Miranda

OUT NOW Dione the new virtual reality system. The huge billboard poster flickered with

the only advert holographic projection . The streets were dark, but the advert illuminated like a

candle making it the centre of attraction as though it was the essence of existence, but for the

majority it had become.

‘Wow that looks amazing, I have to get it, it’s better than the Miranda system which came out

last year’. Said my brother walking with me down the street, drawn to it like a mosquito to the

light.

He was addicted about getting a new headset every year. He was actually putting the Miranda

system on as we spoke, going to the Prehistoric age, immersing himself in another world.

Everyone was wearing one, but I didn’t.

  This was my world, the future, a world of virtual reality. Headsets in every home, laying on the

coffee table instead of books which were no longer existing. No one read anymore. They were a

way of escaping the actual reality of the world, where employment was low and people would

now use the reallity system as a way of escape instead of alcohol or recreational drugs.

   ‘These dinosaurs look incredible, there is a Diplodocus, it’s eating some vegetation’ as he

pointed in the direction of a house, but he was walking in his world. ‘ There is a so much beauty

here, it’s amazing, you should get one Ceres, you are so dull because you don’t have one’. But I

didn’t want one, I didn’t see the point of escaping to another world, but Colton didn’t understand

that.

‘Colton I’d rather read books’. I said frustrated with the same conversation.

‘Who does that Ceres? Books….!!!!! I mean that is so lame and what is the point of doing that?

People think you are weird and odd, you know’, as he turned his head up and down, left and

right. I thought he was the one who looked stupid wearing a headset on his face. People didn’t

talk to each other directly, they were always playing the game.

 As we walked down the street, people everywhere had a Miranda and were in a world of their

reality. There were many world’s that you could access: Prehistoric, Theme park, Roman, and

Age Ice were some of the few. You could immerse into another reality, touching, feeling and

exploring places that were not actually real, but a way of detering from the dark, miserable world

that was our present.

  Our present existed of houses that were derelict, streets dirty, and joblessness was high, as

technology was making new technology with these virtual reality systems. People didn’t have a

future or hope, as there was none, just mundanity. So the games were a form of escapism.  

  Colton didn’t have a job, there were no work anymore. So I understood his need to run away

into another world. Sometimes I felt that way, but I read books which I had often found in trash or

thrown away in the fields by people that I kept. I held them close during the night when I could

hear people wandering the streets wearing their headsets. The Miranda was used twenty four

hours a day. Often you found corpses in fields or streets, people died wearing the system due to

their addiction forgetting to eat their rations from the government. They would simply decay or

rot in the place, as the headset remained as no one bothered to collect them or give them a

burial.

‘Dione, Dione’ said some kids as they ran down the streets wearing the Miranda, I could no

longer see people’s faces, or their eyes. Just a void of a black headset covering them like a

mask from life and soul. They were dressed in rags as I was, smelling of randid dirt as

everything had a fixed allowance: food, water, education and medical supplies.

I could no remember actually looking at anyone directly into their eyes, contact was made via

Miranda, by other users connecting with their virtual self who was often strong, sexy or rich

unlike their reality which was poor, destitute and malnutritioned. I had made no contact with

people for a long time, as I had no Miranda so would often be walked past by strangers

wearing it. Colton only spoke to me as he was my only form of human contact even though

immersed into the games himself.

   ‘Ceres I am meeting so many friends in this world of Prehistoric age, there are so many

people in this world, and talking to them is amazing’.

He was chatting to them I could hear, as he was walking with me to our home that was a

squalor. I could not tell he was talking to me or other people. It was only when he used my name

I would know.

I felt lonely it my own world, facing headsets down the road, and looking around at

the dark, dingy, dirty streets. I was tired of reading books and making no contact with other

human life, only through reading tatty paper’s that I found unnoticed by other people.

  Colton still wore his headset even though we had reached home, the headsets had a tracking

device, but which people move in and out around objects in the real world. It also had a device to

aid you going home if you needed to. But home was not a pleasant place to be. Our house, had

tatty furniture, dust, cobwebs, scare food in the fridges. All technology and money was spent on

the devices to entertain instead of develop people or provide subsistence. So devices were

used as a daily practice, some would not even sleep during the night. Colton would wear his

during the night often only to take it off when the new adverts were charged into the headset as a

way of publishing the next game.

I could not sleep during the night, no one hardly slept only with Miranda. The dampness and cold

were running through our home like stream train in one direction through our bones and body.

The Miranda system was the only device which actually had heating, therefore you were warm

during the night wearing it and Colton would be relaxed wearing it, as it would become soft to aid

you when you were laying down. The Miranda system had so many features that aided

addiction, but it was seen as a way of life rather than dependence. The government didn’t care

about us only the Miranda system as a way of controlling us and what little money we had

through donations of our blood.

‘Ceres you have to get one, the new Dione system will let you help you a partner to find or

friends, you are so lonely, I am going to get friends and find eventually even find someone’.

 That’s when I knew, that Colton was no longer going to be speaking to me, he would eventually

find another virtual reality partner, someone who he had the same interests in, not me reading

my books. A tear fell down my cheek onto the wooden flooring. I was tired of being the only

person without a headset, without heating, only reading and lonely. Colton would no longer talk to

me and I would be simply left roaming the streets alone. I knew that I had to get one, it was the

only way.

‘Colton…... ‘ I said trying not to sniff and show that I had been crying. ‘You are right, I will get

the new Dione system when it comes out’.

‘Good’ he said as he turned his head away and completely submerged into his reality, I knew

that was the last time that Colton would speak to me again as he was now a part of the gaming

reality, as that so was I.