You must first invent the universe if you’d like to make an egg pie from scratch. Everything is connected. When the long road is reduced to a text message. When overseas is folded in a chatbox. When the entire desert is boxed inside a diorama. When time is no more than a streaming waterway reluctant to pass underneath your feet more than once. At the flick of a wrist, anything can happen. Anything is possible. We keep on chiming our thoughts though in most times, the signs and the respective meanings behind don’t quite get the message across. Meaning is always shrouded in mystery. There is no be-all and end-all on how to decipher meanings. We have to reimagine the tango of word and image as something that would not produce order. Chaos is quite befitting. A dance number as aggravating as a blaring car alarm that no one is paying any attention to. Because one day, the theory that there may well be proof of multiple universes may come true.

I swiped right. I got a match. The username was blank but we matched anyway so as soon as the interface prompted me to send her a message, I sent the introductory words “Hi there!” right away. She didn’t respond. I waited until soon enough the app bay port opened and we found ourselves surrounded by the holographic space made real by hyper-realistic graphics. We were welcomed in a parallel world, a virtual copy of the world. It felt so real. Eerily real. The nuts and bolts of this virtual space never failed to amaze me. The nuances were perfect. The patina of reality was way too subtle. And then I saw her face.

She was staring at something. Intensely. My gaze remained fixed on her. What surprised me more was we were both naked. Barenaked. No part could be hidden. We were both standing in a hallway the walls of which hung fascinating surreal works of art as far as the eyes could see.

Our common and compatible interests had created this wonderful smorgasbord of illusions, this photorealistic tiny universe. Our collective subconscious had made every crevice and crevasse and nook and cranny of this alternate space possible. This was where we had agreed on to meet, without saying anything. Questions needn’t be asked. Thanks to the algorithm of LensAce. Thanks to the creator of this technology, whoever You are, the God of all things, whether You’re real or not.

If her pulchritude hadn't captivated me at first I would have been able to crane my neck and spot random people sharing the same interests as us with regard to the creation of this place, although they appeared and disappeared every once in a while.

This meeting couldn’t get any weirder. She finally turned to me and cast a captivating smile so wonderful I felt so alive. She didn’t react to how we looked. No signs of shame. Then she said her very first words.

“I like the place. I like it the most among the places I’ve been to. Do you like it?”

Her way of saying seemed bound in some kind of wistfulness. I could trace a shade of yearning tinged with melancholy I couldn’t fully grasp. Despite the sound, I perceived her as some lady with oozing confidence. God, she’s so beautiful.

“At least I like how my feet feel the carpet. It feels so soft and comforting.” I replied. We’d started a conversation. I wondered how this would turn out.

“Oh, yeah.” Then she raised her left foot and threw her sole a quick glance.

I turned my eyes to where she was staring a while ago. It was a painting titled Ave Maria Purisima, Sin Pecado Concebida.

I stopped staring and looked back at her when she uttered, “The Blessed Mary, free from any stain of sin.”

I responded even though it wasn’t needed, “Hail Purest Mary, conceived without sin.”

We were like offering a very short prayer. I looked at the picture of Mary, her smile a facsimile of Mona Lisa’s. Mystic, much like this lady I’m with now.

“So here we are, trying to get to know each other,” she let out words without inhibitions. I wonder if she would say anything about the fact that we’re naked. Why do I care that we’re naked? No one can blame the algorithm. It’s how things go. It’s just the way it is. The app can never be at fault. It works as it has used to, it’s been like this since time immemorial. So why fret now? We’re naked, walking alongside each other. She’s not giving a damn; I should do the same too.

Stating the obvious, huh. This made me awkward. I had never been awkward like this. I tried to think of a response, but I gulped swallowing the words that were trying to get out of my throat. They soon all went down the chasm of my own bin reserved for obsolete things.

“Let’s go on and discover the place,” she said, not minding the absence of my response.

We trudged along the carpet the color of which I just noticed when I gave a better look, crimson red, fit for the royal luminaries. She stopped to gaze over another piece of art on the wall. Not another painting on the wall, it was a shield. I read the caption beside the relic. “Shield Bearing the Gorgon Medusa’s Head.”

“Don’t look. You’ll turn into a stone,” she kidded.

I wanted to tell her that I should have turned to stone by now. Because of the fact that I’m naked. Both of us, can’t you see? We’re both naked amidst the cold. And right now, the only thing that could make me turn to a statue is your uncovered genitals. But it was so bright, I couldn’t see anything because of the intense glare. I wonder why I don’t get any sign of erection even though I’m thinking of it now. This is really, really weird. It’s been a long while since my last visit to this app.

“Don’t worry, that’s just a replica. And besides, her head had already been cut off.”

“That shield is a votive gift of Perseus to Athena,” she said in the tone of a museum guide.

You’re a goddess, don’t you know that? How many gifts have you ever received from your hunk suitors so far? That’d sure be plenty.

We strolled further. At the same pace, we turned the corners and marveled at the surrealism of the other works we saw, all were far beyond words.

When we turned left, an exhibit of installations surprised us. What interested us the most was the colorful assemblage of different kinds of bikes whose wheels are of different shapes and designs.

“How are they supposed to go any distance?” I asked, confused.

“It’s not expected to ride on land.”

“What do you mean?”

“They fly.”

“Like some E.T. magic shit?”

“E.T.s can do almost anything.” Bet she likes aliens.

“Yeah, Superman could turn back time by speeding around Earth and reverse its rotation.”

“Just to save her damsel in distress.”

“I’m a fan of extraterrestrials but the idea that extraterrestrials built the pyramids is utterly preposterous!”

“I beg to disagree. Many theories support the claim.”

We got past the sculpture and installation room and entered through the ally showcasing cinema artifacts and relevant knickknacks.

“This museum is getting more and more superb,” she remarked, to which I replied, “I couldn’t agree more.”

On the walls were some screens showing snippets of scenes from critically acclaimed movies.

“Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils,” said John Keating before his students to whom he imparted the inspiration to carpe diem.

Motorists hung up on traffic from an indie noir film, the night clouds slowly crawling over the roofs of the vehicles trapped on land.

Next, GIF of Elvis Presley singing his classic I Forgot to Remember to Forget.

Then, portrait in motion of Chuck Norris blurting out his epic lines “You’re messing with the wrong guy” before his overpowered flying kick vertically split Ultraman in two.

We both laughed at the ridiculousness of the clip. I saw her heavily blinking, her lenses had that feature of snapping photos by just blinking.

Next stop was about a docu-film about the legendary Joey De Leon that celebrates his centennial death anniversary. The interviewee from the clip was telling, “He was a think-tank. He had a penchant for imaginative wordplay. This helped him to write down his genius ideas every time a spark of brilliance about Eat Bulaga would hit him even in the middle of the night.”

“That man was a genius,” she said in admiration.

“Yeah, if only he wasn’t assassinated on the spot during a presidential debate, he could have been the greatest president ever.”

“Acheche!” her spontaneity had no imitation. I was beginning to get the hang of her company.

“You’re funny.”

“Oh-oh, wait! I like this part!” she hurried over to one portrait, getting past two portraits the clips of which I failed to recognize.

I saw her placing her delicate hands over her chest while watching the clip from, what’s this, oh Never Let Me Go. It was Kathy singing and dancing to the song Never Let Me Go, then on the other side of the shot, there was the Madame watching her while shedding her tears.

Startled we were when from the next portrait Tommy exploded in apoplectic rage and frustration after he got out of a car.

“Woah, that hit me,” I blurted out.

“Damn well. I’ve seen that film long ago and it made me cry and I hadn’t reacted to a film emotionally like that in ages. How about you?”

“Quite the reverse. God, I so hated that film so much. It’s way too boring,” I said, disinterested.

We got out of the cinema museum and as soon as we did we were bathed in awe the moment we caught sight of a giant house, no that’s not a house, it was a castle!

Howl’s Moving Castle it was, I recalled.

Like little kids, we ran heading towards the castle. It was a different place inside there. You could really feel it moving, the limbs of the castle trudging to where it wanted to go. So before we lost our balance we had already sunk our butts on the nearest sofa in the reception area.

We just lounged sitting the time away sipping our frappes. The waiters riding hoverboards had handed our drinks as soon as we plunged on the cushiony seat. Time was not a matter here, I didn’t know how much time we had spent talking. We talked about almost anything. From outside the windows, we could see splendid sceneries only as tall as this castle could see. I didn’t care about what was outside. Here was I with a lady so profoundly beautiful. However, there was a point when we had run out of topics to talk about therefore unintentionally leaving us both sunk in silence. Then she spoke, finally shattering the comfortable silence.

“‎That’s when you know you have found somebody really special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share silence.”

“Pulp Fiction fan, ey.”

“No, not really,” she defended herself.

“Are you not a fan of guns, blood, and black people? You hate guns, blood, and black people?”

“Of course not! I’m no racist or anything. It’s just that it’s too violent.”

“If it isn’t violent, it wouldn’t be a film by Tarantino. It’s pretty much the same with Haruki Murakami fiction without jazz and the ubiquitous cats.”

“I love jazz. Do you like cats?”

“I prefer dogs. Cats are selfish egoistic bastards.”

“That’s only a sweeping generalization about cats. Cats can be selfish most of the time. But they are gentle creatures if you get to know them more.”

“Alright, fine; however, cats smell like saliva because they don’t take a bath.”

“No, they do take a bath. They just use their saliva instead of water, that’s why they smell like saliva. But I bathe my pet cats with water.”

“Don’t they get scared or anything? I love how dogs go bananas after you have them bathed. They felt so refreshed, after that they would lick almost whatever they ran into.”

“Ew.”

We were more like long-time friends who just saw each other now trying to catch up on things we have missed during our distance.

“What do you do in a living?” I asked.

“I suck blood. I’m a vampire. Just kidding, I do calls. I’m a call center agent. And you?”

Before I could answer back, she’d begun pixelating, her lovely voice got shortened into static murmurs no one could comprehend.

“Oh, what?” she asked, baffled.

“I think you’re disconnecting.”

“Damn, these interruptions have been frequent lately. I could do nothing about this. I think I’d better go.”

“When will I see you again?”

Words came out of her mouth without sound.

She soon disconnected. Five seconds of her smiling afterimage, reminiscent of the grin of the Cheshire Cat.

Then she was gone.

He felt like the segment of the castle had been split and he struggled not to fall down the imaginary chasm.

The falling sensation hurt like a toothache.