Feed me no lies (I don't know about you).

I'm  on Facebook, drafting my latest status. It's going to comprise the following elements: Sunday, mild weather, hot chocolate, and listening to records, and it's going to be accompanied by a picture of my new record shelf, which sadly looks less populated than I thought it would with all my records on it. I'm a little uncertain of posting evidence of my less than spectacular record collection. I often think about what people think my life is like versus how it really is, based on how I carefully craft my online persona. I'm proud of my creation, I think. To look at my photos, you wouldn't think I'm a day over 25.

I try not to whine too much in my statuses. I like to check in when I'm at museums and galleries, or out with friends at swanky joints. I try to avoid posting too many pictures of meals, but I do post pics of drinks, whether we're talking a $4 domestic beer or a $12 cocktail inspired by a Stanley Kubrick film.

I respect my audience enough to edit my posts if I make a grammatical or spelling error. Maybe most people wouldn't notice, but for the few who would, I abhor the idea of disappointing them with English language fails.

And yeah, I get jealous of people who post about their travels, even though I've done my own fair share, and they usually go to Cuban or Dominican resorts and I can think of a million other places I'd rather be than those. There's that meme that keeps going around about comparing everyone else's highlight reel to your cutting room floor, or something like that.

I've spent a good 20 minutes editing and rewriting my status, and I'm finally about to hit "Post" when I get careless and instead of hitting "Enter" I hit a random assortment of keys on my laptop.

But instead of having to delete some extra keystrokes on the screen, or having to manually restart my frozen computer, I'm the one who freezes up. My hands are resting on the keyboard, and all I can do is watch with horror as the flesh converts into scripts of code. The code conversion quickly moves up my arms, and I see that the code is now getting sucked into the monitor.

My head is the last to transport, and I travel through a space odyssey warp of light and colours and shapes and sounds and characters until I finally arrive on the other side... inside the web.

It looks nothing like I thought it would. I kind of expected there to be green matrixy code oozing down the walls. But nope. I'm kind of still in my living room, but the walls flicker with the images of my Facebook feed updating in real time. Everyone who is actively typing or posting images... I can see them behind the scenes, editing their own typos, or not... choosing a photo, then deleting it... Wow. This is the digital equivalent of watching all my friends and family in the bathroom. I think I need to get out of here.

The floor under my feet displays a browser. Tapping my foot in the browser search bar, an electronic keyboard appears. I dance across the keyboard, typing characters into the address field. Where shall I go? If I can go anywhere in the Internet universe, where would I like to be? I know. My favourite place in the world. An art gallery, any art gallery.

Whenever I'm at a gallery, I get this daydream about moving in. Setting up my bedroom in one of the modern art rooms, so that I can gaze upon works by Van Gogh or Picasso or Kandinsky or Monet from the comfort of my bed. If I remember correctly, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is part of MoMA's permanent collection. I think I'll go there.

I waltz along the floor to enter MoMA's URL and then foxtrot in the site's search bar to find what I seek. And there I am, admiring Picasso's work. Outstanding. I'm quite enjoying this trip into the digital world after all. It's like that daydream I used to have as a kid, where I was living in a department store, and after the store would close at night, I would jump on the beds and play with all the toys and eat a bunch of candy, before falling asleep on a big comfy couch in the furniture section.

Sadly there are some limitations in the virtual world. I can't just conjure up a bed next to Desmoiselles or any other work of art for that matter. I still can only see it the way it has been established virtually. Because of that, I'm the only one here. Well, really I'm not. Thousands of people are visiting the site via their computers, but I'm the only one inside the digital world, seeing things the way no one else ever has.

And then he comes around the corner. The man whose name I never learn. He's about my age, but has a lonely, dejected look about him. He has terrible posture, sad grey eyes, downturned mouth, worry lines on his forehead, and a tripping sort of gait, even across the smooth floor. He is absolutely startled to see me. He gasps loudly and steps back, staring at me. Finally he stutters his way through the words "What are you doing here?"

"I accidentally uploaded myself to the Internet", I tell him. I ask him what he's doing here, and he tells me he made the choice over a decade ago. He found life in the real world to be intolerable. Life on the Internet was far more enjoyable, and he found himself spending all of his waking life in virtual worlds anyway. He arrived via Second Life, having deliberately figured out how to get in. He's been here ever since.

He hasn't actually spoken face to face to a real person since he got here more than ten years ago, he tells me as he stares at the floor. I ask him if anyone in the real world might be missing him, but he assures me that's not the case.

I ask him if he wouldn't mind showing me around the virtual world a bit, since he's obviously familiar with the place, but he declines, telling me that he's on a caper at the moment and really shouldn't have stopped to talk to me at all; now he'll have to erase his browser history in order to delete me from his virtual memory.

Using the floor browser, he navigates himself away from me, leaving me on my own again.

I really could spend the rest of my life in here too, I think, but unlike the sad man, I know I would be missed. I wish I had thought to ask him how to get home. And just because I'm thinking about potentially being stuck here, suddenly it occurs to me that I'm lonely. I really wish the sad man hadn't been so repelled by the idea of hanging out with me. It sure would be nice to take this trip with someone.

Alas, it is not to be. I suppose I could navigate to someplace with lots of "people", but they wouldn't be real, they'd just be the coded versions of themselves, their bodies and souls photoshopped to beyond perfection. Liars, all of them. I begin to ache for home, to be back in the tangible world where at least the coffee table I stubbed my toe on this morning delivers some form of truth.

And with that, it occurs to me that I'm thirsty.

I'm not quite sure where I might find something to drink here, so I simply Google "water" and scan my options. I find a Wikipedia entry which isn't of much use, several articles about contaminated water which will obviously not do, and a link to a water-themed amusement park, which promises to be chlorinated and unpalatable, filled with human detritus.

I try to search virtual MoMA for the bathroom where I might find a fountain or a tap, but of course, these things don't exist in MoMA's website.

I decide to Google "Lake Superior" - the largest source of fresh water in North America. Even if it hasn't been purified, it'll wet my kidneys. I click on a beautiful image of a sandy beach surrounded by deep blue water, and I'm transported to the virtual location, relieved to find the lake water lapping deliciously upon the shore. And even though it's winter in the real world, it's nice and... not warm exactly, but comfortable in the virtual world.

I dip my cupped hands into the lake to take a sip, but suddenly I'm shocked to find that instead of actual water, my hands contain a liquid form of code. Can I drink code? I myself am now comprised of it, am I not? Will this quench my thirst?

Oddly it does. I assume that's how the sad man has been able to survive over here for so long.

My thirst quenched, I feel a desire to lay on the beach and enjoy the serenity of this peaceful place, but also conflicted with a need to see as much of the virtual universe as possible. I have at my fingertips -- rather, my feet -- access to the myriad places, people, and things I have always wanted to see and experience for myself, but I assume I only have a limited amount of time in which to satisfy my curiosity.

And I do have to work tomorrow...which presents the problem of how exactly do I get home?

As I turn around to look at the forest behind me, I'm suddenly bombarded with ads, right up in my face, whizzing through space and stopping mere inches from the end of my nose. I stumble back a bit. The ads are for flights to "Home" -- several offers at competing prices, from different companies.

I consider these options. I suppose I could navigate to my bank account online and buy one of these flights. I have to admit, I'm kind of dying to look out the window and see what it looks like traveling across the border between this virtual world and the real world. But despite the competitive pricing, it's still way more than I want to pay. At $174, 691.82, flying form "virtuality" to reality is pretty damn expensive, and also sadly exceeds my bank account balance and credit limit combined. There has got to be a better way.

Suddenly, the clouds move in overhead, and it begins to rain. But this isn't just any rain from just any cloud. I'm being showered with data and images... old files and pictures are falling from the sky, littering the beach, hitting me on the way down. Some of them are only a kilobyte or two, but others are much heavier and hurt when they hit me, even leaving bruises. Not knowing what's in the forest ahead of me, I decide to  navigate away from here.

I Google my address and navigate to street view. Magically, I am transported to my house... but something's wrong. I'm standing outside on the green grass of my front yard by the tree swing, and it's a beautiful, warm sunshiny day... in the middle of January. Then I realize that I'm still in the virtual world, standing outside my virtual house. It's winter in the real world, but there is no snow here. I have arrived here via the photo taken by Google Earth at some other point in time, back in the past before I moved here. That's not my cat in the window or my car in the driveway.

Sigh. Well at least I'm no longer getting rained on by old files from the cloud. But there's not a lot I can do here.

I sit on the swing for a moment and ponder my next move. I'm finding it a bit depressing that I could literally go anywhere I want, and all I want to do is go home and spend the rest of my Sunday evening in the comfort of my home, drinking hot chocolate and listening to records, just like I said I was doing on Facebook. What does it say about me that I feel like a liar that my current status doesn't actually match my Facebook status?

And that's when I realize that since I've uploaded myself to the Internet, the only way I'm going to get home is by downloading myself back into the real world.

I jump off the swing and run out to the road. Thankfully it's a quiet street. I tap the pavement with my foot and the browser appears. I tap the search box to bring up the virtual keyboard. I dance clumsily across the keyboard, spelling out the address for my email provider. I log in and compose an email to myself...no, wait... how can I download the attachment if I'm not there? I change the recipient to Chad, and type the subject "Open when you are home". I add myself as an attachment and hit send. And I wait.

I'm bored here on the swing, when there is so much else out there... and but I know that if I move from this location, the attachment link might get broken, so I sigh and continue swinging. Suddenly, I begin transforming into code once more, and within seconds, I am home.

Chad leaps out of his seat as I appear in the living room. His exclamation of "what the fuck?!" is soon followed by a knowing look. This project has taken me to some crazy places. Remember that time he pulled me out of the TV and saved me from the zombies? There is no need to explain, so we settle down on the couch and he starts The Grand Budapest Hotel over again from the beginning.

*****

I'm not entirely sure I know what to say about this album. There are a few warm spots, but overall it left me a bit cold. Having said that, the appearance vs. reality theme is evident throughout, and I started thinking about the realities that we manufacture for ourselves on the Internet, the way we tell our friends and loved ones half-truths about ourselves, the reality we would like them to believe... that we ourselves would like to believe.

And yet, in the choice between living in a virtual place where you can have anything you want versus a real one where you can't, reality seems like the better of the two.

I suppose this album has put me into an introspective state, but the thoughts are not the kinds of thoughts I want to put out there for all to see... and I'm sure they're the kinds of thoughts no one wants to read. Self doubt and fear of failure and giving way too many fucks about way too many things. So instead... 

Nothing has changed. Everything has changed.

I believe in Beatles.

Waking... waking... awake. I open my eyes to the crack of light invading the darkness of my room. All is quiet. I can't remember what day it is, how old I am, or what my current circumstances are. I'm in one of those odd, freaky moments when all of your memories and experiences that make up your entire being are condensed into one soupy timeless sea: morning.

But what's different about this morning from other mornings, is that this is the morning after the apocalypse. Well, that's not entirely true.

The apocalypse -- World War III -- happened some time ago. I'm not exactly sure how long it's been, because it's hard to keep track of days when you're in and out of sleep and your waking moments are spent reeling and replaying the moment it all came crashing down.

All I know is that this morning, it feels like have finally woke up. Today I will get out of bed and go have a look outside.

I'm not really sure what I expect to find. I don't imagine many of us survived. I remember seeing humans vaporize before my eyes as I watched from the cracks in the rubble - the building that collapsed on top of me became my protective barrier from that soundless, invisible wave. When the terror finally passed, I found that nothing in me felt physically broken, and I managed to wriggle my way out of the debris and find my way home, standing upright and untouched, waiting for me like always.

As I step outside onto the front porch, things look much as they did... before. Just lonelier.

I begin walking in the direction of downtown. It'll take me all day to get there on foot, but I have all day. I am irked by the surreal quiet of once-busy neighbourhoods, with not even the song of a bird or the chatter of a squirrel to break the silence.

The closer I get to downtown, the more the damage from the war begins to appear. Now I'm seeing the bombed out buildings, melted, twisted metal, jagged shards of glass, brick pulverized nearly to dust. Thank goodness the wave took all the bodies.

It's a mild winter day, with the sun beaming cheerfully in the blue sky, unaware that it's warming what might now be a lost world. Kicking a crumbling piece of brick as I continue my walk to the centre of it all, I begin to wonder if there is any kind of cosmic reason I was spared. By the end of the war, every last sect of every religion had a stake in it. Fight fire with fire, was the thinking.

Even the Athiests got organized and fought their battles in the name of peace and a world free from religion. The pacifists refused to go down fighting, and now they're gone too. Where does that leave me? Am I still here because I'm lucky? Or am I here because the only thing I ever believed in was the Beatles?

I'm starting to fear that it may be impossible for me to find any other survivors. My desire to commune with them, whoever and wherever they are, is strong. What pulled me downtown today, I'm not quite sure. The scene here is how I left it, all those days, weeks, months ago. But perhaps someone else managed to elude the wave, trapped in the rubble. Maybe someone else got out too. But if they did, they wouldn't have stayed here, would they?

Hello? Is there anyone here?

Loneliness. I haven't given myself a proper chance to feel it until now. When that feeling would arise, I would simply pull the covers over my head and settle in to another long sleep session. But I can't sleep forever.

There is no point to staying downtown. There is nothing here. I have to move on. My feet begin to carry me away from the gut-wrenching demolition scene, while my heart and mind find their way to the memory of him. I didn't see the wave get him. He was out of my view. While I didn't see it get him, I know that it did, because he never came home. For a brief second, I entertain the thought  that he somehow managed to escape the wave as I did, but instead of going home, went somewhere else. Maybe he's out there. If only I knew for sure. If only I had some little piece of him to help me keep him alive.

Amusingly, my feet have taken me to the train station. My brain was too busy wishing and wondering to tell my ragged feet that no trains will be running today. I laugh to myself for being so automatic. Before turning to head home, I take one last walk onto the platform and look into the distance down the railway, where translucent trains seem to flicker in and out of view. They are only the ghosts of trains. As I turn to leave, a train miraculously pulls up to me, its aged operator hanging out the window. These hallucinations are starting to get scarily vivid.

The operator stops suddenly upon seeing me and thanks the heavens that he has finally found another living person. His repeated praises to a higher power tell me that I was wrong... I'm not here because of a lack of faith. I am just lucky after all. I guess.

The old man introduces himself as Malcolm, and like me, he's been looking for other survivors. He woke up much sooner than I did, in fact he's counted 35 days since he woke. But now he's given up on The City and has decided to head north, since that's where the majority of the evacuees were heading. He also thinks that the damage may be less severe up there. I confirm that I just came from the north and while the damage is indeed less severe, there is not a soul in sight.

Despite having just come from that direction, I gladly hop onto Malcolm's train. It's great to have found another survivor, even if he's a retired train operator with rotten teeth, a loogie problem and residual Christian leanings -- the very faith that got us into this mess, some would argue (if some were still here). But under the circumstances, I'm not going to be too picky about making new friends.

We make our first stop at the amusement park on the very north end of The City. We disembark from the train and agree to meet back here in one hour to report on our findings, hopefully with more survivors to take with us on our journey.

But my feet are sore from today's monumental stroll to ground zero, and I don't feel much like exploring. I decide to sit in a tilt-a-whirl style car in the shape of a little spaceship for a few minutes' rest before exploring the rest of the park, which oddly looks frozen in time, like the rides could all just start running again with a snap of the fingers. 

Snap. The tilt-a-whirl begins to move, making rusty clanking sounds as it begins to gain speed.I fall into a joyful reverie about that time we came here a million years ago - our first date. The spaceship car swings and twirls randomly as we ride together through space. I don't remember the last time I smiled like this.

My reverie is suddenly broken by the sound of a woman's scratchy voice. I'm sitting alone and cold in a parked tilt-a-whirl car that isn't going anywhere, any time soon.

Hey! Hey you! Are you really there?! the voice screeches.

A woman in her 50's with beautiful black hair, greying at the temples, comes running up to me. She jumps onto the platform with wide oceanic eyes and a wild energy I was not expecting. She touches my arm and I tell her that I'm real. Demonstrating a serious lack of boundaries, she yanks me up from the car and takes me into her arms, sobbing like I'm her long lost something-or-other and she hasn't seen me in years.

I have to admit, it's nice to be held by someone... anyone.

Taking me by the arm, she leads me to a little trailer parked nearby, emblazoned with the words "Psychic Reader". There isn't much space inside the trailer, but it's cozy. She offers me some trail mix, and suddenly I realize I can't remember the last time I've eaten. I'm absolutely ravenous.

Crunching my way through her trail mix, all I can do is listen as Alice tells me she woke up about a week ago. She's decided to stay put, because her connection to the "other side" has gotten very strong since the apocalypse. Almost everyone is over there now. She's getting messages front, left, and centre, from souls who are searching for their loved ones on the other side but can't find them. That's how she knew that she wasn't the only survivor.

Suddenly, Alice takes my hands and she tells me that my people are... here. In the trailer? With us? I look around expecting to see translucent visions of my family and friends, but I see nothing. Alice insists that they're all here. They love me and they miss me. They tell me I'm going to be alright.

This is all feeling a bit hokey, and I think Alice is a bit out of her gourd. But then she tells me the story of that weird Christmas Eve when I was 8. That one where my sister and I had the chicken pox and we couldn't go visiting. The stove had broken that evening, and was emitting fumes that made my eyes burn and water. My grandfather came over to fix it, and made me a dancing snowman puppet out of a piece of cardboard and some string. Then my dad came over and was sad that he couldn't be there to watch us open our gifts in the morning, so he took us aside and told us what our gifts were. Finally in bed, my uncle came over and sang us the dirty Tarzan song while tucking us in and telling us we'd better fall asleep so that Santa could do his work.

There is no way Alice could know about that story, unless my family really was communicating with her.

I'm overwhelmed with emotion. Apparently I've been quite wrong about a lot of things. And it's comforting to know that in some way, everyone's still... around. Suddenly it occurs to me that I need to go and meet Malcolm. But before I leave, I ask Alice if she can ask my family a question for me.

Since our souls clearly continue to exist after our bodies are no more, does that mean there is a higher power?

Alice goes silent. She looks like she's concentrating hard. My knee is bouncing with anticipation and impatience. Then, Alice opens her eyes and with a weak smile tells me that no one over there knows the answer to that.  None of them have met any kind of deity. Even on the other side, people are fighting about whose god is the right god.

Alice's sadness is overwhelming. I've taken something away from her, I realize. I'm consumed with guilt at that realization, and also because I've eaten pretty much all of her trail mix.

I try to console Alice by telling her that here among the living, I know of one other survivor. He drives a train that works and we're heading north in search of others. I tell her that we would love to have her join us. But Alice declines. She's not sure that what's left of humanity is the best cross section with which to carry on. And it's not as if she doesn't have anyone to talk to.

I bid farewell to Alice and head back toward the train. I start thinking about her implication that what's left of humanity may not be the best and brightest that our kind has to offer. But how could she know that? I may not be a rocket scientist, but at this moment in time, that's not what we need. Well, fucked if I know what we need. First we need to find each other.

*****

This album is exactly what I needed right now. I know it took me to kind of a bleak place, and I'm a bit sorry about that, but it's not completely devoid of hope. This album expresses so many of my own current feelings. Now that I'm nearing "the end" of this project, I'm retrospectively amazed at the serendipitous way and the timing in which the albums have unfolded to me, with an accidental relevance pretty much throughout.

Needless to say, I think this is a fantastic album. 5:15 The Angels Have Gone is like healing medicine for my soul. It's a song that knows me - it knows where I've been and it even knows where I'm going, even if I don't. Listening to it makes me realize that some art exists specifically for the times when we're lost. It is made to help people see their way out of the dark. When someone who has never met you makes something that takes on special significance just for you, because of what you've experienced and how you see the world, you see how art can give life meaning. This is how music saves people.