Crack

I don't really get why Mia is so interested in my love life. Am I interested in hers? No, because there isn't much that would be of interest. There isn't much at all. As far as I know. I may not have gotten all those private details of hers quite right, but what can you expect. This I know: if you have so much time that you can spend it watching us avatars, and do it a lot, then you don't have much of a love life. Because I can see here in SL that those that have partnered don't stick together for very long unless they spend time together. It's bound to be the same for humans. If there were humans.

Funny, I never really thought about humans partnering before. What if they do, and the avatars that they "control" don't like each other, but partner someone else's av? That would be weird, wouldn't it? A bit too weird for me. I think this is yet another crack in the not so very solid Myth of Humans. Ok, I can't explain Mia, and how she got to be so real, but I'm no brain sturgeon, and no pope, I'm not supposed to have all the answers.

Then, about that sheep thing. I never really said I dislike having them in songs. I think that is mainly Mia's hangup. I don't really mind the sheep. I don't like them, and they don't add any to my life. But they are ok. Although pointless. I think I have a sheep in my inventory, but I never use it.

They all keep saying happy new year. Seems to make them, well, happy. And then they talk about how unhappy they will be once the new year has begun. They say there will be headaches, and a big mess to clean at home, like crisps in little pieces in carpets. Why have a new year then, if it's just a problem?

Songs

"dear diary,

it seems like every guy wants to dance with serval. all those she meets and spends some time talking to, anyhow. but she rarely wants to dance with anyone. she has reasons. i gave them to her.

dance guys: out of control (she wants revenge)

it's not my favourite song. not at all. neither are the others below. i played them all to serval. first she said she liked them for not having sheep in them. but then she got my message.

my heart: decades (joy division)

don't disregard these songs, ye young men speaking to serval, hoping to know her more than as yet another avatar dancing in a club, sometimes saying the stupidest things. the same goes for you that may wish to form bonds with her. you'd be fools disregarding. you'd be labouring in vain.

my lust: wild is the wind (david bowie version)

i didn't have birthday parties for my 14th and 15th birthdays. i had sex. i don't know if he thought it an appropriate way to celebrate. maybe he just wanted to remind me who was in charge. as if i'd forget. for the 14th, i had anal sex. i hadn't expected him to come for me that day, so i hadn't prepared. he was never careful. it hurt. but there was no knife, so i wasn't that scared. it just hurt.

the first knife was the third time of them all. for numbers one and two, he had come to me sweet and gentle, although determined, giving me no choice. he said i was a grown-up now, and that he loved me. but next time, the third, after i had told him it must stop, he changed. there were no more words of love. there was the knife instead. there was duct tape, and a stick. when he left me afterwards, i sat on the concrete floor of his barn in nothing but a pool of tears, blood, sweat, sperm and some kind of engine oil that he had used for a lubricant.

he broke me in one swift move. i had no means for defending myself from something like that. his threats on me, and on what he'd do to my little brother should i ever tell, did the rest. he had me. he was 35 something, and a lot bigger than me. i was 13.

he came for me for two years. apart from being rough, careless, he didn't really hurt me much. he slapped me at times, and once cut me. it could probably have been a lot worse. but he did endless damage to my heart. life leaked until i was a living dead, spending all time dreading for him to come, and suffering when he did. i tried to kill myself, i failed, and he kept coming.

and then it just ended, after things had gone way out of hand one night. i was sent to hospital. he was soon searched for by the law.

it wasn't over, though. not for me. returning from the living dead is a long journey, even with professionals helping. so is fighting guilt, self-reproach, self-disgust, and self-a lot of things. i got wrapped up in weird behaviour that i later learnt was an obsessive-compulsive disorder. and even though the bad man was behind bars, all the other men were still out there, and i feared them.

the past has affected my every relationship so far. and through me it follows serval into next life.

i'm not strong. oh, in a way I am, gritting my teeth, fighting scars from bad days every day, and for ever on vigil, to ensure i and my family are left alone, if necessary by doing things i'm scared to do, but they have to be done or i won't be free.

but i'm frail inside. my mood dies from just little things. i cry in bed sometimes, over things happened, over time lost, over what i couldn't do, over what i'll never have. i'm sometimes utterly lonely, which i shouldn't be, don't deserve to be.

the border between my real life and the next one is not much of a border, not to me. one will affect the other. they become part of the same.

please don't play with me lightheartedly, ye young men. if you don't get my point with those songs, then, well, don't ask serval to dance. if you do get it, then you know where we are. it's off my chest. you know what it takes.

mia"

Discretion

Mia is back in my diary! I don't really like her speaking there, because it's mine, but I like hearing from her. And she's not in that low mood any more, it seems.

Having said that, I'd like to object to her analysing me, and displaying the results like some kind of shoes in a mall. Not that she's wrong about me (apart from the bits about me not running the show etc), but I'd appreciate a bit more discretion. It's me, Serval, that has to face the other avatars that listen to the diary, not Mia. I don't think she'd be happy if I was to tell everybody all about her, about those private details that I have figured out (because I'm reasonably clever, too).

The mood thing is good, because when she's ok, I feel fine too. I really felt great yesterday, when I went to that club where all the girls are and danced there again. It was good fun!

Talk

"dear diary,

in real life, well, those around have been talking about me. i guess they wonder why i live in the school, and not in a station like everybody else. and for some reason i don't seem very keen on the sheep that are such a great joy and interest to close to all other humans around. and i don't have a husband and a big bloody kitchen stove. not even a husband? oh dear!

some of those around me say i'm morbidly picky. others call me a tease, who keeps the few guys that i meet dangling and hoping, without ever offering them any fun. still others say i'm a lesbian, because i'm not married and have been seen kissing girls. well, i have. for fun. for the hell of it. for just going wild. oh, i can also feel a lot for them, emotionally, deep. but i don't have much desire sleeping with them. my eyes follow the guys. my fantasies follow them, too. i choose which party to go to from where he, or maybe the other he, will go.

but having one for myself isn't that easy. it takes more than having a beer together in one of the station parties, or hanging the fence together for a while, watching the others feed the sheep.

it takes trust. before he can touch me, before we can end up in the barn. a lot of trust. so it takes time. it may take months. young men don't seem to like waiting that long. especially as this is about all touching, touching at all.

i shy away from touch. oh, i yearn for it, in my dreams, in my fantasies, in my wishes. but for real, his touch, his hand upon me... my heart goes wild from joy... my lower parts go crazy from anticipation, excitement, and pure lust... and the autonomous nerve system, or whichever system it is, still hard-wired from bad days now gone, knows touch to be how rape begins, and sets red lamps flashing, sounds alarms, and rushes me into a panic room where i won't feel, won't be present, won't get more than unavoidlably hurt.

he who has touched me can't possibly understand why i flinch, turn aggressive, or just simply panic. sweet me. a hand. monster me.

i'm no prude. i don't have moral constraints holding me back. i just need to trust. before i do, i can't. my trust can't be forced; he has to earn it. pushing me rather works the opposite way, as it implies some sort of right to have me, and i've had enough of that for a lifetime. he can't talk me over, or cheat the trust by making me feel guilty, by flattering me no end, or by making me feel in debt. the only way is to deserve me trusting him. trusting him. trusting you.

up until that moment of trust, i'm afraid of you.

those guys patient enough, they still seem to expect a gradual development. some touching at first, then more touching, then kissing, naughtier touching, and so forth. like climbing a ladder, step by step, all the way to the goodies on top. but it doesn't work that way. not for me. my ladder has just one step. no trust, don't touch. trust. i'm yours.

that one step is high. it takes time climbing. but when up there, he'll find there are no more steps. he'll just find me, hungry to hurry straight for the barn. i want to, oh, don't i! not that i get many opportunities to. i'm still young. i look nice enough, i'm fit, and i'm reasonably clever and fun. i'm not unseen. but out of those that see, oh so few make the climb. it's no big help being talked about as a sheep-hater, man-hater, man-teaser, or just someone that can't work a stove in a station.

mia"

Should that day come

"dear diary,

serval, it seems, has little interest in sex. she's seen it around, and has heard a lot of talk about it. but it doesn't mean much to her. she can't see what good it would do her, and isn't very interested.

which makes it easy for me to interact with her, because i don't see much point either. there's no touching – or, rather, no feeling the touch – in next world, so sex there isn't for real. to me, it rather seems like playing fantasies. and though some surely find a good thrill in exchanging fantasies in sex chats, and enjoy it a lot, i believe that i can make up oh so much better fantasies for myself in my own head, than someone else can make up for me in his or her head and then convey by chat. fantasies i don't lack. oh no. oooh no.

to me, the thrill of sex in the next life is that you can't have sex. so you can, at least theoretically, have relationships that are exclusively emotional. love unobstructed by carnal desires. exchange of hearts only.

that's in theory. many next life guys still seem to follow their human master program, to conquer and to mount. with that approach, most soon lose interest in serval and in me. after revealing too little of themselves to make me nurse romantic feelings enough to make them stay.

serval doesn't understand love, either, but i bet i can poke her directions and put words in her mouth. should that day come.

mia"

Decisions

"dear diary,

going away for christmas isn't a bad thing, really. shutting down next life for a couple of days does you good. adds some perspective. and gives you a breather. that's when to make your decisions, isn't it, when not busy in the middle of it.

the second world isn't my life. obviously. i survived being away. but it's not just that way. it's the other way round, too. sitting with some distant relatives that i hardly know recently, listening to them, trying to muster some interest in them but failing, i felt next life to be much more for real. my mind wandering off there, thinking of the atmosphere, friends, clubs, places. i missed it a little. and thought about what to do when going there again.

some guys have been interested in serval recently. to varying extent. and because serval and i are a team, it affects me, too. it's a nice thing, though, the interest thing, and at the same time not so nice, because i had been hoping that the next life would open for news ways to think and behave, and that trying things differently would be an obvious choice for many. not least when it comes to relationships, dating, courting and all that. but it seems to work mainly like here in the real world.

strangely, it surprises me a little. it shouldn't.

i didn't come to second world to reflect my first world self. or to reflect something else, either, because that would have been just another aspect of that real world self. i came to the second world without a purpose.

but real me inevitably affects what i do in the second world. serval may think that she's running the show, but really, really, me is in her every move and word.

so i'm just like the others. bringing my normal self, and behaving accordingly.

mia"

Wet

And all of a sudden Mia's there again. Not that I've heard from her. I haven't, not for ages. But she's there again. Sweeping under my skin. Muffling the world and the avatars around. Numbing me. Clutching my hands, my heart. Wet cheeks and a void.

Sensing her this way makes me want to go to sleep, to just go away, away to nowhere. But I can't do that. I can't decide when to sleep. It just happens. And it doesn't happen now. All I can do is just feel her. And wait.

Party

Yes, yes, those untold rules. I was asked to come to this party, and I went, and they said I couldn't wear what I wore to a party, and when I spoke they said I couldn't say that, and when I laughed they said I couldn't because what I was laughing at wasn't fun.

I don't know who they invited when inviting me.

Club

Some of the others asked me to come and dance in their club, and I did, because they are nice and I do like dancing. It's a good one, this club. They call it something like a name with spots in it. The music is nice (there are no devils singing, which I like a lot for a change) and has a lot of bounce and beat in it, which is of course good for dancing. So I did dance, and had a really good time. There were only girls around, and some of them even game me lindens for dancing. That's not bad for partying!

I went back to the club later, when everybody had left and gone home or whatever they did after leaving. Then I found there's a huge bathtub, and a huge lounging area for relaxing. There are pillows and all sorts of things. I like the place! And the name is good, too – I like the "spots" part, being named after a spotted cat.

Rules

I keep breaking rules. Not because I want to, but it just happens. For example, I have been places that had rules against saying the things that I said, which made others want to kick me out. Eject, they call it. That's another one of those words that I don't like the ring of. Eject. Discontinue. Delete. And the other day when I was skinny-dipping in the clear ocean, someone came and said I couldn't. It wasn't allowed. Etc. How am I to know? Especially as there are different rules in different places.

Another kind of rule is even harder, because they aren't even rules. They are what individual avatars think should be rules. Or they may be things that other avatars have made rules for themselves. When you happen to break them, those avatars stop being friendly to you. Or tell you that you should do things a different way. Or start a big discussion to show that they are more clever than you and thus should make up your rules, too.

They don't always say it out clear, but I can often detect those same old religious undertones that I've heard so many times – "the humans want us to do it like this". The humans want us to follow this rule... The humans want...

It's often the same avatars that keep doing this. I don't mind them believing in humans, as long as they don't impose their belief on me, and as long as they don't expect me to follow their untold rules. I am an avatar. What would be the point of me trying to be a human?

SAW final day

And finally, of course, "Serval".

They told me to stop now, because it's been a full week. So, that was all for this year's Serval Art Week. They also said there will be more years, but I don't know if that's true or if they just want me to do this no more.

SAW day 6

"In my image".

At the neat price of two full hands of lindens. That's after the reduction.

SAW day 5

"Love".




(There have been some complaints on Serval Art Week.

The first one is from a school. It says that exhibitions like this one are a source of disappointment to the children, who in this particular case were searching the net for servals. And there are no servals in this exhibition of serval art.

I replied to them I was sorry to hear that. But what I really think is the following. It isn't very clever, is it, to search for cats in a net? Searching for fish would have been reasonable, or searching for avatar girls moving in long steps on a stage in front of avatar guys. But cats are not to be found in nets. Oh, there are the nekos, of course, but you'd be much more likely to find them if searching bright colours and skirts. Now, all this only reinforces my suspicions regarding the mental capacity of children. The schools obviously don't improve it much.

The other complaint said this is not art. Rather, it's an abomination, and should better be discontinued or I'll make an even bigger fool out of myself.

To this I replied that I was ever so sorry to hear that. As an act of goodwill I offered a reduced price. There has been no reply to that yet, but i think it is a good strategy that may work. I wouldn't mind the lindens.)

SAW day 4

"A million".

SAW day 3

And here's "#3".

SAW day 2

Welcome back! This is day 2 in Serval Art Week. Today's exhibit is called "#2".

SAW day 1

Welcome to Serval Art Week! Which is a week of serval art. Today is the first day. Consequently, this is the first piece of art.

Spree

I haven't heard from Mia now for such a long, long time. If I use the fingers of my hands, and set aside one finger for each time I have woken up and gone dancing, hanging, shopping etc since I last heard from her, then there aren't enough fingers. And it's two full hands since I found those messages of hers and spoke them into my diary. I had sort of half expected her to complain about me doing so, but she never did. She hasn't uttered a word.

The good thing is that I don't think she's that sad any more. Rather, I've felt that she wants me to go to the clubs a lot, and go shopping, and do wild things. Or maybe that's just what I'm reading into the mood I can feel. But I don't have that urge to go to dark and quiet places any more. Instead, the clubs, and wherever there is music and other avatars, are calling. To me that's good. I like the clubs, but it's hard enjoying them when I know that Mia has the blues.

I hope she'll talk to me soon and tell me what's up. Then I'll ask her for some more lindens, too, because I seem to be running short. She has used the words 'shopping spree' once or twice in my diary, and I think that may be what happened. I now have new hairs (once again, more than one for each finger). I don't know why, really, or how it happened, but I know I've got them. Those sprees are eerie, aren't they. I got a pair of really expensive big boots, too. And some dresses and tops, too. And almost bought a house.

Serval

You know that servals are cats. I think they looked like most cats in the beginning, but then changed into long legs and a perfect little tail because it looked so good. And those large ears... well, the servals originally didn't get them because of looks only. There's a story behind it, too. It's about this day when the serval met the bat-eared fox.

"lol u got redickuelusslee tienee ears, hun", Bat-Eared Fox said.

"omg, look at yours", said the serval, staring at the enormous ears of the fox.

"deyr goodd!"

"omg"

"eye say whee goe 2 prywate tchat nao", said Bat-Eared Fox.

And only seconds later, Bat-Eared Fox sent the serval an IM:

"dere r 3 nju liejohns come 2 da savannah. eye see dem. dey big mails, dey reely youch n scaree"

"omg :(", the serval replied.

"u cood knead dem earses bigga, soe u'd heer wat da liejohns say n doo from da grayt disdance. eye donn dat, n dis wat dey say:"

"us gonna fuck everee lil pusy in da savannah ere, sayd da firs liejohns"

"lol, say da seckend liejohns"

"rofl, say da thurd liejohns"

"omg", the serval replied.

"yea, dat rofl was scaree. reely scaree"

The serval agreed that Bat-Eared Fox had a good point, and used the Appearance menu to radically change the size of her ears. Then she took a snapshot of herself, and blushed when looking at it, because she had never seen such a weird cat before.

"omg", she said.

But the serval got used to those looks eventually, and from that point she became a good listener. She was really bright, too, btw. And the lions never shagged her.

I think that's a very good story with quite some moral to it. So I don't mind at all being named after the serval.

Combinations

I went to the club dancing, and there was some really good music. And you know what? My flowers tattoo won me the tats event! Yes, flowers beat skulls, devils and flaming hells any day.

But what disturbed me a little was that bunch of avatars, some that I don't know from before. They kept talking, never ever stopping, about how to use hands, heads, horses, asses (but not zebras) and all sorts of strange things and parts of the body in various combinations, to do things to each other, the loving way. Hearing that, I felt quite relieved that I'm still an innocent one. But I'm probably just not clever enough to understand the niceties of equid and kitty cat fusions.

Sanctuary

I went to the Sanctuary Rock to dance and listen to music. It was nice, because I hadn't been there for some time. No, it's not that I have been to the bad girl club instead. There's just not been any time for dancing, thanks to important shopping that had to be done, and because of Mia's everlasting moods. However, I danced and it was fun.

The thing is, there was a newbie that spoke to me, and after saying hullo he made a comment on my age, saying I was more than one year old. I didn't think much about that until later, when I was talking to the DJ in the Sanctuary. Then it hit me, like. I asked DJ how old I am, and I guess that he checked my profile.

"ur 1.5 yrs", he said.

"that's more than one year, is it?" i asked.

"yep"

The truth dawned upon me. I was more than one year old. I had missed...:

"oh, the birthday party...!"

"sure", DJ said.

Then he played some very odd music that no one could dance to, saying I had requested it, and all the other avatars, who wanted to hear devils' voices etc, sighed, shook their heads, and mumbled things that sounded very much like "stupid serval strikes again" etc. I think about half the crowd left the Sanctuary during that song. And those who stayed were the bad ones, staying only because the song was about someone doing things to others with a knife.

I may have to learn how to count. Otherwise, there will be no birthday parties. I don't want to miss them all. The thing is, I don't want to go to a school with the little children, because that would imply that there's something wrong with me. The others already think that.

Lamb

Shopping is said to be good for you when you're not happy, and I told Mia so. She told me to leave her alone, and then, when I didn't, to go and do something, which I didn't. I don't want to lose my innocence that way. Sure, yes, I'm like quite old, at least nowhere close to being a newbie any more, and I'm still as untouched as a little lamb (one that never went to a furries club). The others make fun of me because of that. I don't mind. If it makes them laugh, it's ok. I'd rather they see me as a funny little lamb, or even a stupid little weird idiot lamb, than tell them about those embarrassing times when I've tried getting the allegedly fun and good things going and happening, and when everything has ended in a big mess.

Leaving Mia sulking, I myself went shopping instead, for another top like the one I've got, but red. I got it, a bargain at only one two figures in the price. Now that I have such a good shopping luck, I think I'll keep going. I need some pants, I think. Yes, that too.

Sweet one

Now I have a clue about what's going on with Mia. Well, it's rather more than a clue. There are all these messages that she's spoken. I don't know if she's IM'ed them to someone, or if she meant to have them in my diary (which she keeps speaking into – get your own diary, Mia). But it's clear to me now why she's been making me feel odd, sensing her.

This shatters the popular picture of humans, doesn't it? They're supposed to spend their lives watching us avatars, but this is something different. This is not about avatars, is it?

"dear sweet one,

you asked, first thing, if you were barking up the wrong tree. sure, you were. way wrong. however, that bark had a pleasant ring, and i shifted to have a look to see who's barking, and i, oops, slipped somehow, and tumbled out of the tree. that should have given me a hell of a fright, but no, it didn't, as you were there to catch me. only, when i hit the ground you had already stopped barking, gone somewhere else, and weren't there any more.

so, here i am, sitting under that tree, bruised, a little hurt, biting my lip to keep the tears away, not very successfully. hoping, perhaps, that no one saw, at least none of my friends. and still, despite me wanting to feel crushed, i note that it didn't kill me. but was some good adventure, wasn't it? and i secretly wonder, should i like to try it again?

it's really not me, truly, is it? but ... remembering the rush of blood and air... maybe i would like to again?

not right now, anyhow. leave me to lick my wounds.

but, oh, i've seen it done. and i wasn't scared at all.

my list of friends keeps growing slowly, and i've made four or five these last few days. for me, that's many in a short time. some of them will be the kind of friends that i say hello to, and speak to occasionally. with one of them, i'm sure i'll have lots of fun. all of them, including the older ones, are good for friends. they are nice, or fun, or interesting. but i think none of them has touched me very deep.

and then there's you. i hardly know you. but i liked you instantly, from the first words you said. and after seeing you a little bit more... the words, the mood, the atmosphere you brought. and weren't you ever so cute. i'm amazed, and a little bit fascinated by myself, by the way i have reacted. i told you that i'm shy and cautious. i am. i think so. yet i fell fast and hard. for you, a girl.

you toppled me over like nothing, and i didn't mind, didn't shy away, rather was thrilled by it happening. that itself may be my dearest compliment to you. treasure yourself, sweet one. this is what you can do, by only being you.

i didn't like much what followed. but when i said i was cool about being friends only, i meant it. i meant it then. probably trying to fool myself there wouldn't be much change. but there was, and i've been miserable.

i could object to the reasons you gave. the other one that you were describing and didn't want to mess things up for, that wasn't really me.

maybe you didn't tell me your true reason. i hope not. if you did, and if that's how others react to who i am, who i've been, what i've done, what others have done to me, then that would mean i'm doomed. tainted, and cursed never to be loved.

but... if i can be given up, i'm not the one you want. to that i cannot object.

writing this is unreal to me, to say the least. i don't have this kind of feelings, do i? for girls. and yet, here i am, and here i'm writing, feeling a bit stupid for bothering, as you don't want me any more.

maybe i should better take you off my list of friends. not because i don't like you. i do so. too much. it just won't do me any good having you there, making me stay up long after bedtime only to see if you'll come alive, and then wait and see if you'll talk to me, or, should you not, battle myself whether i myself should open my mouth and speak or not, to bother you or not to, knowing, but not wanting to know, that i really shouldn't.

oh no, i shouldn't. i should cool off. lick those wounds. there isn't more in it for me from here.

or is there? did you come to me only to tell me something? and i liked it. i did. i wasn't scared.

that last hug
mia"

Sensing

I had been planning to spend or kill some time shopping in one of the malls (or maybe in all of them). But it didn't happen. I stopped in mid-air, like, and realized that I couldn't go. I didn't want to any longer. Instead, I felt like going somewhere where there's no one around, and where there's no speaking to be heard, and no music, and not much light. So I did.

I recognize all this. It has happened before, now and then. It's Mia. I'm sensing Mia, when her mood is shifting or special or whatnot. And this was the special kind of mood, because what I sensed was new and unfamiliar to me. I know her sad from before. This was it, and yet not. There was a lot of energy, too. And also some kind of happiness in there, and still so much sadness, drowning the happiness. I have no clue what's happening to her.

Greetings

Some of the others complain a lot about greeters, which are objects (i think) that tell you a message when you step into a shop. Usually it's a message like "Welcome, Serval!" or "Please join our update group!" or something like that. I don't mind the greeters. I rather like them. Usually when shopping there are few avatars around, and those that are are too busy looking and trying and calculating Lindens to speak to others. So to me, the greeters mean company, and that is nice. The greeters seem almost like friends.

When I told the others, they said that was some good friendship, eh, based upon me being a consumer only. I don't think that is very clever thinking. Because I bet that they themselves wouldn't have made their present friends if they had still been in their newbie looks. They've used their looks and outfits to be seen and to make new friends. So their friendships, too, are based on being consumers, buying blingy shoes that can be seen from far away, super skins and tattoos that never end. But they don't like greeters, and I do. I can walk in and out of a shop just to get a good conversation going.

Appearance

Oh, Mia keeps worrying about everything I do. How I dress, what I do when going to the clubs, and now whom I speak to, and why. Do I do that to her? Do I question her for hanging out with someone who likes to call himself Cow Sheep...? Come on, Mia. Cool down.

Some of the others said that she's behaving like a mother. And then told me a mother is someone who has a child. As I've said before, I have seen children. They are those little avatars that, as previously concluded, have something wrong with them, making them unable to for example use the Appearance menu to change size, or detach the lollipop objects from their mouths. But all the few children I've seen were avs too, so the only ones that can "have them" are – according to predominant avatar lore – the humans. This really means that a mother is the human that a small av with a problem pretends is controlling her or him, probably to have someone to blame her or his strange behaviour on. Like, "i wear this weird orange pigtail hair because my mother doesn't allow me to change appearance, snigger, i know i look ghastly, but it's not my fault".

I mean, Mia has complained, saying I dress like trash, but she can't decide what I wear. She can't take clothes off me, and put others on. That's a ridiculous idea. So, the children have probably been infected by the crabs or something like that, and don't work properly. Like when I couldn't take clothes off, a long time ago. Or maybe those allegedly omnipotent Linden avatars have done something, so that certain avatars get restricted abilities. Maybe as a punishment for doing bad things. Maybe they were changing appearance all the time, making sims crash. That seems quite probable. If so, children are not only small, but also bad.

Mia worried about that girl I met, but I don't. Today I saw her again, and spent a lot of time with her, on a beach. I like her, and she's very clever, telling me things that I didn't understand before, without making me feel stupid. Lots of the others say things to me in ways that makes it clear they don't consider me the brightest star. She doesn't. She's just nice. Why Mia worries is a mystery to me. I hope I'll meet her again soon.

Circles

"dear diary,

i may not have been very close to the truth when speculating about servals, girls and secrets the other day. because last night, i watched serval going to this new club, where she spent the whole evening dancing with a guy. not the kind of dancing that she usually does in the sanctuary and wherever else she goes, flowing around, making up new steps and doing it by herself. no, yesterday was couple dancing, in various ways ranging from argentinian tango to the kind of dancing where moving seems less important than holding each other close. there was a lot of the latter. i think there may even have been kissing. oh, neither she nor he admitted to having chosen to do that, but the goings on looked very suspicious to me, i can tell you.

now, i don't think conclusions should be drawn too far from this. in between the dancing, they both went running around in circles like scalded rats, or rather like rats scalded, sloshed, and od'ed on adrenaline. or like a rat that has had huge quantities of tea and is not very close to a convenient bathroom. or quantities of some other beverage, which i hold closer to the truth. it's very probable that the same drinks also can be held responsible for the close dancing etc part of the evening, and too much serious value should probably not be ascribed to that matter. the guy was married, btw.

for humans, such a behaviour (including dirty dancing, drinking, snogging, and running in circles with married men) would have been looked upon as a disgrace, but for avatars, well, that's the kind of thing that they seem to do. and serval had a good time, enjoying her evening a lot, and that's what really counts, isn't it.

mia"

Girl

"dear diary,

i was quite tired yesterday. it had been a long week. so i sat down with a cup of tea and watched my little incarnation going to next life. she went dancing, of course. rykk the freaky vampire was dj-ing, and a guy gave serval a compliment on her star tattoo, and another on her dancing. then a girl asked for her #.

guys have been doing that before. asking for her number, for her name, for her bra size, for a quickie. but never before a girl. not that i know of, anyhow. maybe her looks were indicating something, i don't know.

now, serval went talking with this girl, and they became friends.

i was mentioning love here in the diary some time (well, like half a year) ago, saying that i had sort of half expected, or feared, her to fall for just anyone that happened to flatter her a little bit or show her more than brief attention. but she hasn't seemed to be interested in love at all. i've seen her switch her 'busy' sign on for guys just looking at her from a distance. then now this girl comes along, and becomes friends right away. for someone hitting on serval, that's unusually good and smooth progress for a first encounter.

does serval have secrets to me?

mia"

Hiding

What a relief! They are still there, those few friends of mine that hadn't already dumped me. So I bet it wasn't a long sleep, after all. Maybe Mia just pretended she was going away. To impress others.

"i'm going 4 a holiday. 2 germany"

Or maybe:

"i'm going on a tour. i'm in a band, u know"

And now she's staying out of sight. Hiding in the basement. Eating soup right out of the can.

Go away

Mia has told me that she's going to go away, and that I will sleep. This shouldn't really worry me, because I don't really believe she's right. But the thing is, it has happened before. And that time I slept a long, long time. By the time I woke up again, half of my friends had taken me off their friends lists, and I think I may have been very close to being discontinued for lack of friends. They do that, you know. That has happened to avatars that I knew. They were discontinued, or cancelled, or deleted, whatever you like, and were never seen again. I don't want that to happen to me.

I don't know why Mia is going, or where. I asked her, and she just said "to hell" and was just all blank in her heart. At least I couldn't feel what she really meant. She doesn't want me to know where she goes? Yes, she keeps going away. Over and over again. And never tells me where she's been. Once she said she had been in prison, but that was a lie. She went for a holiday. So probably she's not going to Hell now. Not that it matters, there's a lot of avatars called Hell, and I wouldn't know which one she meant, anyhow.

I met a new friend not long ago. A nice guy, who seemed glad to have me for a friend. Now he'll probably see that I'm always sleeping, and unfriend me. I hate that.

Playing

"dear diary,

well, it has happened now. black sheep came, said 'i'll be your shepherd', and then led the guys astray. they are now 'fuck the sheep' and play with, using serval's words, devils singing and many guitars playing at the same time. black sheep, who now calls himself peehs kcalb, is in for a healthy share of blood pressure, because like i've said before, the guys can't play the guitar. oh, he'll get them there, no doubt. they'll follow him anywhere. now their falsettos will be just right, too, and singing the lyrics of their new leader, they will belong to the strong ones, the winning ones. those who won't take any crap or ever admit having ever done so.

running sheep didn't join them, though. he stayed with me. he said that he didn't fancy being seen with guys that bend their knees when playing. so we are now 'the new sheep people'. i'm still 'pretty sheep', but he asked to change his name, because he wanted to appear rebellious, which he said a running sheep isn't really. so he's now officially 'cow sheep'. he's on keyboards. i'm on vocals. the computer is on all the rest, like stuff that has to be played fast or precisely. the computer has no name, though. the three of us will play together again tomorrow.

mia"

Stage

Now when it seems like Mia won't be performing, at least not in a while, I went to try a stage to see what it is like. I liked it. I can see why she wants to.



I can't play any instrument, and I have no voice, like some other avatars have, so I can't sing. But I could certainly be a dancer. I do dance well. And I wouldn't do sheep dances.

Lyrics

"dear diary,

i finished the lyrics for this special song. and i sang it. and the guys liked it. the sound of it. then they read the words, without really understanding. so i had to explain to them, and they stared at me, and then they didn't want to play any more. not with me, at least.

i think black sheep wants a few of the guys for a band of his own. they'll be happy with that, because he's cool. i'm not, any more.

i'll stick to being serious. who ever thought lyrics are for being cool?

mia"

Repainting

Now, after listening to my diary, they say that the devil made me bounce. They told me to repaint. So I ripped my jeans, and went to listen to very many guitars playing at the same time, hoping that I will be forgiven and eventually welcome back in my old club.

Bad

I went to this place where I haven't been much before. If at all. A club that has music and dancing, like the sanctuary. Only it's a different music, not as noisy. More bouncy. And with fewer devils singing. (FYI, a devil is the opposite to the super-human that controls the super-avatars, the humans, that are said to control us avatars. That's what I have been told. With no further comments. So, as far as I understand, that means that a devil is un-controlling humans, or being controlled by humans. The latter would mean it's an avatar. I can't say which. I have seen that there are ever so many avatars called Devil, but avatars normally don't make those strange sounds together with music that I was referring to. On the other hand, I haven't met anyone called Devil, so they may very well be doing the sounds. That may be it. I don't think that humans seem very uncontrolled, allegedly spending most of their time watching us avatars doing very much like nothing. So I don't think a devil has made them uncontrolled.)

So I listened to these un-devilish songs, which I think is like the kind of music Mia was speaking about, the one she didn't dare admitting she was listening to a lot. So Mia would maybe like this new club. And if killing hens and stealing rum can be said to be bad, then it might be the very right club for her. Bad girls club. Not that the girls there seemed very bad, doing nothing but dance, really. But that's like Mia, I think. She's not really very bad. She just kills the odd hen. And she talks a lot about sheep, although she pretends not to be interested in them. I certainly am not.

I didn't dance very much, as I wanted to catch the mystery rules of this new club, not to make too many mistakes and not to lose too many new friends being stupid, should I make some there. Sitting in a (very huge and cosy) sofa, watching and listening, and bouncing too in my head, I all of a sudden got money from a guy. It took me some time to understand (after looking around everywhere, expecting to find some grouper guy expecting me to like him a lot for giving it to me) that this was job money. Like when I used to work dancing the pad, a very long time ago. Only, now I didn't have to do anything. I didn't even have to dance. I just sat there having a nice time, and got money for it one two three times, and yet another finger.

So I may be going there again. Not for the money, because my linden counter is mostly full. I can buy things whenever I like now. But I like the idea of being paid for doing nothing. And I like hearing bouncing, too, not only the devils.

Black sheep

"dear diary,

the guys turned up in all black for playing tonight. and they brought a new band member. he was in black, too, so they gave him the name 'black sheep'. and he *does* play the guitar. he knows how to. and does it hard and fast. and isn't very nerdy. and looks quite good. and cracks jokes about sheep. and about music he doesn't like. he said that the music we played, or rather tried to play, was like inspired by uriah sheep, or even britney shears.

i'm a bit worried about this black sheep. the guys think he is cool. (and he is, compared to them.) now, i was planning to be the cool one...

for a brief moment i was about to say i don't know one single britney song. that i've never ever heard one. but I couldn't. i know them by heart. all of them. i have all 25 britney cd's. in duplicates. i go to karaoke bars (there's one in the station) just to sing them, and i'm the last one to leave. i touch myself listening to them. i am born to live britney.

i didn't say so, either.

i'm afraid this may all end in looong guitar solos without the guys complaining.

mia"

Rain

I've come to this place with rain. They have it in other places, too, like in Virtual Africa. But they don't have raining like this. Dark, and quiet. I've only seen rain before, but never felt it. Now I do. I feel it on me, from the way it looks. There must be a hand of Mia in it, too, or i couldn't feel so. Or, rather, a heart of Mia.

I hate admitting it, but I know I'm not complete without her. I'd be just shallow surface. She makes me feel. Through her. Some of these feelings are really scary, as I don't understand them, or out of what they come. Like here, in the Garden of Sorrows, in the rain. It is just a place. It should be a bit boring hanging here, because there is nothing happening, nothing to do. But I don't feel bored. I feel like I have a velvety, dark but colourless thing inside, not heavy, yet not light. Like when I fail to understand or mix in with the other avatars. Being left out. Only, I feel it much more now. And it has that cold tinge that I recognize. That cold sadness that would like to explode out of you, to set you free, but is restrained in a space by far too small. I know this feeling is Mia's.

This is new to me. And strangely, I feel good about sitting here, doing nothing, feeling only her. I'm sad for her, though. I wonder where she's been.

A MESSAGE FROM GOD

GREETINGS.
I HOPE YOU ARE ALL VERY WELL.

EHM, THERE SEEMS TO BE A MISUNDERSTANDING.
QUITE A FUNDAMENTAL ONE.
PROBABLY BECAUSE SERVAL DOESN'T COUNT VERY WELL.
AND MIA DID NOT DO VERY WELL STUDYING RELIGION.
SO LET ME PUT THINGS STRAIGHT.
FOR FUTURE KNOWLEDGE.
FIRST COMES FIRST.
SECOND COMES SECOND.
WHICH IS AFTER.
BUT ABSOLUTELY VERY FIRST WAS I.
SO FIRST COMES SECOND.
AND SECOND COMES THIRD.
WHICH REFERS TO LIVES.
NOT INCLUDING LIMBOS, PURGATORIES, HEAVENS OR HELLS.
THIS SHOULD SET THE ORDER OF CREATIONS RIGHT.
I'M GLAD WE HAVE NOW SORTED THAT ONE OUT.

MAY PEACE AND ENLIGHTENMENT BE BESTOWED UPON YOU.

YOURS, ETC.

In my image

Surrender control to little Serval? Oh, I thought we had sorted that one out already, once and for all. Oh, this is so boring. Oh, well, here we go then.

I created Mia. In my own image. That was 11 September 2007. Which was many days ago. Please refer to previous diary speeches for whatever details you desire on this topic. Mia didn't create me. Obviously, or she would have said in her diary that she created me, and then, but not until then, I would have appeared. Now, it it was the opposite way round. Me first. Then Mia. Me in control.

I wouldn't say I'm in full control of her any more. She does a lot of things I don't intend her to. Like hanging with those sheep guys. Not that I gave her control. She rather stole it. (Saying she generously surrendered it to me...)

I forgive her, though. She says that she needs me, and that I do her good. That's enough for me.

History

"dear diary,

it is now a year since i made my existence known to my little incarnation serval in next life. not that she got it straight away. she stubbornly refused to listen, see and understand. and i think that she still, to some extent, and though she keeps spending the money i give her, refuses to believe that there are humans. i can't really blame her. we all need to be the centre of the universe, don't we? irrespective of whether we're incarnations, humans or gods. if we believe we're mere puppets controlled by someone else, by fate, by something that is written, then why try at all?

maybe i'm contradicting myself now. because i have tried to surrender control, to serval. at first, i didn't. i imposed myself upon her. i tried to make serval mia, following this idea that there could be some therapeutic goodies in it, having little serval carry and live my burdens. so i pushed her into next life, weights on shoulders, and altough struggling a little, she did what she was told.

only thing is, it didn't change a thing. i had already told my story so many times, written it and written it again, over the last ten years, that having serval tell it again and behave accordingly did neither good nor bad. serval's story was mia's history. it was the past. and so i set serval free. and leaned back, and watched her.

now, serval isn't very wild. she's not making a big difference in next life. she's mainly spending her time there trying to have fun, and trying to find herself. she began revealing less skin, stopped taking her clothes off in the middle of crowds, or rather in the presence of others. instead, serval developed integrity. and a style of her own. well, not entirely of her own any more, because i have copied some of it by now. not that i wear a tutu to work, just some little details. i never wore pigtails before serval showed my how to. for example.

instead of the old serval mimicing me, new serval is soothing me in a way. so, in way, she's actually controlling me, and affecting me. not in the way i was planning at first, but in a way that's probably much more what i need. and she does teach me little things, just by being around and not really doing much. she can't stop me from being sad at times, but she and those she meets do make me laugh. that's not a bad thing.

serval can't make history go away. but maybe she's helping me go away? soothing serval, looking for black eyes. maybe i should surrender control completely, take her hand, and let her lead me. well, serval believes that she created me, and that she's already controlling me, so she'll be game.

mia"

Black

I have hardly been to the clubs now for forever, it feels. There's been no time. Between sleeping and sleeping, I've been shopping. But I've been buying close to nothing. Because I've been shopping for a new skin, and this skin, my skin, is so hard to find. I'm quite prepared to pay a lot for it, but I just can't find it. I've seen such skins in ads, but not for sale. Nowhere. As if they never were. I hate that.

I want black eyes. Really black, black eyes. Not sharp mascaras and distinct shadow. You get that in lots of skins. No, I want an utter all-embracing blackness, like an echo of oblivion mirrored in a moonless night. Two bloody big black holes for eyes, in short. And I can't find them. Which is so frustrating, because I've been to all shops. I've done the footwork. I've been good. And yet I have not been rewarded.

Mia once told me that humans don't change skin to change appearance. They can paint their own eyes, adding as much black they want. Well, that's another thing about humans that is hard to believe. If I chose to believe, and if I was a human, I'd paint my whole face black.

Oh, I want my skin! Give it to me!

Days

I'm not very good at the counting yet, but I've acquired certain skills in comparing figures. I've learnt how they look, and which finger they are. There's one figure for each finger of the hand, except for the last finger, which has two figures. There is also one figure that doesn't have a finger. That one is round. Now, the more to the left the finger, the more it's worth, for example in lindens. Many figures also make up many lindens, but that is counting, which I'm, as I've already said, not very good at.

They showed me, by pointing out in my diary, that the same days keep coming back. It's always a different year (which is a very large number of days), but the same day. Although the same things don't happen again and again. It's a new day, but it's called the same.

For example, last time it was this day, I said the following in my diary:

So I like the sanctuary [the Sanctuary Rock]. I don't like the guy who came there last time, though. He just stepped up to me, babied me, lolled me, and hunned me a lot. And when I didn't want to dance with him, he got angry and sarcastic. Come on, I had never met him before, and I didn't like his ways, and I was already having fun dancing. He had no right to get angry. As if he owned a right to make me do something else, just because he wanted me to. No, I don't like him.

Ok, I didn't like him, but I'm in the sanctuary right now, looking to see if he will be here, too. As it is the same day.

Music

"dear diary,

you know, when i first joined the band that was later to become known, although not widely so, as the sheep people, i claimed to know how to play the guitar. i do, a little. very little. which the guys figured out in an instant, and told me it was too little. i was welcome to sing, but not to do the guitar.

now it has become evident that sheared sheep, who does the lead guitar, can't really play either. he's worse than me. and eating sheep, who's on bass guitar, can't play bass guitar. he has no clue. they only pretended they could. or maybe they were hoping that they all of a sudden would know how to. anyhow, i figured this out, and it explains why the guys have spent most of the rehearsal time not rehearsing, but talking, arguing, designing costumes, ordering pizza and so on.

whenever i have asked them to come up with a riff or an idea or whatever to work from, they've evaded doing so. pretending not to have heard me. or tuning the guitar. poking the amplifier as wasn't it working alright. not finding a cord to connect to the amp. things like that. then, when i've told them to use their voices instead, to work around the apparent technical problems, they have refused. i've heard them sing (in falsettos) when i've been out of sight, but as soon as i show up, they quit. they won't sing in front of a girl, obviously. eating sheep won't even eat his slice of pizza in front of me. they are scared of me, or maybe of what i represent. they complain a lot about each other, but never about what i do. not one word has been raised in opposition to the lyrics i've written. they've just said 'yeah, great!' and that's it. i actually think they may mean it, too, they may really like it, because the lyrics are probably hotter than they themselves would ever produce. at least in front of me. they like phrases such as 'i touched the king', 'a thousand lips kissing me', 'i'll be sweet to you' and 'you have me, me, me', because they think the lyrics have a lusty backdrop of yearning and desire, and it's pretty sheep singing it, and she's in their band. they like the idea of being in such a band.

now, back to the riffs. the only time sheared sheep and eating sheep played more than single notes was when toying with running sheep's keyboard. so, finally it struck me that they don't really play the guitar or the bass at all. they never did. they too play keyboards. but they liked the idea of a band with guitars and stuff better than a band with only keyboards. maybe because they don't know how nerdy they really are.

having realized this, and realizing there is just one way to make this band play, i told them all to bring their keyboard stuff for next rehearsal, which was today, expecting them to bring, well, like a laptop and maybe a little plastic mini keyboard each. you know, hi-tech electronic instruments. but what they brought was a junkyard. synthesizers the size of aircraft carriers. racks of synthesizers, sound effects, samplers, and modules. stands full of mother keyboards, monophonic analog synths and organs. most of these things probably went out of production in 1990, no later. and it took them hours to get it all up and running.

then came what i had not anticipated. the choosing the sounds.

those synthesizers may have at least a couple of hundred preset sounds, i'd say. then, when you have three nerds, each one with at least three synths, and the option of programming new sounds yourself, there is a lot of nerve-shattering waiting to be done before the actual playing can begin. the discussing costumes had been nothing in comparison. nothing. but it did end, it really did, and there was music in the air. finally. although poor music, to be frank. these guys are nerds, not musicians.

but, you know, you should take what you have, and make the best out of it. i think i will use my power as pretty sheep to shape this sheep people into a band that works allright anyhow. basic, simple music. with lots of keyboards. punky nerd music. purd music? well, it may work. i've already told them that with all those synthesizers, they should dress in all black. they liked that. so i'm winning them over.

i'm not going to tell the guys what the lyrics are really about. it's not what they think. not at all. it's not hot at all.

mia"

Excluded

To be absolutely honest, it doesn't really matter any more whether I lose (which I do a lot) or win (rarely) events. They have become less important. I sometimes don't bother to join the events at all, if I don't feel like it, and sometimes do my best to dress etc according to the theme, for the fun of it. But the main reason now for going to the clubs is to listen to the music and to hang around with the others. I was actually surprised when I won a Disney event the other day, having dressed as a latex interpretation of Bagheera. It's nice to get the votes, but, well, it's not important any more. I still don't feel ok with the tie me up events, but whenever there's one of those going on, I can go somewhere else for a while.

When speaking this diary entry, I'm in the tower in Virtual Africa. I think I just saw a lion moving far away, so I'll go there and have a closer look.

No, it was the leopard that looks like a jaguar. I found the lion, too, but it hadn't moved since last time I was here. So maybe it can't move. Well, it's an object. If it was an avatar, it could have moved about and even TP'd to other places, scaring the wits out of everyone.

I have been thinking of love. I spoke about that some time ago, too, and nothing has really changed from my perspective. I have been thinking about it, though, noticing how other avs, usually a girl and a guy, seem to team up in pairs, and even have weddings to become partners. It could be fun having a partner, to have a companion around. If it's a nice one, I mean. I still don't get the other part of it, the love, of which I know litte. Or rather nothing. They say it's like feeling for and with someone. Maybe a little bit like it's for me with Mia. But she is a human, and she's not real, is she, because I invented her. But I can feel so close to her at times. Sometimes she's just a nuisance, of course. Now, I haven't met any guys that I feel anything like that for, or girls either, for that matter. Obviously none of the others have felt like that for me, either, as they haven't asked me to marry them. Which doesn't really surprise me. I'm not very interesting and fun. I can't make witty conversation, and I generally have little to add, say or shout. Why choose me? I think I look a little bit pretty, but, well, anyone can buy looks in SL. I don't mind the not being partnered, not knowing or desiring what it is like being so. What I do mind is being excluded.

If I want to be included, or at least have the choice to be in or out, I shouldn't hang around here in Africa, where I can't see a soul around. I don't really want to partner an object warthog, you know. So I'll go somewhere else, and see if there is any fun going on.

Accidents

Ha ha, I can picture Mia, a little version of me, uniformed in pink together with a couple of nerd guys, doing a sheep dance.

There has been a houshold accident event. I didn't win, but I got really hurt to enter. The others did, too, so it turned out quite a messy event. I was thinking of getting hit by lightning, which might have been a winner. But I hadn't got a battery in my inventory.

Uniform

"dear diary,

things are getting rough. no, it's not about my serval incarnation. she goes dancing in her clubs, probably causing little offence. no, it's about the band. one of the guys came up with a new idea, so they all ended up arguing about it. not that they didn't like the idea. they loved it. but they argued about how to.

this guy (sheared sheep) suggested that we should get ourselves uniforms. for looking the same on stage. (they are all a bit nerdy to me, so i'm not quite sure i want to look the same.) then they discussed this for two hours, instead of rehearsing. should they be golden? black and white? all black? i think the only style not suggested was pink.

come on. we haven't got our two first songs right yet. we are not going to perform. at least not very soon. and we'd look awfully stupid in uniforms. at least i would.

but i didn't open my mouth, because they might have taken me showing any interest whatsoever as an approval of the idea.

mia"

Stars

I haven't seen the guy who eats peanuts now for a while. Well, he kept saying he was eating peanuts, anyhow, big bags of them, but I never saw the actual bags, or not even a single peanut, I think. Still he kept saying he was eating them. Now that I think of it, he also said he was in Germany, so he was deep into this thing about roleplaying humans.

I wonder where he's gone. As far as I know, you can't just stop. I can't. Not like telling myself that I won't wake up today, and sleep until next day. I can't do that. When I wake up, I wake up, and nothing can change that. I have no choice but to spend the time in the world until I fall asleep again.

I don't think he has been discontinued. There would have been no reason for it. He never misbehaved, or so. And he can't have been discontinued for not having any friends left, because I still have him in my friends list. I would never be able to take any avatar out of my list, now that I know how it all works. If I did, and if I was the last friend that this av had left, then it would be my fault that she or he got deleted.

Maybe the peanut guy has moved on to the Third Life. He used to wear a halo on his head. And Mia once said in the diary that halos are religious symbols. Others have told me that it's normal to get religious when your time is coming to a close. So maybe that is what happened. His one million and eighty days were running out, so he got himself a halo. You know, this theory is supported by the fact that his halo was shining red, not shining white. It's like an old star, that goes red when running out of fuel, just before being discontinued.

I think that may be what happened to him. He was running out of days, got himself a halo when realizing this, and the halo turned red towards the end. And then he TP'd to Third Life. However that is done. Whatever that is. Hope you'll find a better dance partner there, peanut guy.

I find these thoughts about a third life very distressing. I don't like thinking them at all. So I won't. I'll think of the stars instead. The pretty stars. There are so many of them. And you know, so many have wonderful, mysterious names. Many of them begin with an A. Like Aldebaran, Antares, Altair, Alrescha, Alnilam and Alcyone. The first two of these are red, the next two white, and the last ones blue. It's ever so beautiful. I have tried to fly to them, but I can't. After climbing for some time, i don't seem to get higher and higher any more. The others say it's because the stars are so very far away, which makes if feel as if I'm not getting any closer. But I don't get that. The stars are in this world, right, or I wouldn't see them. And the world isn't that big. It's big, but not that big. I spent such a long time flying to the stars, without getting there, that they had switched DJ twice in the Sanctuary Rock when I came back there after giving it all up. Such a long flight should have brought me to the end of the world, I think.

Another thing that I don't get is why the stars can be seen only when it's dark. I understand why the blue stars can't be seen in the day, when the sky is blue, too, but I should be able to see the white and red ones. The others said it's because of the atmosphere. There is an atmosphere of oxygen around the world. The oxygen is necessary for breathing, they said. If there was none, we would all be discontinued.

All these lies. I'm getting fed up with them. I don't breathe! No one I know or have ever heard of does breathe! So this is just another of those lies. It's probably to cover up for even more of those bugs, crabs, slimes and other diseases haunting the world. Sometimes the world really sucks!

Maybe the peanut guy is actually better off wherever he is now.

Sheep people

"dear diary,

i have noticed that my little incarnation has been to this virtual africa, but it sounds like she's been there a lot. i don't really know, because i haven't visited the next world much lately. i have been busy, leaving serval to take care of herself.

i have been rehearsing with the others. or, rather, i've tried to stay out of their never ending discussions. we've been working on one song, mainly spending the time doing other things than music. it's a shame, because it's not a bad one. much of the lyrics are done, because i don't really get involved when the others don't agree. they never disagree with me, though. i don't think they dare. they've never played with a girl before. sometimes i think they've never been this close to a girl before, eíther. i wasn't picked by the band with the coolest band members.

however, we have decided on a name for the band now. strangely enough, there was no arguing whatsoever about it. so now we're "the sheep people". the guy that i know best, and who asked me to join them, is called "running sheep". he's on keyboards. the others are "eating sheep" and "sheared sheep". i myself am "pretty sheep".

i've been thinking of bringing our music (whenever there will be any) to next life, to see if i can have them play it in the club where serval goes dancing. that would be great fun.

mia"

Meerkats

I have now seen zebras. After Rob told me (well, he didn't tell me directly, but I heard in his diary ) about a place called Virtuous Africa, and after I had gone there, I saw the zebras. Now, I'm not going to go wild about colours again. I'll just conclude that they were big and had black and white patterns. For a while I thought about slaughtering one. It's an animal, and so it's food, and I could try if food is any good. But I decided against it, not knowing how to do. The only dangerous thing I have in my inventory is a wooden stake (which I keep for self protection when I go dancing at the Freakenheim Funeral Home), and I doubt it would work for zebras.

This Africa is a nice place. They've got all kinds of animals there. Ok, there are no servals there, unless I'm around, but there is a lion, a crocodile, elephants and much more. Fish. An owl. And butterflies that keep flying around, and don't seem to come out of a box. Oh, and there are meerkats that you can adopt. I want to do that! I want a meerkat! The problem is, if you leave it alone for 20 days or more, without feeding it and playing with it, it dies. And I think I may be away for many days sometimes. I don't know how much 20 is, but it can't be much. They say that the zebras and the antelopes (I think they may be waterbucks, because of the horns) have to eat all the time, so I bet meerkats need to, too. Mia, who kills a lot of animals, would probably get a meerkat without caring about it dying, but I don't want to do that. I would have to find someone to meerkat-sit for me when I'm not there.

(Rob's diary can be heard by anyone, btw. He's not very careful with hiding it. It's just there for all to hear, on http://rob.my-secondlife.nl/#home.)

Mia spoke in my diary some days ago, and I was glad to hear that. I don't really understand what she's up to, having holy days and all that. She's back into speaking about religion. Maybe she has begun believing in zeroeth life, and that's why she's not cold in her heart anymore? Not that I get the logics in that, but that's how the others say it works. You speak to the super-avatar that helps everyone else, and then you're happy and have no worries anymore. Well, she seemed to worry about what I had said in the diary, because she had to correct it. So maybe she believes just a little bit. Like me, not really believing she's a human for real, and still believing, anyhow. It's a bit confusing. As confusing as her constant interest in sheep.

Guitar

"dear diary,

now that little serval has outlined my life, inlcuding my eating habits etc, excluding the scandalous parts etc, if there ever were any, i'll make an amendment or two.

firstly, i don't slaughter cows much. there were allegations that i once reaped chickens while driving, but that was never (despite serval claiming the opposite) brought to court, so i have the right to be concidered not guilty. apart from that, i haven't killed much. secondly, i have eaten peanut butter, but had no big problems with the peanut butter jar specifically.

now that there is this long school holiday, i don't have to work. instead, i have joined a band. i said i can sing and play the guitar, but the guys soon found out i can't do the latter. (i had been hoping to get away with it, but these guys aren't as stupid as the kiddies in school, who still, even after me playing for them, think i'm good.) but they like me singing, so i'm in. we've been rehearsing, and it's been great fun. they made me promise never to do the sheep dance, though, should we ever perform in public. they said it's disgusting.

we haven't been playing today, as it's midsummer eve, and thus a holiday. that makes it a double holiday for me. i've stayed inside all day, not to hear the sheep lamenting from not being milked all day. no one tends to them today, because of the holiday. everyone is drinking a lot out there right now, but milk is not in top 10.

and rest assured, little incarnation, that i won't run away. i keep watching you.

mia"

Animals

Now, I haven't heard a word from Mia for a long time. I know that she's around, because I've felt her. Not the blackish feelings any more, that are cold to touch. What I've felt has been mild, quiet, and has made myself feel at ease. But there has been no word from her. Oh, I hope she's not trying to get rid of me, like all the others, because I said those things about dogs, zebras and the cow. It can't be. She's bound to like animals, and hearing of them. There's sheep everywhere around her place, after all. She even eats them.

Food

When the others heard it's my birthday soon, they said I should throw a party. With a lot of drinks and food. I don't know about that. I don't mind the party itself, but I don't get the rest. For example, why food? I don't eat myself. I'm an avatar, and as far as I know, avatars don't eat.

Mia once told me about eating. She was hungry, she said, and when humans are, they eat. At that time, she was going to have a sandwich. This took some explaining, but I think I got it. You plow a field, where you plant trees, and after a long time you have grains, which you, after turning them into powder and putting them and some small mushrooms into water, shove into a fire. Then you milk a cow, and stir the milk a lot, and spread the milk on the fired grains. Finally, you kill the cow, and put a slice of it on top of the rest. There's your sandwich.

Doing a thing like that is so typically human. They seem to do a lot of pointless things, and do it for long, long times. Like watching us avatars. They just can't stop. Now, that fits well with Mia in general. Another thing she told me is that she has a compulsive obsession disorder. Which is, well, like being unstoppable. I don't know why she has it, because she doesn't seem to like it. On the other hand, if it's compulsive, then you have to play along. I'll make you an example of how it works. If Mia wants to have peanut butter on her sandwich (then she needs to plow another field, and plant another tree to get peanuts, and milk the cow and stir and mix it all into a jar [but the cow may live]), she has to take the lid off the jar before she can get the peanut butter out. But when she has taken the lid off, she doesn't belive it's off. So she has to put it back on, so that she can take it off. Having done that, she don't think that the lid is off, so it has to go back on again, to be taken off again. And so it goes on. Making that sandwhich takes a very long time. I think that may be why she usually slaughters a cow when she's hungry.

I've never eaten a cow, or a peanut butter. I've never eaten anything. I have been drinking, though, a couple of times. The other avatars talk a lot about drinking, so I tried it. It was okay, until I fell over, just like that. The others laughed, and later said it was a scripted drink. I was meant to fall. Well, if that's the reason, then I'd prefer an unscripted one next time.

But I have noticed that the others like it when you have been drinking, and when you tell them about what you did after drinking. They laugh and like you a lot. I tried it, and told them that after drinking and falling that one time, I went to the mall shopping. But I found nothing that I liked, so I didn't buy anything.

No laughs. Nothing. Silence.

Later, after listening to the others, I figured out that the thing that makes the others laugh is when telling about making a fool of yourself after drinking, or doing strange things, or wild things. Which I didn't do, as I've already said. To make them like me, I had to make a story up. I had to lie about doing crazy things.

"i drank again, and fell over again and again", I lied.

Laughs.

"i fell in a mudhole and got sooo dirty, so i took all my clothes off, in the middle of the street"

Laughs. Liking.

"someone called the police, and they came to look for me, so i had to hide in an alley for hours"

Laughs. Liking. Friends.

"when i was hiding, a stray dog came into the alley, and i gave it peanut butter and then had sex with it"

They say drinking is a good way to make friends, but I think I lost some that day. Strangely, I keep losing friends all the time, even when I try hard to be a good friend to them. They are lolling me and hunning me until I open my mouth to take part in the fun, and then they turn silent. I'm not getting something here. Do I have to pay them?

Waiting

I have encountered some social setbacks lately, meeting people who no longer want to talk to me, and I have reason to believe that it's all because of the zebra thingy I spoke in my diary some time ago. Zebras appear to be a delicate subject to many. So I decided to tear some of the most sensitive stuff out of the diary. I think it was like 40 pages of very clever speaking, all in all.

When arriving to the Sanctuary last time, the host congratulated me on my rezzing day. I said thank you, Damian, but didn't really understand, because I don't know what a rezzing day is. It was quite a nice day, anyhow, with dancing and music, until there was a sudden blackout. I haven't had many of those lately, so I won't complain.

Now, I'm still waiting for my first birthday. I sometimes compare the symbols in my profile with those that say which day it is, but they still don't look the same. It's OK, I'm in no big hurry.

Wedding

I was really looking forward to the wedding, and decided to wear something that appears nice to people. Not what I usually wear. Not what Mia thinks makes me look like trash. Something dressy. I didn't have to shop much, but soon found a kind of dress that I liked, and that was cheap, and that looked dressy to me. But not to others, obviously. When showing it off to some of the others, they said I looked like dressed-up trash.

So I went shopping again. It took me a while, as I hadn't got a clue what to look for, as I began believing that I really do have a trashy taste. But finally I bought a dress that I thought was quite uncharming, deciding that was a probably a clever way of choosing. Then I went to show it to the others.

They said it lacked charm. And:

"btw, serval, u cant wear red 2 weddings, means ur a harlot"

I went shopping again. And returned. And:

"u cant wear white, its 4 the bride only"

And again. And again:

"black means ur objecting 2 the wedding"

And. And:

"u must wear shoulder straps not 2 b slutty"

All of a sudden there was this IM asking if I was going to come today. It was the big day already! And I had not even started speaking my speach yet. And they asked if they should TP me there! And I was not ready, I was nor prepared, I was not even dressed!

Deciding against the speach, and opting for a congrats card instead, I spoke it while searching through my inventory for wedding wear. I began with a classic quote, originally spoken by I don't know who, but I said it had been my grandfather:

"Oh Long John!
Ooooh Long Johnson!
Let there be peace!
Let there be, cough, cough, love, sniffle!
Let there be prosperity!
And let there be no buggering around with southern pansies, taxmen, or Turkish keepers of bazaar stalls.
Oh, lads will always be lads, of course, but just look at that lassie of yours, eh!
Eeeh!
Look at her!
That's my boy!
Now only buy ecological bananas, and switch lights off once past forty.
Any further advice on this joyous day come at three a pint.
Hoooray my boy! And godspeed, lassie."

Then I lost myself in trying to speak the little ♥ hearts, which I couldn't, and from there on the card turned a babble in a big rush. I threw the last clothes on a moment before teleporting, and arrived to the wedding wearing black, no shoulder straps, a mini skirt, and the shoes of a street-walker.

This is where Part I ends. Here follows Part II:

It was a great wedding! It was for m3 and Patricia from the Sanctuary. There were ceremonies and cakes and dances. And after that a party, with more dancing, glasses of champagne and music that I liked better than the one right after the wedding. Whooo, nice!

Now there is this feeling. A special after-the-wedding feeling, which I haven't felt before. I wonder if it's Mia feeling for me again, like when she wasn't allright before? But this time it's a good feeling. It's not the feeling-happy-and sobbing-a-bit feeling that I was told to expect. (Of course I'm happy for them, for being happy and having such a nice day, and a party!) And it's not the me-too feeling I was also told to expect. (Which I haven't felt.)

It's a kind of belonging feeling. From being there with them. All of the others.

Fun

Like a minute after finishing my last diary entry, I got an ... (suspense) ... invitation! To a wedding! I love weddings! I hope. I haven't been to many. At all. Yet. It will be great fun, though. It's the 25th. Whenever that is. I hope they'll come and get me when it's time. I don't want to miss it.

Cake

No one spoke to me again. Not even my friends. No one. I was thinking about having a birthday party, my first one, because it will be my first birthday, but no, I don't think anyone would like to come. Or mayby they would come, only to eat their slice of cake in silence, and leave unnoticeably without a word once finished. I think it may be the zebra thing. It may have scared them off. They probably don't like it when the stupids turn clever, not even when it's highly temporarily.

Hey, guys, it wasn't me! I never spoke that. How could I have? I gave some avatar a million lindens and a blowjob, and he gave the zebra thingy to me, all ready and done. All I had to do was speaking it into my diary. Which was hard enough fo me.

Or whatever.

They told me, during those olden days when they still told me things, that my birthday was coming up soon. After trying to tell me about dates, they ended up saying that I should look in my profile for my birthday symbols, and compare them with today's. When they are the same, all the symbols, then it's my birthday. I'll be one year. They say.

Cold

Well, do I care what Mia says. No, not when she's just cheeky and sulky. Like that. After I had done that zebra thing to show that I (which means she, in the eyes of other avatars and their alleged humans), just for once, may be less slow than very. Obviously, that wasn't the help she needed.

I had to think here. No help from the man who can help us all. No help from zebras. I had already felt her mood creeping closer, and into me, too. She scares me a little bit. Because I can't understand how it comes. I created her, she's my human. And still she can feel such things, so strange to me that I don't even have names for them. They are so cold to touch. So I'd prefer not to touch. Which I can't. Because what she feels slowly trickles from her, and into me.

The man and the zebra didn't help. So I did the one thing I can do best. I danced. And Callie the DJ played some good ones, oh so good. For those moments, I felt warmer, and I think I felt that Mia did, too.

Again

"dear diary,

did i read it it again? yes.

i'm sorry, serval, but this is so boring.

mia"

Reading

"dear diary,

i, too, had some time to kill. did i spend it reading? yes. did i spend it reading serval on zebras? yes.

i think i wish i had spent it drinking instead.

mia"

Zebra

My brain broke down the other day, after thinking too much. I found a strange, thrilly pleasure in using my brain, but did it far beyond its safety limits, I think. I'm still not sure if it was worth it. I had some time to kill, but I could have been dancing instead.

There had been an opening party, and there had been a trivia quiz for fun. One question was about zebras' stripes. Are zebras white with black stripes, or are they black with white stripes? The allegedly correct answer, when given, was "black with white stripes".

I was appalled. I couldn't sleep after hearing that. I cried.

Because zebras are obviously striped in black and white. They are born that way, and the stripes don't come off. They are not black, not white, but striped in black and white.

But those who handed out the trivia prizes had been listening to an obviously very stupid avatar called Wiki Pedia. But they seem to believe that Wiki is very bright. Maybe they don't even think it's an avatar, but one of the First Life humans. They probably do.

I should have won that trivia prize! What was it? Was it edible?

Someone defended Wiki, saying that zebra crossings are white stripes on a dark or black background. Which means that zebras too are black with white stripes. I have no comment on that. Oh, well, I do. I think it's ever so clever. You bow to no one, sir.

Afterwards, I searched for Wiki Pedia. And there's no such avatar! So I think that those party guys made it all up. When realizing they had made a mistake, after giving my prize to someone else, they made Wiki up, expecting to get away with it.

"it's just stupid serval", they probably laughed, and then told me:

"u know, serval, wiki pedia says zebras r black or dark animals w white stripes, n their bellies ..."

Screw Wiki Pedia. And screw zebras. All the above is the reason why my brain broke down and I couldn't sleep. I didn't like it. Ok, the party was nice otherwise, I admit that.

Helpful

A long time ago Mia said I'm in Second Life to help her. She didn't say how, only that I might not understand why. She said I'm here to help her.

She's right. I don't understand what I'm supposed to... is the love what she wants me to do? Well, I love dancing, but I bet that wouldn't be it. The other love they keep talking about here, loving another avatar, or a furry, is beyond me. I don't get it. I don't get the point. I don't know what it is. Then how could I do that for Mia?

Which Mia probably knows. So she's thinking of something else. I think I'll just keep going, until she gives me a hint.

Then, of course, there was this guy avatar, who once said he loved a man that he knew could help me, whatever problems I had. I don't remember the name of that man, but he really could come in handy here. Helping me to find out what help Mia needs. Or maybe he could help Mia, instead of me doing it. I was told that all I have to do to call (I guess the guy meant IM) that helpful man is to hold the palms of my hands together and speak to him. Like this.

Now, it doesn't seem to work very well.

Love

"dear diary,

this incarnation of mine has been a good thing to me lately. instead of showing on the serval how i feel, the serval seems to have been showing me how i should feel. there has been dancing again, music filling the air, and a lot of other incarnations around having a lot of fun. that leaves no room for gloom. so there's been little eyeshadow. god must be pleased. and headmaster, who really does exist, but isn't really that interested in sheep, seems to be happy. he was smiling today, without scolding anyone. maybe he got a raise. maybe he realized that summer holidays will be coming up, after all, eventually. maybe he's in love. not with me, i hope.

i've been waiting for that, honestly. not for the headmaster, but for the love. for little serval falling in love in second world, ending up partnered to just anybody. maybe to some furry incarnation, who happened to say he (not she, really, i mean?) liked her, just for hearing her name is serval. i can't even imagine what the children would look like. they would probably have quite a load of different problems, and end up in my class. to jump and scream on command like the other children. earning top grades dancing the sheep dance.

there wasn't going to be any serval falling in love tonight, though. she spent some (but not all, to my surprise) of her allowance, then went to the sanctuary to show off her new stuff. but she left when hearing it was a 'tie me up' event again. and she didn't grumble when i put her to sleep after that.

mia"

Sleepy

I tried so hard to wake up today, but I just couldn't. I knew there would be a nice event tonight, a punk event, and I kept opening my eyes, lifting eyelids one by one, trying to blink the sand away, the mist, the nothingness. But I couldn't. I drowsed. I failed. I slept.

Pleased

I went there anyhow. To the sanctuary. There's no stopping me, it seems. I decided not to go, and still I did. Addiction. Is it so? But it was cool tonight, I enjoyed it. I had fun. And maybe there was an extra shine from my eyes, because something made the other avatars vote for me. I won the event. The sexy in black event. Maybe it was that shine. Maybe it was my lack of underwear. I don't know. I don't care. I'm pleased. Pleased not to have to be an alien, a grinch, or the only one wearing brown in a brown event to win. I won from just being me, Serval, and wearing stuff I've liked enough to buy. Although I didn't wear all of it. Mia will have me fried for that, I guess.

Slime

I'm a bit low now. Now I am. Not because of that other thing, with Mia and her moods. Not because of that. But I have been going to the sanctuary, the sanctuary rock, like always. And I have not really enjoyed myself there.

One reason is the avatars that talk about stupid things that I cannot follow. I cannot relate to what they say. I cannot see what's funny, and what makes them go on and on, or what makes others reply. I think I spoke about this a long time ago in the diary. It's like they are making themselves as ridiculous as possible in the face of other avatars. They say things with a lot of spanks, smexys, moans and huns. And as soon as I try to join the others speaking, when I try to say something clever, they reply in a completely different voice. It's so obvious I'm not in.

I think this phenomenom, speaking Idiotish, has become more and more common in the sanctuary. It wasn't like that before.

And the other reason is the invisible slime. They have it in the sanctuary now. A lot of it. I don't know what it really is, and you can't see it. But you can feel it. When there is slime around, you can't move. Walking just a short distance, and flying, too, takes a very long time. It also stops you from changing what you're wearing, and what's attached. So if there is slime, there's no use trying to join the dressing event, because it's so slow putting on new stuff. Sometimes you can't change anything at all.

I like the dressing events. It's fun. It's one of the reasons why I have been going there. And I've spent a lot of time shopping for clothes and things that can be used for the events. But now, with all the slime, every time I go there, it's not fun anymore.

And this is what makes me low. I've been going to the sanctuary all my life. I don't know of any other such places. But I don't know if I want to go there very much more. The slime is so frustrating, and I feel like a stranger among some of the other avatars, even though I started coming to the sanctuary long before they did.

I don't know where I can go instead. I know nothing of the world. I feel a little bit like I did when I was very, very young. Small and lost.

Fine

I don't really get this being sad thing. Because I don't feel sad. On the contrary, I feel quite fine. Quite happy. Dancing, listening to the music. Do I have to go low, then? For Mia's sake?

Tears

"dear diary,
and god,

let there be no more bubblegums.

i'm beginning to believe that i have come to the second world, or stayed there anyway, to expose pain. to unveil misery. to show my tears.

i'd scare the kiddies at work out of their minds doing that. i'd be banned from training the girls team forever, and lose those friends that i thought could still bear me, showing up with black hole eyes and wrists slashed. can't do that. but i can in the other world. i think serval is showing me the way. show on the dolly what happened... show on the serval how you feel.

mia"