I work as an intern for a Prague-based virtual reality start up. Most of my job revolves around office work that no one else wants to do. Organizing paperwork, follow-up e-mails, copy edits, picking up coffee — that sort of stuff. On occasion, however, I do house calls where I help people set up our VR rig.
There’s far too many NDA’s preventing me from going into details of how our tech works, but to keep it simple we use a headset and a couple of spread-out motion sensors to provide full body range for player avatars. The process isn’t complicated and we ship with a neat instruction booklet that should clear out any questions. Some of our clientele, however, can’t be bothered with the nuances of the set-up so they pay a bit extra to have me come through and hook things up.
It’s usually rich folks who want to outsource their parenting time to a VR set-up. From the two dozen or so house calls I’ve done this year, more than half of them were in Paris Street and the rest were dotted around Prague’s more obscure wealthy neighborhoods. I’d come in, set up the motion sensors in under five minutes, do a little show-and-tell and then usually settle down to drink some expensive coffee while answering any leftover questions.
I used to like making house-calls. Getting out of the office was nice, the expensive coffee was even nicer and introducing our tech to folks unfamiliar with it provided a great way to break the monotony of my usual days. I used to like making house-calls, but after today, after meeting the man who wanted to see everything… I’d really prefer to stick to paperwork.
The request came in from an unusual neighborhood — Prague 13. Prague 13 borders the utter edges of the thousand year city and might arguably be the least historic part of town with modernity avoiding the district until the late 70s. It’s all old commie blocks and parks out there, so I was surprised to see someone not only buy our expensive VR setup but also pay the surcharge for a private installation. I was further surprised when the address on the order didn’t point me to normal housing. It pointed me to the middle of a nature reserve.
Our set-up isn’t heavy, but it’s not exactly something that’s fun to lug around. Usually, I’d grab an Uber from the office and have it drop me off at the front door of the client. This time around, however, no car could get me to the address. The best my Uber driver could do was to drop me off at a road in the middle of nowhere hugging the edge of a forest.
I’ve spent most of my adult life in Prague and I’m well familiar with the various quirks this city has, but my trek through the forest definitely takes the cake. Google Maps assured me that there was a civilized footpath to get me to the address, but what I was presented with was an uneven patch of land where no grass grew leading through the woods. As unkempt as the path was, however, in between the stones and mud and grass I could spy manhole covers adorned with Prague’s ancient coat of arms. It very much felt like I had left civilization, but beneath my feet there was an ever-present reminder that I was still connected to the waste waters of a metropolis.
I trudged through the forest with all of the equipment until the trees gave way to a clearing. In the center of the clearing there sat a reservoir connected to a cement shack. Beyond that shack sat a wooden cabin which corresponded to the address I was given.
The trek through the forest had put me well off schedule. I was long overdue for the installation and I was expected back in the office after I was done. Instead of going towards the cabin, however, I put down the equipment and took a breather by the reservoir.
There was just something about the way the sunlight bounced off of the water that scratched something in my lizard brain. The pond was clearly man made but it was hugged with reeds and filled with ducks and fish. I watched the animals for a bit and lost myself in a strange cosmic tranquility — until a wholly different animal wrestled my attention away.
A bird. A jet-black bird with beady red eyes. It stood completely still, just a stone’s throw away from me. At first I thought it was a plastic toy that I had simply not noticed when I sat down. The thing was motionless and completely black from claws to beak and didn’t look like any bird I had seen before. But then the thing took a step toward me.
I shooed the bird away, but it didn’t fly. It just took a couple steps backwards and continued to watch me with its rat eyes. Whatever semblance of calm I had felt had dissipated. I got up, gathered the equipment and proceeded to walk towards the cabin while avoiding the black bird.
The thing kept on following me. It didn’t hop or fly. It walked. When I sped up the bird started to run to keep up. As small as the bird was, it kept pace. To distract myself from the discomforting sight I called the customer to tell him I was near.
The voice that came from the other end of the line was strained and old and void of any emotion. The customer didn’t seem to be concerned about me running late. He, in fact, sounded rather busy. From the other side of the line I could hear a cacophony of explosions and gunfire and moans and a dozen different voices saying a dozen different things. As loud as the other side of the line was, however, the customer seemed to understand me clearly. He said he would come out and meet me in case I had trouble finding his cabin.
A couple seconds after I hung up the phone, the doors of the cabin opened up and the customer made his way into the clearing. He was dressed in filthy rags that must’ve been normal clothes at some point in the previous century. The old man was balding, but his hair and beard looked like they had not seen a razor in decades. The customer was far too old and looked far too disheveled to order our high-tech overpriced VR rig, but what was most discomforting was how he moved.
The only thing I can really compare it to is AI generated animations. The old man’s limbs moved completely independent of each other in a way that suggested they each served a different puppet master. He looked as if he were about to fall, or sprint, or jump — yet the old man did neither. He simply stumbled in my general direction with a phone in his hand.
‘Are you here to introduce me to the wonders of virtual reality?’ he asked in a queer voice that will haunt me until the day I die.
‘Yes,’ I said, and then started to explain how the set-up was going to work.
The man was wholly uninterested in anything I had to say. Once I had identified myself as a representative of the VR company all of his attention went back to his phone. I couldn’t see what was happening on the screen, but I delivered my explanation to the backing of pained moans. It wasn’t until a fluttering of wings passed right by my head that the old man acknowledged me again.
‘Ah,’ he said, as the rat eyed bird landed on his shoulder. ‘I see you’ve met my friend.’ The old man’s eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were the size of ticks. Looking at him made me beyond uncomfortable, but what he did next made my stomach feel uneasy.
‘He likes to watch,’ the old man said and then, with nauseating speed, his eyes turned sharply in the direction of the bird without his head moving an inch. Were he a healthy man, I would say I could see the whites of his eyes, but a healthy man he was not. All I could see was bloody pink flesh ravaged by some unspeakable disease.
‘He has come here to watch the final century,’ the old man said, looking like something out of a medical textbook. ‘But enough about that. Come into my humble home and introduce me to the wonderful world of virtual reality.’
As we walked towards the cabin the man’s attention went back to his phone. The sound of a roaring chainsaw amplified the pained moans from the screen and finally drowned them out. I managed to sneak a peek at what he was watching.
It was one of those cartel beheading videos that fourteen-year-olds could stumble upon back in the LiveLeak days.
Seeing that the man was casually watching execution videos sent a chill down my spine, but by the time we reached the cottage I found other things to worry about. Before we even reached the front door I could hear the chaos. The same barrage of sounds that I heard on the other side of the phone was now on the other side of a worn wooden door.
One look at the man’s home made me think I was going to meet my end. The cabin was humble in stature but every inch of it was covered in screens — monitors, televisions, loose tablets drawing power from a sea of filthy extension cords on the floor. From Netflix shows to war footage to pornography to Simpsons re-runs the shambling home was filled with a hundred different forms of media battling for attention.
‘I like to watch,’ the old man with the black bird on his shoulder said with something approaching pride. ‘I have come here to watch and I will watch and I hope that by the end of it all I would have seen everything.’
Before the shock from the menagerie of screens even set in — the stench hit me. All the windows were covered in screens. Among the extension cords, in the little room that was left, grimy rags peeked from the floor like fledgling grass.
All while trying not to breathe too much, I told the old man there wasn’t enough space for the VR set up in his house. He looked at me with his sickly eyes bulging from his skull and then he laughed. It was an unnatural sound that seemed to come from deep in his gut and for the whole duration of his laugh the man didn’t break eye contact with me.
‘No,’ he finally wheezed. ‘This is the room in which I watch. I have a separate room in which I will experience this new reality.’ Like a ballerina in the midst of electroshock therapy the old man hopped his way between the wiring. At the far end of the room, nestled between two plasma televisions playing Rick and Morty reruns and snuff films, there sat a doorway. As I tiptoed through the grime and extension cords I regretted wearing my white sneakers.
The stench of filth was never truly gone, but getting past the doorway brought the smell of ancient paper mixed with a bit of fresh air. The old man had led me into a roomy woodshed packed with old newspapers. The shed was the perfect size for the VR set up but much like the main hall of the cabin it proved to be a bad choice. The walls of the shed didn’t connect to the roof. It wouldn’t take much of a storm to get the motion sensors wet and in need of repair.
When I told the old man that there was a really high chance of the VR set up getting damaged he, once again, laughed. When those terrible choking sounds finished, he said that money was not an issue. He lived a humble life. If the VR set up got damaged he could just have me called over to replace it.
The thought of revisiting the old man made me want to quit on the spot, so I didn’t say anything else. I just set up the equipment as fast as possible and considered myself lucky the old man wasn’t interested in small talk.
Usually people will ask questions about the tech, or at least watch me as I put up the sensors. The old man, however, had turned around in the doorway and was watching the chaotic mix of channels on the other side. As the chaos next door roared in its chorus of gunfire and moans and canned laughter he seemed to grunt to himself in satisfaction.
Only the bird with its beady red eyes seemed to be interested in what I was doing. Its stare made me work much faster than I ever did.
When the set up was finally finished and the headset was booted up it took me three attempts to get the man’s attention, but when I finally had it, it was undivided.
‘I cannot wait to experience this virtual reality! Oh the things I will see there!’ he screamed, as if he were threatening to fight someone.
The moment he had the headset on he seemed to be completely oblivious to my presence in the room. He started to holler and shout and jump around, screaming about how marvelous this new reality is.
As he spun through the demo reel I had loaded him into, the black bird jumped off his shoulder. It might’ve been simply dodging the old man’s jittery leaps but the moment the bird took a step towards me I fled the room.
What was in that cabin was well above my paygrade and I wasn’t going to take any chances.
I ran past the reservoir, through the forest and back to where my Uber driver had dropped me off. I ordered another Uber during my mad sprint from that terrible place, yet when I arrived the driver seemed to be parked at some gas station. When he didn’t show up for a solid three minutes I gathered my breath and ran even further, past a park, past the housing projects and into a subway.
I rode that subway to the other side of town, wishing with all my might that any memory of that old man or his bird or that terrible cabin would be washed out of my mind forever.
But they weren’t.
I do my best not to think about that strange afternoon on the outskirts of Prague and, for the most part, I succeed. Usually, I can go days without ever wondering about the old man or his red-eyed bird. Whenever it rains though, whenever there is even a single dark cloud in the sky — I can’t help but worry.
I can’t help but worry that the old man will require my services once more.