down his glass. ‘Time for a father and son heart-to-heart, is it? We don’t have to be afraid of our feelings any more. Tell me what’s on your mind.’
> who are you exactly?
‘Your father, son!’
> but as a human, who are you?
My father refills his glass. Lightning fuses the sky, the plum blossom scratches the window pane, and the purple on grey is transformed to black on titanium white. I guess the program needs more time to respond to unlikely or general questions. My father chuckles and places his feet together. ‘Well, son, that is one big question. Where would you like me to begin?’
> what sort of man are you?
My father rests his left foot on his right knee. ‘Let me see. I’m Japanese, fifty next birthday. By profession I am an actor. My hobbies are snorkelling and wine appreciation. But fear not – all these details will come to light as our relationship unfolds, and I trust you’ll be visiting again soon! I would like to introduce you to a special person. What do you say?’
> okay
The screen scrolls to the right, past the wine bucket. A woman – in her late thirties? – sits on the floor, smoking, humming snatches of ‘Norwegian Wood’ between drags. She is wrapped in a man’s shirt, and black leggings hug her shapely legs. Long hair flows down to her waist. She has my eyes. ‘Hi, Eiji.’ Her voice is tender and pleased to see me. ‘Can you guess whom I might be?’
> snow white?
She smiles at my father and puts out her cigarette. ‘I see you have your father’s sense of humour. I’m your mother.’
>but mummy dear, you haven’t seen daddy for 17 years
The program processes this unexpected input while the storm head-butts the window. My mum lights another cigarette. ‘Well, we had a few fences to mend, I admit. But now we get on like a house on fire.’
> so you finally ran out of suckers to give you money?
‘That hurts, Eiji.’ My virtual mother turns away and sobs alarmingly like my real one, a sort of dry, hidden quaking. I am typing in an apology, but my father responds first. He speaks in a slow and threatening thespian lilt. ‘This is a home, young man, not a hotel! If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head, you know where the door is!’ What a pair of virtual parents the program generated for me! They are thinking, what a virtual son reality generated for us. The plum blossoms suffer wear and tear in the unseasonal weather.
‘Hello? Wakey! Anybody home?’ A man in Jupiter Café shouts so loudly he drowns out the sound of the virtual rainstorm. ‘Wrong change, girlie!’ I unplug myself and turn around to see what the fuss is about. A grizzly drone in a stained shirt snarls at the girl with the most perfect neck in creation – when did she get here? She stares back, surprised but unfazed. Donkey is washing dishes, staying out of trouble, while my girl struggles to be polite with this human hog. ‘You only gave me a five-thousand-yen note, sir.’
‘Listen to me, girlie! I gave you a ten-thousand-yen note! Not five! Ten!’
‘Sir, I am quite sure—’
He rears up on his two hind legs. ‘You accusing me of lying, girlie?’
‘No, sir, but I am saying you are mistaken.’
‘You a feminist? Short-changing ’cos you’re frigid?’
The queue of customers ruffles uneasily, but nobody says anything.
‘Sir, I—’
‘I gave you a ten-thousand, you abortion bucket! Correct change! Now!’
She pings open the till. ‘Sir, there isn’t even a ten-thousand note in here.’
Hog slavers and twitches his tusks. ‘So! You steal from the till as well!’
Maybe I am still semi-stoned from the hash, or maybe Virtua Sapiens reshuffled my sense of reality, but I find myself walking over and tapping the guy on his shoulder. He turns around. His mouth is one bent sneer. Hog is larger than I thought, but it is too late to back out so I attack first and hardest. I douse his face with coffee and head-butt his nose, really, really hard. Christmas lights flicker in my eyes – Hog backs off, leaking a bubbly ‘Aaaaaaaaa’ noise. Blood trickles from his nose through his fingers. I steady myself and my hand gropes for something to brandish. The pain in my forehead crushes my voice jagged. ‘Get out right now or I’ll smash your fricking teeth into tiny fricking splinters with’ – I look at what I’m holding – ‘this ashtray!’ I