BadWrongFun

In what [he] says (...) there is a lot of truth. Truth is cynicism's camouflage.

Perhaps, this, too can be a purpose. To consider oneself as the embodiment of truth. To walk through the digital landscape as truth's proud herald, disdainfully flicking the dirt of people's faults from one's shiny white robes. To suffer for truth and to mark out the false.

And all for one reason.

The inability to love people.

I look at this world, and I find comical the boys sharpening their pixel swords, learning elvish and trading emptiness. But this is not quite the same thing... One needs to take just one more step. A small, a very small step - further along. Towards dislike.

The mysterious Starcrossed, the stupid young hobbit, Vicky the virtual prostitute, the market trader, the minstrel with his guitar, Roma the furry, the Anonymous Man...

All of them.

It's so easy - they are all full of their faults. Each of them can make you angry; each of them can inspire contempt. No, that's not quite it.... Not anger, but simply - dislike.

I feel as though I am opening a narrow door to peer into another world. A white, sterile world, frozen to absolute zero. Dead and clean as a CPU.

"Vicky", I whisper. "Vicky..."

Why are we bothering with this rescue mission at all? What purpose does this long and tedious process serve?

"Vicky..."

She looks into my eyes - and I see her beneath the elf's likeness, the golden curls and the pale, aristocratic face.

Ordinary, real.

My Vicky.

The one that needs no explanations.

"Say 'I love'", she says.

I shake my head; I cannot - I am still there, in the white coldness of mocking truth. Truth and love - they are incompatible.

"Say 'I love'", Vicky repeats. "You can do it."

I make a choice.

"I love", I whisper, barely audible.

"Friends and enemies..."

"Friends and enemies...", I repeat.

"And I love you", Vicky says.

A fine city, Lorien.

No-one laughs at the human and elf that hug each other by the city gate.

--SergeiLukjanenko, "Labyrinth of Reflections", 1996