I just finished a long hard day at work. I sat down at my computer, not to write an email or pay bills, but to enter a world that—technically—didn’t exist.

It was called Second Life. An online world where people built their own homes and cities, and stepped into them as avatars. It could be absurd. It could be beautiful. And sometimes it became unexpectedly intimate—more emotionally real than anything I’d dealt with all day in the physical world.

That night I teleported to a place called Dreams, a sandbox where people practiced building. My apprentice, Job, was there—eighteen years old, brilliant, sensitive, and lately drifting in ways that worried me. I had known him since he was ten, back when he joined my robotics art club. I loved teaching, and he was the kind of kid who absorbed everything.

But months earlier, he’d announced he’d become a born-again Christian. It hit me harder than I expected. I wasn’t opposed to faith. I was opposed to doctrine—the kind that teaches people there is only one truth, one path, one god. Watching him fall into that certainty felt like watching someone I loved disappear into a script.

Lately, something else had been happening inside me too. I was in my late fifties, alone more than I wanted to admit, and this strange virtual world was stirring parts of me I thought I’d outgrown—spirit, longing, introspection.

I asked Job if he’d met any of the locals in Dreams.

He said no.

So I started talking to someone who seemed like a classic misfit: sharp, defensive, and oddly brilliant. Her name was Tatchi. She pushed back at everything I said, like she was daring me to take her seriously. And the more she resisted, the more I felt it—this wasn’t just some online annoyance. This was raw intelligence with nowhere to land.

In a half-taunting way, she dared me to make use of her.

“Fine,” I told her. “Go look at my work. And if it interests you—build me a museum in Second Life.”

That was when I saw the message: Gina is logging in.

A second later, she wrote: “I’m at church. You can join me if you like.”

Church.

Then she added, as if offering a key: “Unitarian Universalist.”

If there was any church I could imagine tolerating, it would be that one. So I went.

I arrived to choral music and chanting that instantly slowed my breathing. For a moment, it felt like I’d stepped into peace.

But then the world rushed in.

Gina was trying to welcome me. Job started asking questions. Tatchi kept messaging me. Another conversation demanded my attention. And within minutes, what had felt sacred became chaotic.

I lasted about an hour.

Then I said goodbye to everyone, returned to my home base, and shut it all down.

I had a tough day in real life—but somehow it wasn’t half as stressful as that hour in Second Life.

I logged off and sat there in the dark, staring at the screen like it had done something to me.

I told myself: this isn’t real life.

I thought Second Life was supposed to be fun.

But something about Tatchi didn’t feel like fun. It felt like fate—the kind you don’t recognize until it’s already moving toward you.

And the strangest part was this:

I didn’t even like her.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about her.