The fly

I've been a fly for almost a month now. I was able to replicate the invisible avie trick with the Shadow's help. (I'll call him "the Shadow" here, because his foot shadows and his name tag were all I could see when I met him.) He wore each component of the avie one at a time so I could see what's going on.

But instead of a doll, I use a particle-generating prim using a texture for a fly that I used when I made a pile of poop as a trick on Blue. (If you look in the picture he made of me in my 1st Life tab in my profile, you'll see a little brown blob in the lower right hand corner with dots flying around it. That's a poop with flies.) I've pulled too many tricks on Blue, that he had learned to expect the unexpected. I think I've made him paranoid.

Well, it turns out that there are a lot of advantages to being invisible. You don't get distracted by random passersby. They see a dot on the minimap but they don't see anyone, so they figure the dot is high up in the air. Or, they see a dot on the minimap, their radar says there's someone nearby, but by the time they (a) recover from being frustrated from lagging so badly that my avie is not downloading or (b) give up looking for my avie, I've usually tp'd away already.

Anyway, here, I thought I was just having fun. Then last week, Gear asked, "Can I ask what you are hiding from?"

I laughed and said, "Myself?" and didn't think twice about it. Until today. I guess I'm in a pensive mood today.

I am well aware that other people act as mirrors to us in many ways. In this case, Gear was probably seeing something I'm not admitting to myself. There was a time when I changed Opal's look almost every week, sometimes twice a week. It was the fun side of SL.

Then, I changed her look after every heartbreak. Many a time, the changes were a rebellion against a beloved who was bothered by seeing a strange woman every week. (Yes, Opal can be passive-aggressive at times.) He'd break my heart, I'd forgive him, but I'd change my look... drastically. Those were the times when I didn't like being me.

At times when I was hurting too much, I'd see him as my testing alt HiHo, who is a little white mare. But Opal has always been human (or at least half-human). Until now. Which brings me back to Gear's question.

The thing is, I don't know the answer. Maybe I have to hide in one world in order to explore another. Just as I hid from the real world in order to explore this virtual world, I am now hiding from Opal's world in order to explore a roleplaying world....