towards me with the grace of a ballerina and the joy shining upon his face like pure sunshine:
“Amazing feeling, isn’t it? You just slide, let the universe work its marvel on you. And you say your people lack imagination. Skates, man!”
I did a triple tall-loop with very little effort and landed right behind him, mocking his flamboyant manner, shouting or rather bellowing “Skates, woohoo!” and then jumping up and down like a monkey, making a complete ass of my projected conscious self.
Yar then grinned and stopped the skates. The backdrop of the icy lake in the night flipped a page, literally, and turned into a large park in autumn. Dogs barking in the distance, people jogging, having strolls and pick-nicks. Children’s voices could be heard. It was an entirely human picture, something swept out of my own mind with painstaking detail and vivid feeling. It felt, and was, as right and real. Yar sounded weird, a bit worried:
“Are you OK?”
I think I laughed harder than ever, even more so thinking that no one could hear me out there.
“What kind of a question is that? All this started because I was in a mental institution.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to talk to you about. Maybe, at some point, we should have built up more of a rapprochement. Maybe, I should have been more candid, know what I mean?”
A flight of ducks passed overhead and caught my eye. I stretched my neck so I could follow them, before I replied:
“No, I really don’t. Is this some weird philosophical game you’re trying to play on me?”
“I’m afraid it’s not a game. Not any sort of game any of us should have taken pleasure in.”
“Is this something like a strange moment of revelation? Are you going to talk to me about Yar’s earlier days?”
I grinned with all the ironic pleasure I still felt was my right in that place.
“You could put a twist like that on it if you’d like, but that wouldn’t be straightforward enough. Let me ask you an important question? What’s your name?”
I furrowed my brow, and looked puzzled at Yar’s obscured and unclear face. Or where one would expect a face.
“What do you mean? Name’s not important here, it’s not something you or I need. It’s not something that matters.”
“What’s your name?”
“Why does it matter to you know? You know my name! You’re in my head all the time! It’s me!”
“Who are you? Do you remember your name? Do you know it?”
“For crying out loud! Of course I remember my name!”
And then I turned to look at the ducks flying towards the south, and as my head swirled this way and that, I could not tell what my name was. It had never occurred to me before that I would forget something like that. My silence was Yar’s cue:
“It’s Ray. Ray Barry. There’s no point going on about this forever, so I’ll just be frank with you, now that there’s little else to do. You were institutionalized in 2019. In 2027 your family gave consent for an experimental treatment based on chemically induced coma and virtual synaptic environments. I’m Dr. Vishnaputna Ariamsendrakhar, and I’m deeply sorry to inform you that the program’s funding has been cut. You are going to wake up to the real world soon, Ray. And frankly, I don’t know what you’ll make of it, or all this that you have been dreaming. Part of which I have tried to influence. Frankly though Ray, we weren’t making much of a progress.”
I tried to speak, but no words came out of my mouth. I then turned the scenery into the frozen lake I had seen before, and I put on my skates. Yar, or the doctor, had spoken the truth. I knew that, Yar always told the truth. As I paced myself around the lake, I kept talking, and he kept answering:
“So, you’re not an alien? Not some God-like being of immense knowledge?”
“No, Ray. I’m a neurosurgeon, with PhDs in neurobiology, cybernetics and applied nano-engineering.”
I made a figure-8 before being genuinely impressed.
“Wow,” I said, and it did sound impressive. I began to feel lighter by the minute.
“So, I’ve been imagining all those things, like the Plume, and Yar, and the labs and the science stuff?”
“Well to put it plainly, yes. We’ve had some VR sessions while in the coma: That was members of my team taking interviews and generally trying to work things out in your head, with your help. It was supposed to revolutionalise psychiatric analysis and treatment of mental patients. Sadly it fell a bit short.”
A made a spin in the air and landed powerfully, shedding some of the thin ice shards on Yar, who seemed to be floating right beside me.
“And, none of this is or was real? It’s all in my head?”
“Yes, Ray. We actually found out the hard way it was pretty impossible to not let you imagine things. All in all, the project was a failure but we gained some remarkable insights into the human psyche. Things we could only, literally, dream of.”
And then I tugged at him and brought him down as I slipped and crashed into the ice, our bodies silently submerging into the ice cold water beneath. I asked him with all my might:
“Am I really insane then, doctor? None of this is real, the world’s as fucked up as I am, and I’m mad, right? Doctor?”
“Technically speaking, I’m afraid so, Ray.”
As I drowned in my mind, I could feel the same cold down my spine, only this time I kept shouting for the last time that no-one could hear me:
“Thank God, I’m only crazy!”
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