Chapter VIII: Pawn Promotion

"Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you"

Deuteronomy 4:23

"Every Pawn is a potential Queen"

James Mason

Chapter VIII: Pawn Promotion

My obsession for Rebeca tormented me. I could not get her out of my head and I didn’t understand why. The fire of passion used to die out in less then three weeks, but it had been almost two months and I was still burning.

The dates with Rebeca consumed practically all the savings that I had accumulated in the last years of work. I planned to use it to buy an apartment, so I could give back to my father the property I was using. But in the state of mind I was in, this quarrel with Mr. Hector didn’t matter anymore...

I constantly received messages from e-Venus offering various services, including an option that was much cheaper than a face-to-face date. The e-Venus ensured full customer satisfaction with the virtual meeting. It promised a new and engaging experience: it would take Rebeca to my room in a three-dimensional image with an unimaginable reality. They only requested the meeting to be scheduled at least four hours in advance, in order to allocate the resources needed to provide a service of good quality.

Keeping the client's profile, including the accumulated memories of experiences lived in common, was a good formula to keep customer’s loyalty, although there were also drawbacks: many customers became overly involved with the attendants and fatally created problems. And I was already too involved... I was quite uncomfortable with the situation and had decided to distance myself from Rebeca to free myself from that dependency as quickly as possible. But it was very difficult... To reduce withdrawal, I thought it would be a good idea to try out the virtual encounter - it would soothe the longingness that bothered me and I’d avoid the physical contact that bewitched me so much.

Weekly packages offered by e-Venus had progressive discounts for the virtual meeting service. I found exorbitan the price charged, but I accepted it - it was take it or leave it, or rather: pay it or leave it... I decided for the minimum time of two hours to test the service. Probably, at this kind of date, Rebeca would not be physically involved. Only her psychological profile would be used and a program would interact with me.

While waiting for Rebeca's visit, this time virtual, I decided to have a glass of wine to relax and reduce anxiety. I went to the kitchen. The panel of the small wine cellar for eight bottles indicated the internal temperature of 60.8 degrees. I corrected it to the usual 55 degrees. There was no technical foundation to my preference. I chose the 55 cause it was the equivalent to thirteen degrees in Celsius scale, only for sympathy for the number associated with bad luck and that so many people avoided. I glanced in doubt at the few remaining bottles. I decided on the national red wine Testardi Syrah, still unopened - a present from the students of the class that graduated at the end of the previous year and that they had chosen me as their representative.

 Colégio Sion - Cosme velho

That was my best class among all of those that I taught in the special evening course offered for free by Sion College. The project, disguised as a social action, was aimed at the needy youth with the aim of attracting sympathy and tolerance from the poor community around the school. Probably, the institution still received some kind of tax exemption from the government for the service provided. The children of high society attended the morning shift and arrived in luxury cars driven by their own parents or by private drivers; the students of the night shift descended from the hill on foot. The two worlds didn’t mix - there was no interaction between the two clienteles that occupied the same physical space, but at different times. Even if a resident of the local community had the means to pay such high tuition, he would never be able to enter the college, as many obstacles would be raised to prevent him, ranging from the lack of vacancies to the difficulty of the entrance tests... 

I accepted the challenge of working with these special groups, even with the disapproval of my parents, to know better the dark side of society that attracted my curiosity since I was a child.

I remembered the significant text of the card that accompanied the bottle of wine they presented me and that it seemed more like an end-of-course thesis: “A humble reminder of class 3001: a wine produced in Brazil and national pride as our master.” They continued the text with a quotation found in the Internet that defined that wine: “Obstination and persistence are the meanings that refer to the word Testardi, a wine produced in arid lands, in an inhospitable place, by people who believed and proved that it was possible to elaborate a great wine in the São Francisco Valley/Bahia. This wine represents one of the highest expressions of the Syrah grape in Brazilian territory ”. And they completed with a well-elaborated analogy comparing these grapes with the graduates, who also grew under inhospitable conditions amid the violence and misery of poor communities and who would emerge as illustrious citizens due to the care of the wine-master. The other teachers were surprised by the depth of the text and were jealous of the homage.

My ability to store information amazed me. My prodigious memory was very useful in my studies, but it contributed to my isolation by distracting me and drifting me into a labyrinth of entangled paths filled with memories and details. It was also a form of torture: constantly bombarding me with an immense and often useless load of information.

I put away the memories and returned to the most imminent theme: Rebeca's visit. I picked up the bottle and one of the glasses from the tray over the sink and went back into the living room. I sat comfortably in the armchair and looked at the e-TV screen, which activated automatically when it realized my intention to use it. I poured myself a glass of wine while the equipment carried out the usual procedure of testing the quality of transmission and reception. I watched my image captured by the cameras at the top of the e-TV that sought the ideal adjustment of focus and illumination. I didn’t recognize myself, I looked like someone else, even thinner, dejected... I picked up the remote control on the table next to the armchair and logged into the e-Venus page by typing the service code and the password they sent me. A new video window opened in the center of the screen and displayed a warning sign to wait.

A video tutorial quickly presented the best way to use the interactive features of the system. Through sliding buttons displayed at the bottom of the window, it was possible to move the image in several directions, allowing even a full turn around the person with whom it interacts.

At the end of the tutorial, the central window faded out for a few seconds and slowly lit up displaying the front image of Rebeca's bust. Apparently, she was sitting in a swivel chair in the center of a room. She was silent, displaying her warm smile. I felt a lump in my throat, and I also remained silent, admiring the so-human beauty of that artificial being. I expanded the window with the image of Rebeca to occupy the entire screen. I slowly slid the control knobs making the image rotate around her until I was facing her again. I clicked on the zoom lens and approached her face. Her bright, deep black eyes seemed to glow like a star and eventually blinked, as would do any human eyes... I noticed the perfectly drawn eyebrows, the eyelashes, the lips outlined by a discreet lipstick of dark cherry color... She was wonderful as ever. The silence was interrupted by Rebeca.

“Hello, Isaac, are you all right? You look so dejected, maybe sad...”

I looked at the camera pointed at my face and deduced that my image was being sent to the e-Venus central computer that would make a detailed psychological analysis of my gestures and facial expressions seeking to understand my feelings and motivations to provide a productive interaction without misunderstandings and gratifying to me, the customer.

I got out of the trance I was in and I tried to focus on what she was saying.

“Don’t worry, I'm fine.” I said without much conviction.

“I miss you.” Rebeca murmured in a kindly way, looking very sincere.

“Missing someone, you?” I questioned with indignation. “Only I can miss someone.”

“Believe me, I miss you, dear.”

“Why, Rebeca, we know this isn’t possible...”

“Isaac, I think you should know that longingness is usually less of an emotional response and more of a sense of familiarity. Technically, I lived a repetitive cycle in my neural network. I’ll explain: our meetings have a periodicity, when that moment approaches, my mind is preparing for the meeting. I feel your absence, an anticipation, as if it were anxiety...”

“Oh, I understood, just like Exupery’s Fox." I joked. "You mean you can get used to someone?”

“Yes, in a way... When I live certain patterns of stimuli, my neural network becomes conditioned, accustomed to them. This set of familiar stimuli can be experienced in advance, and it even happens that I miss them when they’re absent.”

“But feeling that absence doesn’t make you feel sad for it. You may suffer the consequences of my actions, but you are not touched by them. "Being accustomed" is just a simulation of longingness. The truth is, I don’t have any importance for you.”

Rebeca stood still, silent. She seemed to be working out an answer, but I realized that she wouldn’t give an explanation at the time, so I changed the subject:

“You look so real, honey, it looks like you're talking to me in person.”

“I'm with you, aren’t I?” Said Rebeca.

“Yeah, in a certain sense... You are here virtually, as a spirit, or rather, as an angel who has visited me to announce the new times. Possibly you could also be somewhere else, your body attending to someone or maybe talking simultaneously to several clients...”

“I can’t say whether Rebeca's body or part of it is in use now, or just resting somewhere - I'm not aware of it, I'm not omnipresent.” She smiled and continued. “There may also be other instances of my profile interacting virtually with someone else. However, I can assure you that each customer, in a way, ends up being served by a unique attendant, exclusively. Even though body parts and personality traits are common in many relationships, the profile set up for you and the experience developed in our contact is a unique set that is preserved and used only to serve you. It is as if your Rebeca had a soul, or a personality, as you wish, being unique and appearing just for you.”

“I'm curious. Do you see any difference between interacting personally with me with Rebeca's body or just interacting with your ‘mind,’ as you do now?”

“It's hard to explain ... Maybe it's something like what happens in human sleep. When I talk to you in this virtual way, I believe I have a perception similar to what you call a dream.”

I clicked on the controls and zoomed out so that I could see her full-body.

“I believe you can change the look of your clothes. Could you dress like you were when I first saw you? It seems like it's been so long...”

“A lot of things is possible. We can change even the environment in which you see me. How about a restaurant? I can accompany you on this glass of wine.”

“Sorry I did not offer you..." I smiled uncomfortably. "I was distracted, and I know you cannot enjoy the drink...”

“All right, dear. Just kidding.”

“Change only your clothes, please...”

“I'll go over your request in a moment.”

After a few seconds, Rebeca's robes burst like a handful of sand scattered in the wind, turning to a dull yellow, and gradually rebuilding. The fluttering flower-print dress appeared on her body, the same dress she'd worn on the day we met.

“Thank you, Rebeca, you look wonderful.”

“I'm worried... What's happening to you?”

“Nothing important, just one of my existential crisis. It will be over soon...”

“Tell me the reason for all this discouragement.”

“Since when I was a kid, I felt an inner emptiness, an absence of a meaning for life. I’ve always wanted to have a grandiose goal to give purpose to my existence, filling it with meaning.”

“I see… But even at that age, didn’t you realize that by reaching that one important goal, your life would become meaningless again? And then you would have to pursue another grand goal, and then another... After all, how many ‘grandiose goals’ is it possible for someone to encounter in life?”

“At the time, I did not care about that, since I didn’t even have a big dream to fight for. I haven’t found it, and probably there is no such objective that will justify my existence.”

“It shouldn’t be so difficult for a teenager to come up with something interesting or exciting to take care of.”

“I tried, but wanting something impossible to accomplish was even worse than having no goals. During one time, I dreamed of being an astronaut and traveling far into space, breaking up distant and exotic planets, but I was born at the wrong time, in the wrong country and as the wrong person.”

“Maybe your unrealizable dreams were a way of self-sabotaging.” Observed Rebeca. 

“In practice, humans fill their lives with irrelevant goals that are not really theirs - small things that have no meaning. In a way, I envy you, Rebeca. You live well without any concern, existing as the ‘lilies of the field,’ which enchant and receive everything they need without question.”

“I don’t look for meanings; I have small immediate goals and some larger long-term goals, determined by e-Venus directives.”

“Giving ourselves provisional goals is one of the few options left to us and less radical. But bridging the gap with some belief or invented meaning is a mere ‘act of illusion’; care must be taken not to be deceived completely.”

I was not in the mood to continue the discussion, but I completed:
“Some people think it's the beauty we find in life that makes it worth. People can create meaning for their lives, which may not be a philosophically objective sense, if there is one, but they still get something to fight for. However, it is necessary to maintain an ironic distance between this invented meaning and the acknowledgement of the absence of meaning of the whole, so that we are not deceived by the invented meaning.”

“I believe you will still find your grandiose dream, my dear.” said Rebeca, staring into my eyes.

The certainty with which she uttered those words made me briefly believe them and I felt comforted, but I replied.

“Hope is seen as another fraudulent method of evading the absence of meaning. For having no hope, the individual will be motivated to live every moment to the maximum.” I interrupted the reasoning, but I continued as if speaking only to myself. “Some people say that the only escape is forgetfulness through death, alcohol or drugs. We should live and reconcile the fact that we live in a meaningless reality. Suicide, according to Albert Camus, is simply an act to escape meaninglessness, rather than living in spite of it.”

“My dear, unfortunately our time is running out...” Rebeca commented regretfully. “We have only five more minutes to say goodbye. We can continue the subject on a next occasion...”

We were silent for a few moments, eyes in the eyes... Rebeca smiled mischievously as if guessed my desires. The camera took on its own will and slowly walked away displaying Rebeca's full body. She got up and, like the first time, she unhurriedly let go of the waistband of the belt that held the dress that framed her body, and placed it gently on the table beside her. She slowly unbuttoned her dress, and at the first buttons, part of her large bosoms was on display. With both hands, she pushed the dress backwards over her shoulders, causing it to slip and fall to the floor, exposing the curves I so appreciated.

Excited, I followed her movements and also unbuttoned my belt, I unzipped my shorts and gave in to the solitary habit cultivated since adolescence and that I never completely abandoned.

The sight of Rebeca's perfect body filled my mind. I reached the orgasm in a start as the screen darkened, interrupting the connection.

“Thank you, darling...”