Lem opened her eyes. It felt odd to see that smart fragile and young body to which she was attached by tinny bit cords. She went around light, thoughtful for the new world unfolding ahead. Felt great to live in a free of garbage world. She laughed at herself for such an ordinary thought – no cleaning, no cooking, no eating - none of those earthly tasks that had always stolen her from herself. “Is that a cat you are holding?” A white little cat attached to her right hand had been making her feel less forsaken. Wisely, she did not pay attention to the appearance of that soul talking to her. Little it can say about the one behind the pixels. More than anything, it was time for learning. To move arms and legs, to change clothes, to design a nose, to change colors, clothes and body parts. Steph and Lem had nothing but words bridging an ocean between them. And yet, in that world, the words acquired the power of affecting the ones choosing, weighing and typing each one of them. How come the muscles around her mouth could smile back to those pixels before her? But she did so. Those two pixels beings ended up the night side by side, watching the big moon in front of them, really wishing they could hug each other.

The telephone rang. She closed her eyes and was surprised to see the sound of her voice replacing her written chatting. “Yes, I am home.” “Can I come over?” Ren came in through the door to find her in the kitchen, fighting against the tomatoes she would rather not cut, neither eat. Ren had heard from a common friend that she was moving away soon. “I envy you. Finally you are going to have all you always wanted.” Yeah… she was moving to a house by the beach. Finally she was going to have a window, framing the sea, echoing the sounds of the waves. She thought that, but did not share it with Ren. This is a sort of ticket out ritual that, hopefully, would free her from being stuck before thousands of empty pages. Ren approached her, still at the kitchen sink with those meaningless tomatoes. “I’ll miss you.” She turned back already feeling his proximity. She could look straight into his eyes and smile. “Will you?” She went back to those damn tomatoes. “I never thought I would hear that from you.” She sat at the table with her dish of lettuce, tomatoes and fried nuggets. Mila, her baby cat, came fast to sit on her lap, hoping there would be some for her too. Ren came closer. “There are many things I would like to talk to you before you move.” “I know that. In two weeks I must be gone for a few days and then I come back to get my stuff. Can we talk then? I am not feeling well tonight.” He left disappointed. She closed the door behind him with a sense of relief. She did not want to talk. At least, she did not want to talk to him, neither do that using her voice. She held her baby cat in her arms, sliding her fingers through her fluffy fur, wishing under her fingers were not fur but hair. She turned her eyes to the window, throwing her sight far away in the night, far away in the infinite distance where her fingers would rather be. All she found was the full moon, hanging there so quiet. Powerful satellite as it could shed its light over both lost souls an ocean apart. She went to bed early. Over the pillow a head filled with fantasies. She went over all they had been through together. Their chatting, the many times he said he was in love. The silly things they said to each other. Silly things people in love say. Love makes people act as fools and this same foolish behavior is what makes being in love so special.

Eyes opened. Lem could not tell what was making her heart beat fast. Certainly it was not that dummy unexpressive avatar. Maybe it was his name hovering over the screen - the only unique materiality of his presence. Sure it’s not a face, nor a smile, neither the feeling of warm flesh that haunted her in her bath, late in bed, in the traffic, in the few moments she stops working on her texts. What is it that fills her heart with joy and pain? Lem has been more and more disturbed by the poverty of these contacts. No touching against all her desire for it. Words coming and going. Deep feelings driving their eagerness to be together. They have been going on and around those virtual surroundings just to experience and try all sorts of animations, in the useless hope that any of them could really permit them touch and reach each other. Her heart has been squeezed and small. No matter how much love it can bear, still she felt choked and suffocated by the frustrations, the lack of time, the lack of space, the lack of possibilities.

She could hardly keep her eyes closed. It was Ren calling again. She lied, “no, I am not home”. But he knew she would be home. He came in with too much easiness, straight toward her. She could feel his perfume, so familiar that threw her back seven years in the past. The real one smell she would not like to recall. Not that it could be any painful. She searched herself for any feeling there could be left for that man she once loved. Found absolutely nothing. Not love, neither hate. Nothing at all and she got frightened. He looked back at her, with puzzled eyes. She smiled, not at him as he may have guessed, but to the fact that he had no idea of what her heart was filled with. He got closer. He was still the same attractive man, likewise, still unaware of the person behind those brown eyes. No idea he had that the woman in his arms was somewhere else, revolving her feelings toward someone else. Her eyes were physically posed on Ren’s silhouette but her inner sight was away, miles away, posed over the immaterial being of the man she really loved and wanted. He came even closer, close enough to touch her shoulders and pull her against his own body. His arms held her tight. Little he knew about the distance between that defenseless body he had in his arms and the soul no more confined within the limits of what we still know as time and space. Lem was already … else. The tenderness she felt in her lips were not Ren’s. The hands exploring her body, making her shiver belonged to someone else. She was Lem, no one could ever say the contrary.

Life has been asking too much of her. Moving away will be the beginning of a whole new life. Most of all she was treasuring the possibility of being intellectually independent. Being able to go on with her research. Living in a relatively small town with a cultural effervescent life and the sea to refuel her weakened strengh. She was thrilled about the chance she would have to start writing texts different from the academic production. But, she has been thinking about the new routine she will be forced to take. She’s leaving behind old tracks, familiar faces, dear smells and tastes. She will miss the fresh cheese, hot bread and coffee. A new place always imposes new ways to come and go, new faces to greet, new tastes in each meal of the day. It’s not easy to face this little changes but she has learned a lot from the many times she had to move around and got used to replacing details. But then, such a brave girl is now frightened before the new challenges of a touchless, reachless love. It has to be like this. It just has to be this way. Just the one man she thinks she would picture herself with till the end of her life is the one she cannot have. She has been asking herself how come she fell in love with a man so much forbidden to her. That’s not wise, girl… not wise. There she was now… butterflies hovering over her dreams.

Eyes closed, eyes opened. How many times, sitting around the table with friends and a glass of ice gold beer, she felt she was not really there. In those moments, sure her friends had her flesh and bones, sure they had her pupils expand and retreat with the more or less light coming from the window and still she asked herself if she was really there with her friends. She wondered what part of her was to be called real. The flesh and bones her friends had without any idea about the thoughts that really made her skin crawl or without knowing that her soul was many miles away taking with it the reality of her feelings. She had been asking herself where reality stands. Like those 3D films when you sit down on a chair firmly screwed to the floor. Consciously, you know, with most certainty possible, that you are not in that plane that flies freely over the clouds and yet your body reacts as if you were plunging head-first straight to the floor. How come your body refuses to assume you are sitting in a harmless chair attached to the ground. How is it possible that your body takes into itself all the senses and emotions you would have up there, a thousand kilometers off the ground? How to explain the fact that your body recognizes the feelings it would have by just making believe? Can one say that the body is faking feelings when each cell of your body is having sensations? Real life versus virtual life, first against second: which one should hold the tag of real? Such an hierarchy just establishes that: what is 1^st and real gets the priority of being more genuine and the 2^nd, supposedly less important, is tagged as false and fake. It’s just a matter of valuing one more than the other. Just a matter of connecting what is material as real and the ungraspable as false. People say that in this virtual world you can fake yourself. This is too easy to be taken seriously. Lem refuses to think that one can really fake something he/she doesn’t already know. You always do, or pretend to do, something familiar, something you are already.

Eyes opened, eye closed.

She was there, stretched on the white sand beach watching the blue sky lost into the infinite. The full moon shining red and bright resting beautiful in the line of the horizon. Lem closed her eyes and grabbed Steph. His body lied close along to hers. She could feel his warmth, his smell, his touch. She turned herself toward him and touched his chest, feeling it up and down in the rhythm of his respiration. Tenderly, she pulled him against herself. Her hands caressed his muscles, his face, his shoulders and arms. With much care she pulled his head, her lips touching smoothly his lips, sensing the sweetness of the skin, the closeness of his face. That tenderness turned into eagerness and desire. She started breathing faster. She wanted that man more than she has ever wanted any other. She could feel his whole body touching hers. They were just a man and woman in love making their body speak. She finally opened her eyes, sweat and tired. Not a bit of sadness to shadow her eyes. Lem picked up her sandals and walked slowly home. Her heart was serene, as well as her body. Steph had really been there with her, they had really made love to each other and no one could ever say she was not telling the truth.