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When Your Mom Warns You To Cut Down On Video Games It's Because She Loves You

from The Forgotten Meme, A Cyberpunk Fairytale (Fp1) by Paul Shapera

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lyrics

The longer the meme stayed with the girl, the more she noticed the girl, Rebecca, was unplugging less and less. In fact she was slowly wasting away and would eventually die. The little meme entered the net to follow Rebecca and try to lure her out.


Online, Rebecca spent most of her time in an elaborate, expansive, online gameworld set in an Arabian Nights scenario.

Rebecca had an avatar name Tess, so the little meme created an avatar named Vadvi and slowly befriended the girl. The two of them became very close, traversing the mythical gameworld together.


One day the two girls professed romantic love for each other. The little meme was unspeakably happy, but she also knew that if Rebecca were to ever see her in real life, her ugliness would destroy their love.

Meme:
The sweet swirling spells in the desert
the glamours and genies we meet
the carpet that flies in the twilight
her smiling and here beside me

The curses we work to unravel
The lands of enchantment we seek
immersion in storybook forests
Her smiling and here beside me

Late into the night we lay talking
We comfort and laugh and we weave
A quilt of connection, desire
Her smiling and here beside me
And if we are lost in illusion
And all is enchantment we see
A wonderful world of delusion
So sweet is the lie to believe
…

I’m often surrounded by strangeness
Realities hard to believe
Longings I haven’t the words for for
Sadnesses most will not see

All this might pass in a moment
All might be gone next we speak
But for a brief time there was magic
And her smiling here beside me

And if we are lost in illusion
And all is enchantment we see
A wonderful world of delusion
So sweet is the lie to believe


Despite the little meme’s bliss, she couldn’t help but become aware of the game’s sinister undercurrent. The game world functioned as a subtle psychic vacuum, drawing some in further and further until there was no return. Rebecca was almost at this point. The little meme begged the girl to stop the journey before it was too late, but Rebecca just laughed. She passed a gate too far and as the meme watched, her love slid away from her. She called out, but her voice was fragile and small. So she too leapt past the gateway, to follow her love to their doom.

credits

from The Forgotten Meme, A Cyberpunk Fairytale (Fp1), released June 30, 2018

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Paul Shapera Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Cama’s attempt to commune with higher beings failed; she only found Decadent Dottie. Together they roamed, indulging in dangerous forms of psycho-neural self-exploration which Cama hoped would present the key to her people’s further evolution. It only led to her destroying her people so that one of their pets could evolve. She sat in her former civilization's rubble and listened to Paul Shapera. ... more

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