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.

.rickthinking