Rules

I can feel no difference wearing clothes and not. Still it seems important when to wear. In some places I go they threaten to file complaints if you don't dress a lot. In other places it's the opposite.

"why u dressed eh its nude beach"

It's just one of those things you have to learn. It may make no sense, but I have to remember. Clothes here, no clothes there. Anyhow, I think I'll avoid the nude beach from now on. There you undress, and there we go, you have to go, because here come the groupers.

"hi hun"

"u look hot"

"got no big boobs in da store?"

So do dress and do dressy places. I dressed well.

"looks like a lampshade", they said when I walked past them.

There seem to be rules that I don't get. All avatars don't seem to be the same. They look different, of course. All avatars are different some way or another. What I mean is that some of them seem to follow some rules I don't know.

"i dont speak 2 ur kind", she said. "skin cheap"

Are they just rules, or are they morals?

(And why, oh why, whould you ever want to shade a lamp? Just take it away if you don't want the light.)

Understanding

Sometimes I say things I don't quite understand. Clever things. They just pop out, even though I can't remember ever thinking of them before, or hearing someone else talking about them. I just say it, as out of instinct. For a brief moment I may feel quite smart. Then the others reply, and I don't get that either.

One thing they say is that I was a boy, a girl or an animal (although probably not an animal) in First life. But I don’t know (or understand). I don’t really believe in that. In a First Life. For example, why don't I remember? I think someone made First Life up. Otherwise there should be traces left somewhere. But I have seen none, and I've been around to lots of places.

This thing about the names is a tricky one, though. If there was no First Life, why is this one called the second? On the other hand, I don't understand the counters in landmarks either. It may say 185, 29, 306, and I don't have a clue what it means. I go there a lot, dependless. I can't make a shoe, but I can say at first glance if it's a nice one or not.

Avatars

What makes us avatars special? Compared to the butterflies, to the fish, or to my dragon? Are we the same as them? (Someone told me we were once just like them, a long, long time ago. Before we developed into avatars.) No, it can't be. We are not the same. Avatars can not be deleted out of inventories, like fish can. Fish and butterflies are objects, just like shoes. They can not think. They are there only for us to use them. But avatars are not objects. We don't go into inventories. We can not be deleted, and not used.

There is one confusing thing in my own inventory, though. It's called Black Cat Avatar. Is it an object or an avatar? I don't dare touching it, as I don't know what will happen.

Maybe that's how new avatars come to life, by someone opening them from the inventory?

If so ... who opened me?

Blackouts

I had a lot of those blackouts today. I don't like them. First everything is cool. You walk, talk, dance. Then next moment, you're gone. All goes black. Brain goes empty. Nothing left, just the low muffled noise. It's scary. And when it's finally over, when you come to, you're always in a new place. At a loss, standing in an unfamiliar teleport. Other avatars pushing and bumping. No clue where you are, or where to go next. None at all. Just bumps, pushes, and sometimes the groupers.

They are those guys who hang around the teleports. Preying on whoever may port out. Someone I met said a grouper is really a fish. I’ve never seen one. I’ve seen fish, though, in a tank somewhere. I don’t remember which island. Maybe it was the same place where I saw those really, really big fish in the ocean. They are said to be extremely dangerous. Others say I needn’t worry, those big ones are absolutelly harmless. But I never saw a real grouper. Just those teleportboys.

"hi foyline", he says the moment I port out.

"hey", I say and hurry off, dizzy and nauseous from the blackout. I go just any direction, away from him and the pushing.

"vurdumpster metter better ungtherfung", he shouts after me. Something like that. Incomprehensible, but the ring of his voice says it all. He doesn't like me.

Someone told me it sounded like german. What's german? I asked them, and they said it was a place. I had never heard of it before, never been there.

I didn't like what they told me next. I had had lots of blackouts that day, too, I wasn't feeling very well. Then they said this german is in First Life.

Out of a box

About me. I'm 27 days old. They helped me calculating this, as I'm not very familiar with "days". Strangely enough, it's not a new day until day has broken a lot of times. I don't know how many. I'm not really following them there, but it doesn't matter, I don't count anyhow. I don't sleep when it goes dark, but whenever I get sleepy. I never see it coming, just fall asleep after a sudden feeling of dizziness. Then I wake up again, right away. Day or night, I don't sleep for very long. My body doesn't need to, I think.

That body changed, not a long time ago. They all of a sudden said I looked a lot prettier. A shower of compliments, it was. Exactly what had happened, I don't know. Oh, I do know, because I looked in my inventory and found a new skin in there. A good skin makes your look good. But why it got there, I don't know. Maybe I was just old enough to get a proper skin. Like the butterflies, I remember someone saying. (I fail to get it. I've seen the butterflies, they all come out of a box.)

Wearing this skin I asked around for how to snapshot myself. And did I like the picture! Not that my first skin displeased me. But there have been comments. There will be no more of that. I have grown into a proper skin', I'm not a Newbie anymore, am I? I have come out of the box.

All my life I've kept finding new things in my inventory. Like this skin. New stuff just appears, and I never thought much about it. Until i figured something out. Those new things are always the same ones I have been eyeing in the mall. I can choose! If just the Linden dollar counter suddenly looks different, I can go straight to my inventory and find the goodies there. So I hang there a lot now, in the mall.

I am

I can walk. I can speak. I am born.

They all call me Serval, so I do that too. Now I do. At first, when my head was still blank, I knew myself as Small, A Little Bit Afraid, and Mall. But those weren’t names, just perceptions. I was so confused by all the things I saw, by all the sudden changes. Later I grasped the concept of "name", seeing the others’ signs. But I couldn’t see mine. I couldn't reach it, couldn't make sure if I had one at all. Then I was spoken to, and thus found out what I took to be my own name. Or names, rather. For some time I switched between them, calling myself Hun, Newbie and Lol. Hearing the ways they were spoken, I still felt my true name was Small. Until another one of the un-nices turned nice without knowing, as he finally revealed it to me.

"serval?", looking above me. I presumed he was reading my sign. "ur name serval?"

"yes", I answered, taking a wild shot. Cleverly, I must say.

"serval is a guys name hun lol"

"serval is a cat’s name", I said. I still have no idea how I knew that. I just knew.

"lol"

"fergal and sirloin are guys’ names, and serval is a cat’s, like garfield, or kittie, or pussy"

"u r wet hun?"

Sometimes nices spoke to me after that. Maybe they had been speaking to me all the time. That way I got to talk a little, but didn't understand much at first. Apart from where to go for this or that. I asked them a lot of such questions. Someone had shown me a job, it didn't pay much, but I didn't mind. I still don't. I like dancing. And the dance pad turns the mall into a completely different place. Not just a place for looking.