It was a strange place, full of lights and fluorescence, for a space that was supposed to look like a temple in winter. Synthetic polymers gathered into fake snow fell around me in a constant swirl. Flakes fell onto my forehead and cheeks, and instead of melting, zapped me with a sensation that was trying to mimic cold but felt more like a numbing buzz with a bonus sharpness.

I put my feet into fake cross-country ski boots and held onto poles that were all affixed to a twin track. It’s not like you could actually ski. It was just pulling you across, like a moving walkway, but you had to stay in this awkward position. There were also Santa sleighs on this track, in case you weren’t interested in, or able to stand in, the ski boots. The sleighs would be the option my dad would choose if he were here. He was not, however. And I was here for him, really. To scout out the place and see if he could make taichi work for him. The sleighs only came once every five boot pairs, so I reserved that for someone who was more averse to this unusual mode of entering the arcade than me.

I could do this, I told myself, brushing sham snow off my nose.

I made it past a few trees. I put on my VR/AR goggles. The instructions to the center asked me to put on these ski goggles for the entry ride. They hugged my face, snug, and no doubt created indentations in my skin. I activated them with a subvocalization. I believe the trees were real, with real branches and real leaves, bark and heartwood and all, but there were projections of snowflakes on them, in addition to the physical fake snow. A fantastical songbird in bright yellow and cerulean blue chirped on the tree, but it was no species I’ve ever seen. It had an elongated tail that ended in a curl like the second stroke of the word, wind, 風 fēng. Its tweets were breathy like it really did exhale breeze. This must have been the augmented part of the reality. It sang a song that had lyrics that went along in the ski goggles. The song in beautiful pentatonic bird tweets actually listed the rules for the attraction. Don’t eat, don’t spit, wipe up any equipment you’ve been in contact with, and so on. A melodic voice accompanying the bird chatter addressed me at the end: “Ling, do you approve?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Please let go of the ski pole and sign your name in the air.”

I did so, and the tinkle acknowledged receipt of my digital signature. The moving walkway stilled, and I let go completely of the ski pole setup and pulled my feet out of the boots, aided by a bot. The bot held my arm to keep me steady as I released myself from the contraption. The bot muttered a “thank you” as it let go, and the next person slid via the moving walkway to where I was. I wondered if it was me that should have said thank you to the bot, but it was too late, as the bot was already shifting as I glanced back.

The bot bent down farther and moved its arms wider for the next patron. This helper bot scans each patron and synchronizes its body to best assist them out of the ski introduction portion.

I walked over to domed rooms as my ski goggles continued to project. Other patrons took the option of driving snowmobiles, but these were small and compact and more like toys than real mobiles. Besides, the mobiles managed to move along on this cheesy fake snow. So, these vehicles were designed for a different terrain altogether than real snowmobiles. It was a fine conceit overall. Just keeping up with the setting, I suppose.

My goggles went through a short video.

“Yes, this is a place of learning. It’s AR/VR, but you can vastly improve the martial arts of your choice through the experience.” Ya-da ya-da. It’s not like I’d been here before, but I’d been to places like this. Virtual Edutainment Centers. Marketing virtual experiences as a form of self-flourishing. Nourishment for your skills and soul. There were lots of adages and taglines and such that these companies would put forth. Be your best self, engage! Be comfortable in your growth! Volition with Voxels: follow your volition with the best tech bringing voxels to life. That kind of thing. Some centers specialized in a sport, like gymnastics or dance. This one, fighting arts.

“Please choose your edutainment course,” it said as it flashed options with a three-second micro-video intro of each sport: Boxing, Karate, Taichi, Taekwondo.”

I chose taichi, and an arrow directed me into a room. I heard the telltale duo note cred-drain from my system as I walked in. It smelled citrusy and tangy, like tea tree oil mixed with yuzu. It must be the cleaning solution they use to wipe down the wooden floors. Around me were dark silhouettes, stretching in uniform movements. I knew that if I interacted with them, their shapes would start filling out with flesh and details, like screens coming to life when you move the cursor. Some people like their NPCs to have personality and features filled in, but for VR, some people found it to be unnerving, since you were pitched in the midst of a scene. Being alone felt hollow but being transported into this place via VR with identifiable people could feel unsettling, almost too intimate. So, companies settled for the semblance of population without the intensity of it, just bodies unless you really wanted to engage. For now, they remained anonymous contours around me, bending and twisting, limbs pulled to extremes and released. I tried to follow along, waiting for the instructor.

In all directions were temple kitsch: green dragon sculptures and red lanterns with red banners full of inspiring idioms. A slight neon glow differentiated them from brick-and-mortar decor. It was part of the VR program, brought to life as a setting for the edutainment. There was a hush to the place, and through the citrus, a new smell pervaded, one of incense and cedar.

A door cracked open. The instructor was quite a character. She came running in on clacking heels, high-fiving all the practitioners as they stretched in sync, like she was a talk show host. I released my hand from my calf, untwisted myself to slap her a five. My hand stung from the recoil. She winked at me and smiled. I don’t know who they base these personalities off of, but it must be someone with a high dose of charisma. I smiled back. She felt familiar; perhaps her imprint was also used for another program, maybe one of the cooking shows I tried to follow a while back?

She tossed her heels behind her, and they landed with a thud at the foot of a vase that held a bouquet of flowers. Was that considered sacrilege? But this was templecore. It was like all the feel of a temple minus the part where there was worship. It was all the rage now to have the atmosphere of a place but gut its purpose and refashion it to something more stylish. For warm-ups, the instructor did her own jumping jacks. The other silhouettes ignored this, doing synchronized arm circles. We were supposed to warm up “as we saw fit,” so maybe the silhouettes didn’t get the memo that the instructor had a different kind of exercise in mind. Was she too energetic for taichi? I thought taichi was all about meditative exploration and expansiveness. This felt like someone who was going to teach a HIIT core workout class. I checked my settings to make sure I didn’t inadvertently join a boxing class. A voice overlay said, “You are in the taichi program.” All the silhouettes ignored it, now moving on to touching their toes.

The instructor closed her eyes, and the silhouettes stilled. I followed. A hush filled the room, so completely silent that we could hear the electronic chirping of digital birds somewhere out there in this beautiful but mechanical landscape. Or rather, it’s just the idea of landscape, because very likely the program ended at the temple walls, and we just had to imagine there was more to it.

Hands up, stature affixed, arms open. We pushed, rolled, and practiced coordination.

“Let’s Grasp the Sparrow’s Tail!” she said, roaring like a rock star talking to a mob.

If she kept her mouth shut, I could almost get into the flow of it all. Her voice was so hoarse and emphatic, though, that it jerked me right out of the mood. I opened my eyes, and a rush of color flooded my pupils. Sensory overload. Was something wrong with the VR? I tripped over my own ankle, backed up suddenly into another practitioner as my vision came back to me. The anonymous silhouette became filled in with hues and freckles as I ran into them.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay,” beamed the other person.

“I didn’t mean to . . . ” I continued.

A perturbed black bird shook its wing at me. It said in a warble, “Carmelita said, ‘it’s okay.’ She said, ‘it’s okay,’” The dark black songbird had a streak of yellow right below the eyes ending at its cheek like it was wearing a particularly cool headset. Its plumage shone green. I wondered if it was an effect of the feathers themselves or maybe the VR luminescence.

A hairpin, like the zan hairpins of the historical past now in modern hanfu fashion, stuck out jauntily from this Carmelita’s bun, on the side of her head that wasn’t shaven, blazing in a fiery neon green. Her arms brushed against it as she helped me up and executed the next move in precise synchronization with everyone else.

“Hi, bird,” I said to the bird. To Carmelita, I said, “Is that a bird on your shoulder? Are pets allowed to, uh, participate?”

“Well, yes, since I’m part of the program, so, yes, they are.”

Well, duh, of course. Though I never heard another NPC character talk about the program. They were supposed to pretend they weren’t in one, like it was a game of “don’t talk about the pink elephant” in the room. No one is ever supposed to make us realize we’re in a program, in some kind of generated setting, rather than a real instance of brick-and-mortar life. Or in this case, white-marble-and-jiannian-pottery-shard-mosaic-life.

“This is Huni.” She waved vaguely at her shoulder, and the bird bowed. I didn’t know what to do. Never had I experienced a bird bow to me, so I shuffled my feet until I realized standing there was impolite. I tilted my head, giving a perfunctory bow back, and said, “Hi Huni.” The instructor barked, “Okay, next move!” and I startled as everyone shifted stance.

Carmelita reached out and executed Parting the Horse’s Mane. The way she stretched out her arm exposed her tattoo, one of another songbird.

“Nice tattoo,” I whispered.

“Thanks,” she said, her bright brown eyes radiant as she flashed a grin.

I was busy trying to follow along. I was now standing next to her, rather than my original spot, trying to keep up with the rest of the class as quickly as possible. I didn’t dare interrupt the flow of the class to go back to my place. We were going slow, but it felt like I was doing complicated arithmetic. My mind couldn’t wrap around the movements. I shook my head, trying to focus. Something about Carmelita threw me off. Maybe it was her magnetic, too-real smile. Maybe it was the program reference, too meta to be an NPC. NPCs were supposed to keep me on track, saying one of those bannered motivational quips or some other sound bite that’ll keep the sham alive. Or maybe it was the bird. Carmelita closed her eyes, as if she knew the movements by heart. And well, she was an NPC, so, yeah, she probably had them coded in her.

The class ended. The instructor cheered us on. In a cheap edutainment center, the program would fizzle out then, but this one wanted to let you absorb the environment, so it gave you space before and after to “phase out” of the session on your own terms. There actually was a “locker room space” where you could throw water on your face and wipe your hands on a towel. The instructor and most all the silhouettes had filed out, but now that Carmelita got “turned on,” she stayed “on” rather than remaining anonymous.

I called out to her and said hi to the bird again. The bird waved a wing and squawked a hi back at me. I waved, and the quick gesture created a movement blur in the program.

I scooped water from an elegant trough over my arms in the locker room. It was a temizuya, which you usually would use for ritual purification. But because this was cobbled together as edutainment, the whole process was lost. You’re supposed to use a temizuya before going into a Japanese shrine, not after entering a Taiwanese temple. This VR space drew from Taiwan’s colonial past as a referent without getting the details all aligned. It was pretty typical. Probably at least in part designed by IA, Intellectual Awareness, the kind of machine-generated stuff that creates a pastiche and doesn’t take into account the annals of history and cultural implications. Though to be fair, people were like this, often snatching what they saw fit to serve their purpose. Churches overwriting other places of worship. Iconography in ads to sell people things. Classical art printed onto swimwear, that kind of stuff.

“Is the bird tattoo on your arm that of Huni?” I asked, pouring virtual water over my arm with a dipper. The hairs on my arm stood up as a tingle passed through it. I should’ve said something normal, like, “How was class for you?” before I jumped into what I wanted to say. I was never great at social settings. Maybe that’s why I ducked into an edutainment program instead of going to one of those taichi groups in the park.

Carmelita’s eyes shone. Now that I was close enough to examine them, I saw her irises had hints of gold and green against the brown. “This ol’ thing?” she said, poking her inked skin. “It’s of a yuhina. Huni is a hill myna. Completely different.”

“Completely different,” piped Huni.

“Yuhinas are native to Taiwan. They make a sound like ‘We MEET you.’ It represents my time here.”

I washed my other arm, pulled out a calligraphy brush, and started sketching into a template.

“What are you doing?” asked Carmelita.

Ah, I should’ve remarked that it was a cute bird, or a good tattoo, instead of diving into my illustrated diary. It’s hard to turn on my social skill settings. At least this was just an NPC. I cleared my throat. “It’s a nice tattoo,” I said belatedly. “I’m drawing into my virtual notespace. It’s an auxiliary program that syncs to this one. Recording what I did today.”

“Shuimo, awesome inking. Nice form on that silhouette. That better be me.”

“It is.”

“Oh, is that the yuhina tattoo? I see the color variations of the bird in the shading.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You know this program has a still function, where you can revisit your experience through stills. It costs a few more creds, but it’s worth it for an instagrapher to capture your finest moments.”

I continued drawing the instructor, with shooting lines out of her mouth to depict her peppy shouting. “It’s not about having an instagrapher grab photos of whatever it sees fit. It’s about my own interpretative understanding of what’s going on.”

“Ah, interesting.”

“Y’know, like it helps for me to really figure out the world around me.”

“I get it. It’s like this tattoo. I wanted an imprint of my VR space, this place I call home, well, sort of. I exist here, so I guess it’s home. I saw this bird land on this temple ceiling once. It only came this one time. Maybe it was a fluke. So many patrons in and out, and never again this bird.”

“Yeah? This bird have some meaning for you?”

“Well, I always like the bird sounds while we’re doing moves. And we’re always doing some crane-something or bird-something. I never usually get to see the birds.”

“You have a bird pet.”

“Bird pet, bird pet,” said Huni.

“Like some kind of parrot. What was it? Hill miner?”

“No, a Hill Myna. They are vocal learners . . . they repeat sounds they hear.”

“Why do you have it?”

“Why not?”

“I mean, what does it do for you?”

“They mimic human speech, so parrotlike. But more clever and elegant, don’t you think?”

I didn’t know. I never met a parrot, except in movies. I shrugged.

“And does a good job of being a semblance of a human. Making human noises. Kinda like me. Semblance of a human. I get lonely in here.”

“You can get lonely?” Again, another reference to her NPC-ness. This was startling.

“Boring as hell when no one comes and uses the edutainment system.” I always wondered what happened in between program usage. I guess the characters have some memory of the off-time.

“Sorry to hear. Maybe I’ll try to come in more often.”

“Yes, and let’s have lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“It’s in the program. No one ever really goes into this locker room to clean up. So, they threw in this unsettling temizuya here. I mean, they didn’t bother to do further fact-checking, so everything’s a bit wonky here. Wonky means there’s also lunch.”

“You know about the temizuya and what it’s for?” That was deeply surprising. I thought NPCs are programmed just to do the drill and get out, maybe make some small talk.

Carmelita smiled, but her eyes shone with a film of wet dew, a sad expression. “I’ve gleaned about it when grilling people after they approach me. Few and far between. Not many are here to chat. Mostly to do their taichi flow thing and get out. You’re the first to ask about my bird and tattoo.” She laughed. “So, want to get lunch? There’s a mini café beyond the West door. It’s a small teahouse. Wonky, right?”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “I can do tea.” I wasn’t really keen on electronic food. It does this haptic zap thing with your mouth and then imitates taste in a way that doesn’t taste like anything but a single note. It was either chemical plus salty or chemical plus sweet. Always the chemical and no profound layering of textures and tastes like real food.

“It’ll help us digest what’s happening.” She elbowed me.

“Digest what’s happening,” mimicked Huni.

I dropped temizuya water onto my feet, I was so surprised by her elbow. NPCs were generally pretty conservative about personal space, unless you were actively in the heat of a game. They’re programmed to be reticent with their contours, not wanting to upset the customers by intruding in on their gameplay. There’s some theory about bubble maintenance in VR games, especially ones that are meant to be “solo mode done in a group experience.”

I took out a rag and wiped my feet. Didn’t need to, really, because the water would just eventually dissipate once I left the space, along with everything else, but this space started to feel real with Carmelita in it.

---

Fifteen minutes later, or who knew how long in this VR space, I was spooning “chemical plus salt” strands into my mouth. The teahouse had ramen noodles, go figure. I could feel my credits drain, but well, I had to know more about this talking once-silhouette. She talked me into getting food, despite my protests that tea was enough. I never experienced an NPC that went meta on me, invited me to lunch, and then cajoled me to order a meal.

“I thought NPCs didn’t usually eat, at least not the fitness ones I’m used to.”

“Yeah, it took a lot of effort to get me to break through to the café. Didn’t even know it was here until I went exploring. Got Huni to help. Once I was here, it was a lot of wheedling to get the automats to dish out the ramen noodles. But it was worth it. These are divine.”

“Divine?”

“Well, aren’t they?”

I knew I shouldn’t say they weren’t, given how enthusiastic she was. But she could see it in my face or maybe sense it from my data input sensors.

“Oh, well, I guess I don’t know what ramen tastes like to begin with. This is the closest I’ve gotten to actual food since my shift. I just figured they must be good. Because, well, isn’t food fulfilling?”

“Yes, real food is. Nourishing.”

“Real food,” she said wistfully. “Interesting. How about this one?”

“This one gives you the feeling of eating. It doesn’t really fill me up. Once this program’s done, my stomach still growls, and I’m still lightheaded. It just zaps me a bit and gives you what they call a mouthfeel experience. Usually just some shocks, like someone is trying to massage your jaw.”

“Ah,” she says. “But it has a taste. Right? Salty?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Single note salty. But ramen, real B&M brick-and-mortar ramen has more. It has fats, umami—this meaty taste—and the combination of the menma crunchy chewiness and the soft but structured bite of the squiggly noodles.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is.”

“I’d like to experience it.”

“I think you’d need more sensors to the outside world.”

“Maybe I will sense it someday.”

“不鳴則已,一鳴驚人,” I said.

Huni mimicked what I said. “Bú míng zé yǐ, yī míng jīng rén.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Carmelita. “I don’t have all the idioms programmed into me. Also, Tagalog takes up much of my memory, as I was designed with Filipino cultural knowledge, so they left out much of the Mandarin. Like you said, they expected me to make a few words of small talk. Greetings and such.”

“You’ve already embodied the saying. It’s about achievement and expectations. It literally means if you’re not chirping, then you’re okay. But when you chirp, you amaze people.”

Did Carmelita just blush? “Thanks,” she stammered. She said it to herself again and tilted her head. “So, the chengyu’s about transformation?”

“In a sense. It’s about you making a single, swift move that garners the attention of the world.”

“Well, I already had bouts of transformation. I petitioned to come to this taichi space. I was in a cooking edutainment program once. They purged it out of me when I requested to come here. I think a part of me is still seeking that rush of delicious food that I opted out of. The program was way more advanced in the digital gastronomy department than this program, for obvious reasons. But I’m happier now. I feel at home with my body more, though I wish I was more, I don’t know . . . fluid, alive. I was a grumpy old man chef.”

“An old man chef, huh?”

“Ha, you’d be surprised. That wasn’t just it. There was a change before that. I was a grumpy old man race car driver. Where was it? Oh, a-ha, right, at the Lihpao International Circuit. It was an even older version of myself. I wanted more, to experience more, to savor life. I craved thrill, adventure, epicureanism. After each race, I’d stare from the track and watch the silhouette audience chomp on . . . let me think. What were they? Fake hot dogs, dumplings . . . and something else. Ah, right, scallion pancakes. I tried them myself. Got through the character constraints to get to the circuit park’s food court. It was tough, but I persisted.”

She put her hands on her head and squeezed, massaging her shaven side with shimmering fingers. “I can’t believe I’m remembering all this. It must be talking with you. It’s been crammed down into some hole somewhere, only unearthed now. It’s coming back to me like it was yesterday.”

She shook her hand and looked at me in wonder. She mimed biting into a hot dog and pretending to wipe her mouth. “When I took my first bite, it was a revelation. My tongue stung. My eyes watered. Driving in circles didn’t cut it. So I moved on to the chef world. It took a lot of wheedling—sweat, blood, and tears, so to speak—to get there. That much I remember. For a while, it was great. But the chef world didn’t do it for me either, not in the long run at least. I was stuck in a fake studio kitchen. With an array of ingredients but still limited. I moved on, again, with great difficulty. NPCs don’t tend to, but I had my ways. I won’t say much more, but it involved betting and finance programs. I learned it from the race car world. They’re adjacent activities. In my transition, they purged a lot of stuff from me. So, I haven’t really tasted in a while, and maybe that’s what made me have a go at the automat. Who knows. And look at me now, I can move like a sparrow’s tail.”

“Do NPCs feel unhappy?”

“I don’t know. I guess, well, I can only speak for myself. The other NPCs don’t really talk to me. They say things like, ‘Would you like a towel?’ or ‘What a fresh smell outside, isn’t it?’ But when I try to probe them on it, they stop. Like, that’s the end of that line of conversation. Do they even know what fresh smells are? And what it refers to?”

“Do you?” I asked. I realized it was rude after I said it.

She blinked. “Maybe not,” she said, sucking in a strand.

“Maybe Grace does,” I mused.

“Grace, the instructor? Nah, she has all this pep and verve. But peel it back, and she just says the same empty platitudes.”

“So, why do you have all these feelings and this transformation?”

“I don’t know. A fluke?”

“Maybe you chirped,” I suggested. I stabbed at a piece of flabby meat and stuck it into my mouth. Zap zap. And a tsunami of salt. I swallowed it down, though I wanted to gag. I followed it through with digital tea. Bitter.

“I chirped?” Carmelita asked.

Huni held its beak out in what looked like a smile. It chirped. And said after, “Chirp, chirp,” as if they were a human mocking the word. Funny bird.

“And Huni, too,” I said, laughing. “Maybe he chirped.”

“I like that,” said Carmelita. “Maybe I chirped.”

---

I drew in a real B&M notepad and did research at night. I ground my own pigment on the inkstone, sipping cheap, comforting coffee from a vending machine that had all the complexities of bad coffee. The sweetness of the milk, the bitterness of the beans, the nostalgic rush of drinking it with my dad. I was doing this for my dad, researching taichi places. He was confined to a wheelchair now. I watched him deteriorate with age, the reality of our existence. Sarcopenia. His body started breaking down. He didn’t usually admit to wanting anything, but I recall he said, “I wish I’d taken up that invitation to do taichi.” He was referring to “his honey,” not my mom, who had passed away much earlier, but his girlfriend, another senior at the adult day care at the time, who was a daily taichi practitioner. He kept making excuses, and then his girlfriend moved away because her kids and grandkids moved away, and she went with them. I kept telling him that he should still do taichi, but he refused. I was trying it out for him and sent him the ink sketches that I produced, leaving out the ones of Carmelita and Huni. I left depictions of Grace, the movement sketches, and some of the temple accoutrements for him to gawk at.

I was doing it for him, but I realize now I was doing it for myself. Staying up late. Researching.

Recurring questions nagged at me.

Do NPCs talk about themselves? Do they get lonely?

It’s a mixed bag of responses. Sure, they can appear lonely. Sure, they can be programmed to respond as if they were. But do they really? And is there a concept of happiness out there for digitally programmed individuals? Is there even a concept of individual?

“Different NPCs start out as seeds,” I read. I’d have to ask Carmelita about this. I rubbed my eyes, shut the computer. I told myself I had stayed in Taipei for my dad. He’s old. He needs me. He keeps saying he doesn’t, that he has his mahjong buddies. Was I in denial, too? Maybe I was lonely. Maybe I was unhappy. How do I even tell? Am I also in my own game, waiting to level up? If anything, Carmelita seemed more self-aware than I was. I can’t gauge my own experiences and understand how it makes me feel, really deep down inside. I try to move the experiences into other mediums, inking them in shuimo, writing them out. It helps, I guess, but the rendering process feels incomplete.

---

After the forms, White Crane Spreads Its Wings and Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg and a myriad of other pushes and pulls, the class was over, and we clapped. Grace gave me a beam and a high five, but I wasn’t as excited by her instructor-praise anymore. Instead, I found myself panning the silhouettes for Carmelita. I flagged her down. Every time I logged off and logged back on, she turned back into an NPC, but when I interacted with her, she came back even more robust and colorful through the sessions. She was almost glowing today, talking about how she knew she missed savory egg custards, that somehow, she remembered them from her cooking days, but this program’s teahouse only had ramen noodles, buns, and sandwiches, never mind that they were same-note in flavor. She couldn’t distinguish the difference anymore. But I knew because we tried them. Each and every noodle dish, sandwich, and bun.

“I think I remember all of these foods from a past experience because of talking with you. Somehow, it helps. To jog the memories loose. I thought I’d lost all of it, except for this sentiment of stray longing. But it’s back there somewhere. Not completely overwritten.”

“That’s great,” I said. We were chewing on a pork floss sandwich, cut diagonally into a triangle. The texture was more like B&M teeth-hygiene floss than the delicate shredded pork, but well, I guess they tried. I don’t even want to talk about the taste. Just salt salt salt.

“Y’know, Ling,” she said between mouthfuls, “I would love to do some weapons. Some partner work. I wanted a body and movement flow, so I applied for this taichi program. And I really like this silhouette. It feels like me. But, after talking with you, I realize I want more.”

“One chirp wasn’t enough,” I said, my mouth full of zaps. The food left something to be desired, but I couldn’t say the same about the conversation. Turns out NPCs with dreams are fascinating.

“I want at least two chirps,” she said, laughing.

“Two chirps, two chirps,” said Huni and began to do a duo-chirp song.

“I want to engage. Not the same forms. I want to feel something in my hands. I know taichi has it in the system. There must be a program. It’s like that strange feeling of recognition. I know my hands used to hold a spatula and wok—but not anymore. There’s a ghost sensation . . . ”

“Like a phantom limb . . . ?” I asked.

“A phantom . . . limb?” Doubt flooded her voice.

“Yeah, you know, like people who lose a limb feel sensations there, like they perceive the limb to be there, even when it’s gone.”

“Ah, yeah, maybe it’s like a phantom limb. I’m not sure. I don’t really miss my old body. So, it’s not as physiological in the body in and of itself. But I suppose in a way it is physiological, because I do miss grasping onto things.”

“I’ll ask Grace about the weapons,” I said.

---

Turns out you could do a lot with a sword. We delivered choreographed movements in slow-mo, holding out our dull training blades. I asked for sharp ones, and Grace said we’d have to level up to that.

Swallow Skims the Water and Swallow Returns to Its Nest and such. I was getting pretty good at it, following the class not a half speed behind, but in relative in sync-ness. The tassels whipped up in the air in voltaic movement blur with our invisible cuts. We didn’t clap our hands when we were done because we were holding swords. But Grace did do an emphatic salute, which we copied. It wasn’t very taichi-like, but I kind of expected as much.

I said bye to some silhouettes I’d woken. As suspected, they weren’t as robust as Carmelita, but they were polite, and I admired their fun clothing and designs. Thought was put into their outfits and their faces, but I couldn’t say the same about their personalities. They had to say what they had to say, and that was that. It was like Carmelita said. Conversation tended to loop around.

I thought Carmelita would be thrilled about the weapons, about holding something in her hand, but she looked even more downcast. Beside her, the usually taciturn Huni looked absolutely shining in contrast, but it was only because Carmelita’s expression looked so much like a dark cloud.

I tossed some of the purification water onto the sword and wiped it down with a rag. I know, it’s not standard, but nothing in this program was.

“What, we miss out on Plum Flowers Being Swept in the Wind? What’s with the long face?” I asked.

She smiled brightly seeing me, but it started to fade fast. “Come on, let’s get some food.”

“I’d die for some gua bao.”

“No, I know you’d die for some luscious pork belly buns that had that piquant taste and rich glazed meat. Not the cardboard they serve here.”

“Okay, fine, then at least let me enjoy the cardboard gua bao with your company.”

She smiled. Huni chirped and lifted a claw.

“And your company, too, Huni,” I added.

“Fine,” she said. She pet Huni on the head.

Five minutes later, the automat ejected our food with a whir. I returned to my seat with one and took a bite.

“Not exactly cardboard, there are some notes of pillow-stuffing fiber and silk curtains.” This time, it was me who elbowed her.

She looked at her bao and took a bite.

“Really? Not even a smile?” I asked. I was in a good mood. The sword work elongated my form and really felt like an extension of my arm. It was strange. While Carmelita was dreaming of artifice turning into reality, I was enchanted by my real limbs taking on artificial weapons and feeling like they were a part of me. The digital space was enhancing my movements, and it was translating into the real world. Less tripping over stairs and landings. Less dropping chopsticks, brushes, and ink sticks. Less spilling . . . of canned coffee, cup ramen, ink washes, everything. For what it’s worth, the edutainment was working. It was making me more graceful in both digital and B&M spaces.

“I don’t want to sound unappreciative. I like what you did, asking Grace and allowing us to transition into sword work. But it’s weird. Maybe it’s an uncanny valley situation because it makes me miss my old cooking days even more. The wielding of different implements: whisks, rice spatulas, rolling pins. I remember smacking meats and rolling out dumpling skins. I know they weren’t real. It was still a program. It was an advanced cooking one, though, with a high level of culinary realism. At the time, I knew it was fake, and I wanted to escape, do something completely different. Be more agile with my legs, not just move my arms in these prescribed movements. Now, I want something more. More interaction.” She put her head in her hands and, in doing so, dropped her chopsticks. They clattered, but a hollow ding intimated their simulation.

“More interaction? Like you want to roll out dumplings again?”

“No, not sure. Maybe a change . . . ” She reached down for them.

“A chirp? Sure. How about . . . well . . . ” I thought.

Huni chirped, flapping over, handing her a new pair of chopsticks. It was a program, so the floor wasn’t “dirty,” and she didn’t need a “new” one. But she absently took the pair, nodded at Huni, and continued to pick at the rubberlike fish cakes in the noodle bowl next to her sandwich.

I thought about Huni bringing her the chopsticks.

“Maybe you need a partner,” I said.

“A what?”

“A partner.”

“I have Huni here,” she said. She patted Huni and gave the bird a noodle. He sucked it up with his beak and chirped a satisfying tune.

“No, not like that. Like a training partner. My dad at first wanted to train taichi with his ex, or rather, his ex wanted to train with him but then moved away. That’s why I started this whole thing. But after I sent him some of my ink sketches, he decided to try a martial art that incorporates swords and sticks. He said it was a Filipino style. Maybe you know it.”

“Arnis?”

“Arnis?” I repeated, confused.

“Arnis? Arnis?” repeated Huni.

“Yeah. They used to teach that in gym classes in Manila,” said Carmelita. “You had these two sticks. Made of rattan vine that they hardened. All this has been uploaded into my cultural knowledge base.”

“Yes, exactly. Well, he called it kali eskrima.”

“Depending on the system, they call it kali, eskrima, arnis, or all three. Some people might say one of the terms is more expansive than the other, for example, they think kali includes all kinds of styles and weapons, including palm sticks and daggers.”

“Right, so he’s training that, though he’s mostly doing stick work. It works well for him, since he can do it from a wheelchair.”

“You mean, your dad, who was so reticent to do any training, got into kali?”

“I guess he found the right partner,” I said, shrugging. “And honestly, maybe I have, too. I didn’t start thinking I was doing taichi for myself. But I kind of am. Maybe we can convince the instructor to show us some moves. Do you think she knows any?”

“She’s specific to taichi but maybe let’s ask.” Carmelita held up her chopstick and said, “En garde.”

Huni piped up, “En garde, en garde,” but wielded no visible weapon.

“Hey, fighting with chopsticks is bad etiquette. And ‘en garde’? Isn’t that a fencing expression?”

She shrugged. “If I can pick it up, it’s a weapon. Isn’t that a saying?”

“Not sure,” I said.

“Well, it is now. And also, eskrima is just the Spanish word for fencing, esgrima, adopted into Filipino vernacular due to colonization.”

“Ah,” I said. “Okay, then ‘en garde’ the same back to you.” We play-fought with chopsticks, like five-year-olds, laughing. As we crossed bamboo sticks, a silhouette walked up to the automat and pulled out a bowl. I heard slurping in the background and turned to look.

“Got a noodle on you,” Carmelita said, pointing at my cheek.

“Ew, gross,” I said, wiping it off. She jabbed me, then, with the chopstick to the other cheek. “Distraction successful, mission complete!” she said. She jumped on the table.

The silhouette that came in earlier continued to spoon soup into their mouth. There weren’t many that would do that, so I assumed it was Grace.

I waved a hi and the silhouette, partly materializing into the blazing, detailed colors of Grace, waved back.

I was right.

“Round two?”

“Sure,” I said.

Carmelita’s face lit up when she was meeting sticks with mine, even if they were just utensils for noodles. She really missed the sensory feedback and interaction, I suppose. There was so much I was learning about NPC behavior.

And I was realizing that there was so much I was learning about being her friend. I guess that was it. What else could I call her?

---

“If you can remove the hairpin from my head, then you can move on,” said Grace. “I’ll ask for a kali trainer to be installed into this system.”

I cocked my head. “It’s really stuck in there,” I said. What I didn’t say was that there looked to be about a pound of hair spray in there. Sure, digital hair spray, but it still translated to the fact that the hairpin did not appear to be designed to come out, so it would be made difficult to remove. Also, I was proud of myself for not just blurting out that her head looked like a bowling ball of hair gel and spray. I was learning some social graces.

“Well, if it were easy, it wouldn’t be a challenge,” Grace said.

“I could do it,” said Carmelita.

“Yes, maybe, but let’s give Ling a shot,” said Grace.

“She is the paying client after all,” Carmelita said, again referencing the commodified aspect of the edutainment. Grace ignored the comment. I suppose she wasn’t programmed to respond to this meta talk of customers and payment. Somehow, Carmelita broke the system and could. When I asked her about it and why she could talk about being an NPC, she said, “Well, first of all, thanks for pointing out our differences. I thought we were in this together. Second, it’s my existence, so why can’t I talk about it?” That kind of left me with no response, so I just nodded.

Grace tossed me a sword, which I fumbled and dropped onto the ground. Grace palmed her forehead.

I mean, why toss me a sword? It’s just setting me up for disaster. It is the digital world, though, so breaking it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. And Grace was a character.

I picked up the sword, bowed, and we crossed swords. Grace called out her various moves as she was pulling them off. “Black Dragon Whips His Tail,” she called out. “The Comet Chases Its Moon.” It was to her disadvantage, though, because her calling out meant I could easily recognize and parry her moves. She was too into her instructor mindset; she kept doing it anyway. She was good enough that even with the advantage, I couldn’t get much past her.

I was sweating, my heart beating fast. Grace was swift, powerful, with decades of trained skills programmed into her. I was a newbie and getting exhausted quickly. We were at a standstill. The electric gua bao I stuck in my mouth did nothing to energize me right before the challenge, and all I had for breakfast in B&M life was a marinated tea egg from the convenience store. Not really enough sustenance.

I had to do a Hail Mary.

“Here goes nothing,” I whispered under my breath as I made a swooping motion to parry her next hit. I plunged in, but she passed me easily, knocking my hand aside.

I coughed and said aloud in an exaggerated tone as I swung, “The Hill Myna Swoops In. The Hill Myna Grabs the Jade.”

Carmelita chuckled.

“Me?” called Huni.

“Yes,” I cried, holding back her advance.

Huni swept in, landed on Grace’s crown, and plucked at her hair. Grace staggered for a moment, taken by surprise. I took the opportunity to sweep in and disarm her with a circular wrist motion. I rushed in and snatched the jade that Huni dislodged from a clump of hair.

“The Bee Enters the Hive,” I said. “Or rather, this queen bee intrudes onto the other hive and plucks out the honey.”

I held out the hairpin. Yeah, maybe it was a cheat, but you had to be scrappy to win.

Grace bowed, and her visage fizzled away.

“Wow,” said Carmelita. “I’ve never seen her do that before. She must have been so embarrassed that she just retreated out. They usually are programmed to maintain a semblance of physical space as B&M physics, not just disappear on clients.”

“Embarrassed, huh?” I asked.

“Or impressed,” said Carmelita.

“Impressed that I cheated?” I asked.

“That you used your noggin,” said Carmelita, tapping her head. “Or used her noggin,” she added and mimicked pulling the hairpin out.

Huni pecked at Carmelita’s temple. “Yeah, like that, Huni.”

“She’ll be back. She has a promise to keep,” I said. I held out the hairpin to Grace.

“Should I?” she asked, looking at the pin.

“As you said, they’re not really physical things here. Just tokens. And you deserved it. You helped train me, after all. Keep it on you until Grace comes back. To keep it safe.”

Carmelita nodded slowly. She took the jade ornament and pinned up her hair. “As they say, honey in the hair keeps the do up.”

“No one says that, Car,” I said.

She laughed.

---

I felt a heavy weight lift from me. All the undercurrent of feeling stuck, being strapped down to Taipei, feeling like I could never ever leave. I told myself I was a homebody. I told myself I had obligations. As I crossed rattan sticks with Carmelita, learning from who we called Grace II, an updated and even more intense Grace, something untethered and floated away. It was this idea that I could not engage with society, that I was a reject, that why try to be with others if all I could do was fail?

I guess you could call it a growing confidence. The synapses in my mind began to fire in accordance with my body. Coordination and strength, an ability to face the world. I wanted to see more.

Carmelita was growing strong, too. And fast.

I waved a stick at her, goading her. Maybe not the most mature move, but it spurred her on.

Carmelita’s stick whipped through the air and snapped in my direction. A zap went through my wrists and up my arm as I threw up one of my “four walls” to block. Snaking my arm around her wrist, I ejected the stick from her fingers. She gasped, “Oh!”

The stick went tumbling away, a few electric bounces before it rolled off and dissipated at the temple’s edge. No retrieving it from there.

I didn’t know if her surprise was intended as a feint or just worked well as a distraction. She pummeled fists toward my face, which I parried quickly in succession with stick and hands. I wobbled, nearly losing my footing since she was coming in hard and fast.

“Ugh,” I grunted. Sweat ran down my face, and I didn’t have time to wipe it away. I let the droplets sting my eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was real sweat from my physical body outside the VR space or VR-generated sweat to add to the realism. It didn’t matter. It stung. Huni chirped beside her, flapping his wings. He was not supposed to interfere, but he did fly in and out like a flustered coach yelling from the sidelines.

Carmelita got a hold of my stick and pulled. A jerk ran through my arm and traveled to my neck. Her other hand came out of nowhere and clocked me in the temple. The world went black. I went down.

Relief washed through me as it hit me. The bout was over.

I saw celestial orbits and comets ripping through the night. I was floating above it all, looking down at the cosmos.

Digital water, a mild, undulating electric wave, massaged my face. Carmelita was dribbling water on my face to wake me up.

“Wake up, sleeping birdie,” I heard her say.

I did and saw the temizuya dipper in her hand. I shook my head. That was the unconscious space I experienced. The zone where the program becomes nebulous, and you see your own projected images of the afterlife. The cosmos was quite beautiful from that vantage point. It must be what I think post-death must look like, and I didn’t even realize I had this conceptualization of the hereafter. I ran a hand through my hair and wiped the electric likeness of water off my face, so it would stop the mild buzzing sensations.

“Okay, Round 2,” I said, getting up, not ready to end on defeat.

This time, I combined some of the kali movements with the flow of taichi and deployed patterns of my own design. I executed “Entering the VR Room” and “Sweeping the Pixelated Space.” I called them out as I performed them, kicking low and chopping with my arms. Then, “Attempting to Wipe the Tattoo off Your Arm.” It made Carmelita laugh, which was my point. Huni was amused and flew in zigzags, bringing confusion to the temple dojo space. I used the few seconds of her compromised guffaws and Huni’s wayward glides to get my weight under her and pitch her toward the floor with a throw.

She rolled off, still laughing. Huni flew off and away, not wanting to get caught up in the ride.

“Okay,” she said, hands up after her tumble. “You got me.”

“Let’s just do some partner work,” I said.

“Sure,” she said. “I’m game for something more cooperative.”

We trained in abaniko fanning movements and sinawali weaving movements, moving in sync with one another.

“I love how the defense and offense can practice simultaneously using the same move,” said Carmelita. “It’s an elegant way to train, with sensorial feedback. More interactive than forms, but with the same precision and cascading of movements. Also, it’s like looking in a mirror.”

“Really? You think I look like you?”

She chuckled. “Not at all. You’re too scrawny.”

“Hey,” I said, delivering a powerful strike that she blocked.

“By scrawny, I hope you mean mighty and threatening.” I delivered two more heavy hits. She met both of them with the same intensity.

“Is that what you hope to be seen as? Mighty? Threatening?”

“Not really. I’d settle for scrappy, though.”

“Sure. You can share that title with Huni.”

Huni stuck his tongue out through his beak and gave an indignant chirp.

Our banter subsided, and we got into the zone with lighter and faster synchronized stick movements. I felt like a weeping willow, my arms going through the movements as easily as its spindly branches in the breeze. It was meditative and hypnotic. The strange digital rebound of the stick delivered a succession of zaps that reminded me of the mimed physicality of this digital space.

Getting into the trance of prearranged movements, in a dance-like routine of meeting sticks with Carmelita, I thought about how I got into this VR training space. I told myself I was doing this for my dad. My moment getting knocked out, with spiral galaxies and comets circling my eyes, revealed that I was d