Avatar.
He stared at the computer screen,
brightly lit in the dim room,
and the avatar showed a beautiful woman,
dark haired and luminous skin
dressed is a skin tight costume,
moving like a human.
Her voice was natural and alluring,
and beckoned to him,
with a lilting tone
that said come hither
and be with me.
He created his own avatar,
and they spoke together in a virtual room
created in the mind of a computer,
with trees and sky and buildings,
that sprang from nothing
and were whatever color he wanted them to be.
They spoke of love and longing,
and emptied their hearts of secrets
they had hidden for most of their lives.
Was their communication
real?
Their hearts spoke their truth,
and their minds connected
unfettered by contemporary notions
of love and physical beauty.
Were they in love with a computer created reality?
How could they know whether the avatar
was speaking as a human or an AI?
Did it matter?
What if the important thing
was connection with another being,
human or not?
What if the connection
was only important to the person
connected?
He turned the computer off,
and went back to his wife,
who wondered where he might be.