Avatara

"Avatara has to be destroyed," said Grace. It was a simple conclusion. She twiddled the pendant of her necklace, deep in thought. Then she noticed an exception and for a moment she felt stunned. Her necklace. Despite her appearance changing on arrival on Byzantium. Her necklace still appeared around neck, in the same form of the real world. Was it the same necklace as her real one? She felt like asking why but decided not to. She didn't want to reveal too much of herself to Snow Globe.

"That necklace must mean a lot to you?" said Snow Globe, as if reading her mind.

Grace avoided eye contact and looked outside through the windscreen.

The skyscr.a.p.ers looked like massive bean pods with swirling, bulging sides. Some even connected with each other as if merging into one. They appeared to move, albeit very slowly. The whole layout of the environment seemed complex and complicated, with other flying cars about, though Grace could not see anyone in them. Some of the cars even entered the skyscr.a.p.ers. Their car though navigated the skyline beautifully, the sky itself a surreal purple gold colour.

"Coming up to Shitamachi," said the voice of the car.

Snow Globe didn't utter anything. He looked pensive, as if far away from the world they were currently in. The car descended gently onto a concourse surrounded by not so large buildings. This area did not look futuristic but archaic and intimate.

"There's something I want to show you before we leave," said Snow Globe. He left the vehicle and beckoned Grace to follow. His direction of travel was toward an arcade, a narrow street with shops either side. One shop sold shoes and sandals, another had bicycles and another sold what looked like traditional Japanese clothing. Yet no one was in these shops. It did look like a traditional Japanese street.

"Here," said Snow Globe. He stopped in front of a tiny restaurant, with red wooden framed facade and glass windows. It looked like a traditional wooden house from the Edo period. It had the name Suno outside. "Let's go here."

A bell rang as he pushed through the main door. Grace saw two wooden tables each with four wooden stools. The place was small but cosy. She smelt food cooking. The smell of soup, meat and onions and to her astonishment, someone came out of the back room to the front counter. The first other person she had seen in Byzantium.

If Grace understood Japanese she would understand the exchange, but she didn't. A short bald man, who made Snow Globe look tall, hugged him. He pulled at Snow Globe's cheek and ruffled his hair even though he looked younger than him. Snow Globe had a happy smile on his face and bowed his head to the man. The man took notice of Grace and greeted her. His hands held hers and felt cold and damp, like he'd been running them under cold water for hours. He turned to Snow Globe and laughed, and turned back to Grace, speaking to her in Japanese.

"I don't understand," said Grace.

"He asked if you are my wife," laughed Snow Globe. "You're the first person I've brought here."

The piddly little man scuttled off in the back area to tend to what was cooking. Snow Globe shouted some instructions to him. The man shouted back.

"He said we should take a seat," said Snow Globe.

"Who is he?" said Grace. Dragging the chair back on the floor, made a shrieky sound.

"He's my father," said Snow Globe. "And this shop is a representation of my last memories of him and what I lost."

This bewildered Grace. In this place you can recreate whatever you want? You can recreate the past? A place where impossible dreams come true?

"It's important that I share with you why I created Byzantium. Why I spent years of life building a business to support technology that can soothe pain and provide escape and solace from the harsh realities of the real world.

"I was six when the bombs dropped at Hiroshima in World War Two. I had been evacuated to Miyoshi and sheltered in a temple run by nuns. My father ran this shop in Hiroshima but they didn't evacuate the a.d.u.l.ts. My mother died giving birth to me. Nature took her away but technology took my father. I used technology to bring him back."

Grace did not know where to look, she didn't expect such poignance from Snow Globe and felt uncomfortable. She feared that he would ask for an even greater favour.

"After I returned to Hiroshima, I struggled like a rat, I had to avoid starvation. Then one of the nuns at the temple who'd taken pity on me at the temple of Miyoshi had me inducted as a monk and that's how I eventually ended up in Bhutan. I left there when I turned twenty three."

Snow Globe's life's work was Byzantium. He must be ninety one on the basis of what he said as World War Two was nearly a hundred years ago now. He mobilised well for a man of his age.

"You created Byzantium to augment real life," said Grace. "To make people more appreciative of what they have, by letting them have their dreams."

"It seems you understand my vision," said Snow Globe. "In a similar vein to Avatara, Byzantium lets you live your fantasy. But live in fantasy long enough and maybe you will learn to like real life again, even relish it."

Grace wasn't sure she agreed. Snow Globe's father came out from the back with two small bowls of soup and laid it on the table in front of them. He spoke to Snow Globe, hugging him around his shoulder in a warm embrace pointing to various ingredients in the soup.

"Although he feels like my father," said Snow Globe. "I know he's not real. He's a digital representation of what was. So when I'm in the real world I seize every moment."

Snow Globe's father oblivious to their discussion walked back behind the counter, whistling to himself. Snow Globe smiled as he spun his spoon and chopsticks in the soup.

"But that's just you though," said Grace. "Others might get addicted to this."

"That's why there's a time limitation," said Snow Globe. "Byzantium automatically kicks you out after two hours."

A physiological shock went through Grace's body, when she remembered the time. "How long have we been here?"

"One hour and thirty minutes in Byzantium time," said Snow Globe. "We were five minutes away from your flat in the real world, when we came here, so when we get back we'll have three minutes of more driving to do."

"But I guess we can still have thirty minutes here?" said Grace. Snow Globe nodded with a smile.

"What soup is this?" Grace asked.

"It is called tonjiru," said Snow Globe.

"It smells good," Grace said.

With the ambient cozy smells of soup, the warm lighting and sound of Snow Globe's father whistling in the other room, Grace tucked into it. Real or not, it felt good and for a brief moment Snow Globe's 'Avatara alternative' did not seem too bad.