A Story

A Story

It was so real. I was told that the virtual reality system would be but never believed that I would be so entranced within it. 

It started as just a simple day in the forest. There I was walking amongst the trees enjoying both the sights and sounds around me. And then she appeared. Standing slightly bent over from age, with long streaked gray hair, hobbling toward me, using a cane for stability. Despite the frail stature, I could see a strong life force within. She stopped and said nothing. 

I tried to engage her in conversation but she remained mute, only pointing to a bare space in the woods. As she ambled in that direction, I followed. We arrived at a square patch of dead ground, fallen leaves hid a wooden door in the ground. She opened the door and I followed her down a set of steps until we arrived at a room filled with pictures. The pictures were of me. Pictures from my youth to the present day. And in each one, she was there hidden behind me, watching over me and following everything I did. 

I tried to ask her who she was, and what all the pictures meant but got no reply; Only her finger pointing again, directing me to a table and chair. On the table, there was a notebook and a pen. I sat down and opened up the notebook and read its contents. It was all of the writing I had done in my life. My research, my creative thoughts, my memoirs. Everything. And yet the notebook still had lots of pages yet unfilled. 

I looked at her; her eyes glistened as she smiled and said, “I’ll always be with you. Now write.”

My time had run out. The scene before me went blank and I was back in the empty VR room. I paid my fee, went home and sat down at my writing desk knowing that my muse was there and wrote.