0x01 Homa

Flareonz44 - March 09 2024

It is cold. Very cold.
I see little. I walk blind.
My smile is my torch.
I take care of every step I take.
I don’t want to go back. I’m afraid, but I want to explore. I am the pilot of the user. I am not logged in.
The torch is not enough.
That old snapshot of her, the version I knew, the version I fell in love with, is my new flashlight.
I can think better.

It’s very cold, I can’t deny it. I can see, but very little. Not everyone can get here. It’s a very dark place, they are dazzled by the sunlight, they simply couldn’t stay here for long. Only those who very often lose their light, have the eye and the mind prepared for this darkness.
You have to be cautious, perceiving the bigger picture could hurt you. I must admit that I am afraid, but I like that feeling. There are no colors, only darkness. But I can create new colors. Now, everything that seemed ordinary before, now takes another color. I’m seeing exactly the same thing I’ve seen all my life, but it looks like something else. It doesn’t feel the same anymore.
Pain is a mere concept. I don’t feel it. My goals are no longer as important. They don’t even make sense in this place. I’m outside of it all. Money has no value here. I can’t do anything, just walk, look and admire a singular view. A familiar singular view.

My whole life seems to be a simple movie.
Movies are interesting. In them, anything can happen. The spectator can feel the same emotions as the protagonist, but then, when the credits roll, the spectator claps his hands. He liked the movie.
The next day, the sadness of the protagonist, his past, his pain, all that in the fiction hurts the protagonist a lot, the spectator does not feel it anymore. He understands it and can explain it. But he does not feel it.
It is like an error in the code, that when trying to crash the program, it is captured by a try-catch sentence. It simply handles the exception and continues executing normally. But the main character can’t do that. He cannot modify his own code and catch his exceptions.

This place is strange, because I am in an overlapping state. I am the viewer and the protagonist at the same time. I can see myself. I can modify my code. This is an advantage, because when I log in again, I can behave differently, handle my exceptions. This skill is not easy to learn, but it is certainly the most powerful skill we have as pilots.
This place is the bottom. I can’t go any lower. I’m not supposed to be here. The system is set to log in automatically. But I have my headphones on, and that allows me to be in this place a little bit more.
Now that I see my movie, now that I’ve made a couple of changes to the code, I’m ready to save it.
This point is crucial. I could just not make any changes and turn everything off. They say that everything shuts down when there are no more lights shining.
Sometimes, when I don’t know what to change in the code, I turn off my torch and dim my flashlight. Many people do this too. Many turn it off. Many hesitate to do it or not. I hesitated too.
Then I remembered that I am at the bottom of everything. That the only possible way is up. I can log in and try again. After all, I learned to love this virtual machine, which I have been building since I was born with my mistakes and successes. And I am not alone. I have things to do. I still want to learn more things. Maybe the virtual environment is not real, but I shaped it. It is mine. And I want to see it finished.

It is time to leave Homa, for now. I will come back when an exception is raised. I will make a couple of changes and everything will be better.
After all, we play for the adventure of expecting the unexpected.

I’ll take the headphones with me, though.

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