Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross Page A

and it’s not you
. We make that part super art-driven interactive. It takes the same degree of forethought to generate your avatar as Spore. So you go online with a headset like Halo. And now you’re in thegaming realm, this vast space, like a carnival or a giant nightclub or Bourbon Street a hundred years from now but as brilliantly colored as a pinball machine, avatars everywhere, at different stations or fields, having competitions you can watch and cheer, everything you say and do part of the ambient noise. You can communicate with your opponents in real time, introduce yourself and make chitchat or challenge anyone there to these games. And you could play, say, Scrabble or Battleship or chess or have a race in an Escher X obstacle course or play Bang, You’re Dead! … whatever. We could fold
all
of Spellbound’s games into this world—an Aegis concept, Disney without end, new competitions and games in perpetuity. And when you play—and this is the thing—you see both the other player
and
yourself. Split screen. We’re third-person omniscient
and
limited. Which is part of the draw, you see. Because you
want
to see yourself in the world—right?—but also with others. You
always
want that view. And even better, after you play this stranger, you can get to know this other him-not-him or her-not-her in this virtual space. He or she becomes your Playworld friend. Which is the draw, the most basic beauty of online anonymity. You can say
anything
you want to
anyone
. Be somebody else or yourself. It’s the ultimate form of directness.”
    She was leaning so far forward it was like she was telling a secret. He leaned forward too.
    “I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I feel like we walk around all the time with this other self who wants to say things and do things but can’t. So let’s
play
, you know? Like if I said to you now, ‘I like you, David. I like the way you look. I like the operations of your mind, how talented you are. I like your hands and mouth.’ But I can’t say that.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because if I did, we wouldn’t be playing a game.”
    After David returned to the office, he called the apartment immediately, but Alice didn’t answer. He tried her again half an hour later, and when she still didn’t answer he slammed down the phone. He stayed late, frustrated, but by evening he had softened. Heading home from work, he bought her flowers, fresh pasta, and some low-fat ice cream. At the apartment, he rang the doorbell even though he had his key. As her footsteps grew louder, he dreamed of a warm hug of welcome, a reconciliation, perhaps. He held the bouquet out before him but rather than open the door Alice simply pulled it ajar, so to keep it from closing David had to stick his foot in the jamb. When he went inside, Alice was walking down the hall away from him. Hestood in the foyer, speechless, and for the first time since she’d come home from the hospital he was angry with her. He went into the kitchen, put down his bag, and it was then that he noticed all the lights were off in the apartment. “Is energy conservation part of changing your life too?” he called out. He took off his coat and threw it on the chair and walked around turning on the lights switch by switch and lamp by lamp until he came upon Alice in the bedroom, sitting on the bed, laptop on her lap, her face lit corpse white by the screen.
    David waited.
    “I’m working,” she said.
    He looked around the dark room, at the reflection of her torso in the window, floating on the glimmering city. “Is that all?” he asked.
    “What do you mean?” she said.
    “No, ‘How was your day?’ ‘How are you?’ ‘What’s going on?’”
    “How was your day?” Alice said. “How are you? What’s going on?”
    He flipped on the bedside light. “You’ll go blind,” he said, and forced a smile.
    “Hardly.” She went back to work.
    He stood there for a long time, until it was clear she’d just continue