With This VR Feature You Will Stop Punching Children! (and the Cat)

With this VR Feature, You will Stop

Punching Children! (and the Cat)

For a month’s worth of rent, I moseyed from my living room

Straight into the metaverse

and not yet having the wherewithal to simultaneously exist

in two places at once

vomited

immediately.

There’s a no refund policy, save for a second

sampling of last night’s meatloaf—

that I’ve resorted

to googling

‘how to get rid of VR sickness”

and asked the cashier at the local grocer

if they sell Dramamine in bulk,

“Going on a cruise?” was all

She said, oh and also,

“why don’t you try

the crystallized ginger?”

I purchased a five pound bag

of organic, dried mango

because I mistook one for the other

and am now

teeter-tottering

across the living room again

like a dog

whose lost the horizon line

Chewing furiously

on the not-ginger-but-actually-mango foot sole,

my whole body toppling mouth first

towards the Keurig in the corner

because I’d strapped the weight

of an additional human head to my own—

The VR goggles

jut outward from my suborbital ridge

in an unattractive call back

to the neanderthal

(were they human-robot hybrids

like Cher or the Terminator).

Swinging my arms wildly

as if I were an air traffic controller

amidst a standing-seizure

I slice through red and blue cubes

volleying towards me at inhuman speeds—

and while inside a vortex

of flashing lights

and generic electronic dance music

cold-cock

the cat

right off her climbing tree.

She broke the sound barrier

the Fourth Wall

and now is in limbo between the astral plane

and an adjacent dimension comprised solely of shrimp.

naturally

I shell out $79.95 for the latest

Object Awareness update

where I am alerted of moving targets

mostly children and cats

entering my field of play

by way of a numbing shock

to the face.

A pleasantly aloof voice

Eerily similar to the AI robot Sophia, says,

“ALERT! OBSTACLE DETECTED,

PROCEED WITH CAUTION,”

However, she does not account

for stationary objects

and suggests I purchase

a set of floral printed coasters from Etsy

before hacking the headset

so as to intermittently send

subliminal messages via Beat Saber

to reroute my consciousness

I haven’t deciphered any as of yet I did however

lose my damage deposit

after putting the left half

of my body

Through the drywall

attempting Camilla’s Spin Eternally on expert+

and still have not figured the mechanics

behind explaining

scuff marks on the ceiling

to the landlord

Else I blame Lionel Richie for suggesting

I could dance there

Despite his omitting the cause for such a suggestion

was perhaps, from firsthand experience

with an exorcism

Gravity doesn’t allow for such an inversion

Also the ceilings in my apartment are a foot lower

than the standard

and my range of motion exceptionally

inhibited by the smallness of the room.

The downstairs neighbor replies daily

to the creaking floor

with a broom handle

cheering me on with her aggressively rhythmed

thudding

I enthusiastically stomp back

as if to say, I’m only 100,000 points

from the high score—

“ERROR, UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT PRESENT,”

Sophia says, interrupting the headset’s feed

with a glowing pink mass, resembling the cat,

who's still hovering

nonchalantly, in and out

of the astral plane

the outline of her tail

a floating

question

mark

on

my

screen, twitching mechanically—

“Ignore obstacle,” I say, much too loudly

for being alone,

and wave the notification away

and the cat,

who spirals across the room and disappears

into the ether, while Sophia announces

in a monotonously chipper tone,

“YOU ARE CLEAR OF THE OBSTACLE,

YOU MAY RESUME GAME PLAY NOW.”

And my neighbor

brooms her ceiling again

because she must know

I’m about to crest 800,000 points,

despite the slightly annoying

flap of dried mango

wedged between my teeth.