real world'. Moreover as a philosopher he also found the maxim of Aristotle -that physical labour degrades the mind- to be the reality of his life.

The more cleaner he packed, the more his anticipation grew for the mind numbing recreation he planned after each shift in the trenches. From 5pm to midnight he worked 4 days a week. As soon as he scrubbed his hands clean with the grainy orange soap at the end of his shift he would look in the mirror, and even though nothing had noticably changed, somehow it seemed like he had earned another day's work of value in the eyes of family and the world at large.

After he journeyed home and cleaned up, Karl would enter his 'real world'. If Plato was said to have his head stuck in the clouds, Karl could be said to have his in the computer.

Everquest had a reputation for being addictive, ever since he was 13 Karl had played this game. A massive multiplayer online role-playing game where (previously) thousands would play online together, it was the original, though popularity had waned of late. It had become such an important part of life, sometimes the everyday world of experience with it's fake smiles and formalities seemed to Karl like the game.



Comfort. The massive cushioned chair called to him amidst the immaculately cleaned game space. This corner of Karl's room was holy to him in the proper sense of the word. It was 'set apart' , it was the last safe place on earth, the balance that kept life all together. Once Karl even noticed that occasionally he would silently shed a tear of joy as he sat down and deeply exhaled all of the day's issues. He had a mini zen garden and everything for loading times and logins.

As he logged on at quarter to one, he was reunited to his friends. From Seattle to Memphis to Glasgow, Karl had his online fellow raiders. It didn't matter that they had everything they wanted in-game. It didn't matter that hardly anyone played anymore, nothing mattered but their companionship. The voices of these people, the jokes and personalities, the community they had was real. Even if their characters weren't.

After the hours of laughter, sometimes serious conversation, and alot of silent space filled only with the occasional sound effect or sigh of a friend, Karl would log off. Stumbling next to his bedside shrine, he would mumble through the Rosary in Latin, make the signum crucis (Sign of the Cross), and gaze one last time at the icon of Mary before blowing out the candle and passing out in bed.

In lecture once Karl had heard that Bishop Berkeley said that it was more important for Heaven to exist, than for us to be there. Thinking back on it later, he felt his online home was much the same as Berkeley's Heaven. As long as it remained, the foundation of life could not be moved. Even in the darkest hours of work, or the lonely dinners with his elderly warden.

***

But obviously since Karl found himself with 2 packed suitcases and a passport in his trembling hands, the foundation had moved.

Twelve days before the incident in the parking lot, the proverbial Krakatoa occurred for Karl. Sony had declared that they had gone bankrupt, and as a result their games would be offline - possibly indefinately. There were many tears and angry complaints among the guild. Genuine fear gripped these people. After all, their particular gaming group or guild (cleverly called 'zeno's zealots' - it was a philosophy joke Karl had made up) had been around for almost 5 years, and many had been playing -like Karl- for over a decade.

One of the guys in the group had a large house in Virginia, and he promised he'd be able to make his own private local server. If we could all get to his place, we could all play together and things would be just like old times. The strange thing was, none of them knew each other 'irl' (in real life), but the offer still stood, for any willing to brave the trek.

It only took 5 days for Karl to finally crack, it was decided, he would go to meet his guild. When your life falls apart, you have to begin to piece it together somewhere. Karl didn't know about philosophy, or family, but he did know one thing he couldn't live without, his community.

"We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend." - Robert Louis Stevenson