I couldn’t tell how long I’d been flying.  You fly for so long and time becomes meaningless.

When I reached the edge I found a place so beautiful, but it was not without a sense of danger.  Flora and fauna as far as the eye could see.  Animals that seemed so familiar, and yet, not.  I found a turtle, no bigger than a lime.  I picked it up.  It crawled across the tips of my fingers, and in a hair-split of a second, it bit my thumb.

It hurt.  There was a stinging, and then a burning.  I wanted to panic, but I didn’t.

When I finally pried it off, I saw its razor-sharp beak hadn’t even broken the skin.  Small, pink indentations were the only sign that anything had happened.  And they faded quickly.

I saw birds that resembled large pelicans.  They were as tall as me, with eyes like tiny marbles.  I wondered if they feared me, or if they might attack me.  They just stood there, stationary, unwavering.  The warm wind ruffled their feathers.

There were structures there.  Like ancient greenhouses.  They hadn’t been cared for in centuries.  The plants they once housed had since overtaken them. I felt that maybe there was some deeper meaning in that.  The children had outgrown the parents, and had nearly buried them.

A mountain range cracked the horizon, separating the greenery from a purple sky.  The paper-white clouds resembled whispy brush strokes.  The atmosphere played tricks with my sense of perspective.  The rocky structures appeared close and towering, though it was easy to tell they were hundreds of miles away.

Life thrived here.  An abundance unlike anything to ever happen upon human eyes.

I saw so much, yet I knew it was only a glimpse.

On Friday, July 31st, The Matrix Online will shut down for good. After a decent five year run. It’s both saddening and comforting at the same time. The game had such promise and potential, but it always was and always would be a niche game. The sequels of the trilogy divided people so strongly that the game was probably destined for this.

I remember first seeing Revolutions in the theater, opening night of course, and having Neo’s death be so sudden and unexpected. Obviously I wasn’t really paying attention. But for a year now, I’ve watched the death of MxO approach like an oncoming train. I knew it was coming as soon as Paul Chadwick left as the game’s only writer. At that point, the game’s only remaining developer, Ben Chamberlain, took over as a one-man-show. The guy seemingly put in 25 hour days with this game. He was dedicated, and he wanted to tell a story. I can’t fault him for that. But the story he wanted to tell just wasn’t the matrix. I grew increasingly tired of it, and on December 3rd, 2008, I jacked out of the matrix.

At the end of Reloaded, Neo learned that the coding of the matrix is inherently flawed. Paradoxically, the code must be inefficient in order for the system to operate efficiently. The code must allow for the incalculable variable of choice. Choice is what gives humanity its power, if only we would exercise it. And much like in the films, by exercising my choice to leave the matrix I felt a particular sense of power. I was free.

At the beginning of the game, as a player you are given the choice to take the red pill or the blue pill. But looking back now in retrospect, by taking the red pill you are essentially succumbing to the matrix. Not escaping it. I think that’s the final irony in all of this. Maybe Cypher was right all along.

I don’t mean to imply that I regret my past five years with this game. It was definitely a fun and unique experience, and I’ve met a group of people who I am proud to consider family.

Since the announcement that the game will be closing, it has become de rigeur within the community to find out where to place blame. Most people blame SOE for not nurturing the game to its potential. Others blame the game itself, citing various bugs and balance problems that made the game unplayable for some. A small few blame the community, and if I had to point a finger it would be in this direction. There are some very remarkable people in the MxO community, and these people were a pleasure to associate with. But the rest of them, the majority of them, aren’t worth their weight in salt. I’ll be glad when they can no longer inhabit a world that I’ve spent a decade growing to love.

It’s been raining around here a lot lately, and rain in the matrix always signified change.

In Revolutions, the Oracle tells Neo that “Everything that has a beginning, has an end.” For a long time this felt true, but now I’m not sure. While the game may be ending, the Matrix isn’t. It’s been here for longer than most of us realize. It is not a series of films, but a concept that is simultaneously innate and complex. A concept that has been with us since we first looked inward and found a sprouting awareness. It has taken countless forms ever since, and it will continue to do so.

And it’s here where I’m deciding to pick up. To present the concept of The Matrix through my own interpretations. I don’t know what will come of it, but I know that it is what I want to do.

Yes. I want to write Matrix fan-fiction.

In my old age I brought the painting out to show my granddaughter. She was seven years old and unlike the rest of the family, she loved hearing me talk. I sat down on the couch held the painting, covered in an old sheet, upright in front of her. I told her how our best inspirations come in our dreams, when we aren’t trying very hard, and that this painting came to me in a dream when I was 24 years old.

“How old are you now, grandpa?” she asked.

“Old enough to have forgotten the answer to that question.”

I drew the sheet off the painting. My granddaughter looked befuddled for a moment and began tilting her head. I looked at her and thought for a moment. Instinctively I turned the painting right-side-up.

“Where do the stairs go, grandpa?”

“I’m not quite sure.” I said honestly. “Where do you think they go?”

She squinted and scrunched her nose.

“They lead to a very pretty lady.” she said with a nod.

I turned the painting towards me to see, and she was right. At the top of that short, unassuming staircase stood a beautiful woman.

“We finished it, grandpa!” she said with a smile.

Mom always says that I act childish for my age.

I think she’s on to me.

To this day I still envy those children who were able to fly away, and escape to a world where shoes are optional.

I always found it inspiring.

And ever since then, I’ve had the foresight to wear my sunglasses at night.

We were placed in a room that was no bigger than fifteen feet by twenty feet. I distinctly remember a hole in the wall big enough to fit two basketballs stacked on top of each other. Our workstations were desks about two-feet wide, crammed next to each other in eight rows of six. Our computer monitors left little room for any kind of paperwork, though I don’t remember there being much of that. We sat on bar stools. No arm rests, no back support. And we were there for six hours a day.

“Work” consisted of putting on headphones and listening to recorded sales calls. We had a quota of 120 calls to listen to in a night. If we didn’t meet the quota, we’d lose our commission for that day and get the base pay of five dollars per hour. That wouldn’t be so bad if we had a stream of calls constantly coming at us. But no, a lot of time was spent waiting for a recorded call to come to your station. I remember once waiting ten minutes before receiving a call to evaluate. I learned quickly that doodling was prohibited. Eyes were to be kept on your screen at all times, even if there was nothing to look at. Based on extremely specific criteria, we were supposed to rate each call with a 1 or a 0 rating. We were essentially grading the salespeople on their technique. “Pass” or “Fail”.

It should now be apparent that this job required the absolute least possible mental effort. Shelling peanuts would have been more engaging. We were robots. Our eyes glazed over, staring at monochromatic computer screens. Our muscles atrophied from requiring the use of only one finger to press one of two buttons while the rest of the keyboard went unused.

After my first month, I was called over to my supervisor’s workstation. That’s the other thing, this company was so “startup” that the managers didn’t even have offices. They were in the same shitty desks and bar stools as the rest of us. That thought is probably the most comforting of this whole story. But I digress… my supervisor wanted to discuss with me some of the calls that I had been reviewing. Apparently I had failed to properly identify some “0″ calls. I had incorrectly marked them as “Pass”. She asked if I understood the grading criteria, and if I wanted to keep my job. I nodded without saying a word and she sent me back to my station.

Those were the longest three months I can remember.

That night I had trouble sleeping. I had completely forgotten about the grey man. I figured it was just one of those nights. At 3 o’clock I trudged into the kitchen and downed a couple antihistamines with a glass of milk. I fell asleep while flipping channels.

The grey man came to me in my dreams. He was distorted now. He looked warped, or stretched. Like he was a living ripple in a pool of water. I stood on the same sidewalk where I had seen him the previous day. He was walking towards me. His rippling made his movements erratic. He limped, as if he had a sore knee. His arms were outstretched and waving. Small fragments of his figure sliced in and out of existence.

I was scared. As the grey man came closer I felt my body quake ever stronger. His ghostly figure reached out to me, and I gasped trembling. But with that breath the grey man drew himself into me. I could feel him filling my lungs, expanding into my muscles, seeping into bone. When I felt a bead of sweat absorb into the corner of my eye, I realized that my head was hot. He was in my mind now. I clutched my skull and began to massage deeply and roughly. The scraping sound of hair against scalp bore into my ears. Perhaps I could drive the grey man out.

He told me to stop fighting.

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