Prisoner Behind Glass

Craze of Love – Windows Live ~ by me 07.08.2005 - (often renamed)

He is starting to live where she lives on his screen
The perfect flower he created in his heart
The one that could not hurt him with her thorns
He washes the blood off his pierced hands with the dew on her petals.
Dangerous medicine for his not half cured wounds

He desperately embraces the danger
Her soft warm body, hot kisses
Painted on glass.

A prospector, insane through lonesomeness
Craving for the gold of her hair
While the gentle touch of her fingers creates
Only letters.

Words like honey drops are bitter manna for his starving soul
Stabbing his heart like poisoned knives.
Until he seeks ease
Diving into the quiet lake of her eyes
Secretly wishing to drown there when they close
So he would not have to ever leave.

He keeps walking the impossible forbidden path to her heart
In treacherous certainty that one day he will live there.

He delivers himself to these tender hands
To let the well known suffering they cause cover all those others he cannot control
The welcome pain, that tells him he is alive.

© ~ Neila ~ S. R. 2005

Love Letters and Memories

As an online marketer, I often join one or the other community, when someone invites me, looking for business friends, webmasters, bloggers, but home business is a lonely job as well, so any communication is welcome - only, outside facebook - not checked linked-in yet, all the world seems to consist of people who do not just lack communication, but are desperately searching for their partner.

Whether my profile is set up correctly or not - I never forget to write first place that I'm a happily married mother of a grow-up son - between the advertisements and scams (really few nowadays, luckily) there are the letters asking to come to know me closer - "and here is my messenger id". - I sure have no time to chat, and I sure know what they want and hope they forget me among all the other girls they wrote to - but when I check back after perhaps a month, I find so many asking why don't you answer? I hope, they read my blog as well, where I tell them why I don't answer...

Cyberia is a lonesome place, I know, that is why we join communities and make friends.
Only, why is everybody looking for Love online? I wished I could say different, but from all the experiences with so many former friends - and recent ones who gave up on me at least - I can only tell:

Love is something that belongs to the Real World, not to Cyberspace. And Love has to do with nearness, not with long distance. Sure, it is even better when it starts as the nearness of minds - but that makes the situation even worse. 'The farther away, the closer to the heart'. And the harder to bear the fact, that s/he is not near.

Why would you want to suffer so much? Can I not understand this, because I am Neila, the Spacelady, or because women, in general, keep a clearer head? You may answer: "It is my heart, that tells me to love, it is not me."

No, wrong answer! When your eyes see a picture, when your mind reads some words, when your ears hear music, it always goes to the brain first.

I remember a certain man, he has left my virtual life a long time ago, and I knew it would come to this. - No, I'm a married woman, and had I started some years earlier, he could have been my son, I was not 'in love' with him. I just - well, hard to describe my feelings, perhaps it was a kind of love, a different kind from this man-woman thing. He somehow became a part of my life, however much I tried to drive him away. And all I did was suffering with him all the time, and wondering, why such a sweet handsome guy could not find a wife.

I hope, I helped him a bit through this hard time by offering a virtual shoulder to cry on - that is, he was one of those men who don't cry, and I did it secretly for him after log off. It really is so much harder to be forced to help a friend over his impossible love, when you are the object yourself...

He has left the Cyberworld for good now - step by step, looking in only to find me now and again for a while with longer and longer intervals, and I know he will never anymore after more than a year. I wished I knew if he is happy now so he doesn't need me anymore. - But at least I know, he is over it now, missing me does not hurt so much anymore that he is forced back into the dangerous Virtual World.

This process is normal - only with him it took a little longer:

However deep a feeling may be, it will faint. Looking at an old married couple, still loving each other, caring, and so on, - but it is such a different relationship now than it was when they got married. - but they were together all the time, had somehow grown together, and the feelings only changed.

Over a long distance - how could that happen? Into what togetherness should the feelings flow, when the other is never physically near? Even if both love each other but there is no fast way to get together, the feelings just fade while each one is living his own life and growing in the daily necessities that leave no room for constant daydreams. One forgets - sure not the person, but the feelings one had. - Internet is only a pass time for most people, and one will look in only from time to time, if one meets the other, one is happy to meet, if not, there was something else to do anyway, someone else to chat with without having to feel troubled, or write one's old neglected Blog...

Where are You?

Where are You, my Rejuvenator?
Why do You not call me anymore?
I need to see myself through Your eyes once again.
Are You afraid I fell in love with You?
Because You said, that You love me?
Or did You want to end Your dream before it starts to hurt
Us Both?
There was no need for that, at least for me.

Where are You now?
In a new chatroom,
Looking for another dream to keep you happy for a while?
A new love without a future?

I miss You.
All I wanted was a Friend.
What were You looking for?
Not even You know that Yourself.

You are just lonesome in a crowd, like me.

Afraid to open your heart,
Overacting when You do by accident,
You turned around and fled.

Real feelings in a virtual world?
Yes, feelings are the only real thing here.
One day You will learn to reflect on them well.

Alas, too late for us.
Oh, how I hate to lose a friend because he falls in love with me!

I miss You, I still hope one day You might find out,
You can find friendship on the screen,
(No, not love, that is for the real world only,
For the matching person You can really touch.)

Perhaps then You remember me,
I'm always here, just a mouse click away,
Waiting for You to return.
Why did You have to call it Love before the end?
Why can You not be my Friend?

Small note to Neila's "Dream Raider"

Ooops... it seems that title was not really too original - it should not be either, because of the topic ‘online game with female 'play figure', there are not so many around.

Lol, when I wanted to publish the story the first time in a group, the host regarded it as an advertisement, because she could not read the late contributions properly anymore.
Now I have googled a bit and found that there is actually an old computer game of this name, besides snowboards and other things, which do not have to do anything at all with my - not really existent - game.

I do not know that PC-game, any similarities would be purely coincidental. And naturally, my story should not be an advertisement for anything.

It is a part of my description of life in the Alternative Reality of Cyberia.
(I’m firmly decided to fill my neglected Blogs properly this year) and then I hope for many readers, critics are also welcome.

~ Neila ~ Sabine ~

PS
does someone know the actual game "Dream Raider"? Then please tell me briefly, what that is - hopefully nothing embarrassing, lol.

Hello and Welcome to DREAM RAIDER !

Introducing:

DREAM  RAIDER 

An Interactive Online Game.

You do not need any special software, only a messenger - You switch the computer on, and you are ready to dive into my world between dream and reality – the world of Neila, the Dream Raider….

Here you yourself determine your dream. Persons emerge, who appear so alive and material, because they answer you in their own independent way, because you can see and hear them, but these persons are only dream shapes from your dreams and from their own. 

Well, I am one of them; I appear on a double click… but be careful… mind the first important task of the game: realize that you are only dreaming while you are with Neila! If you take me and my world for real, you fail level one already.

Otherwise, don’t worry – the basic rules of the game are strict but few and easy, and when you are about to break one, you are warned in time before you are booted. I cannot bother about complicated rules, many players are on my server, and I must adapt to so many different styles and languages, that I can as well let you make some rules yourself. – After all, it is your dream. But again: be careful! It is hard to leave a dream when you involve yourself too deep. Even though you know by now it is a game and can be no more, and you know that many play it, even at the same time, you are in danger to think - just because this is your wish – you are the one and only player, and I am there only for you.

You wouldn’t think that either if you were playing “Tomb Raider” and I was Lara Croft, would you? You know, sometimes I think I have a lot in common with her, not physically of course - Hmm – you are most likely dreaming me twenty-five, beautiful and independent… I am the protagonist of a single-player computer game, a dream image, detached from its creator.

But can a dream ever be completely detached from the dreamer? Is not the dream the visualization of the hopes and wishes, the fears and deprivations of the dreamer? It does not make much difference whether we dream alone in our sleep or interactive in the net.

One enters this virtual world only to dream as realistic as possible of something, which is missing in the material world. I do not know - is it good or bad to live next to perfect visions here? Does the illusion of having found something bring more joy or more pain?

This is entirely up to you. You can be happy in ‘Dream Raider’. Neila is not bad at fighting monsters – those in your mind. My reaction is almost as quick as Lara’s when attacked unforeseen. When you dream me strong I am. You can make me defend you against some of your nightmares. But you cannot dream the material me into your own material world. You cannot direct my heart and soul with a mouse click, and you cannot program my feelings or my ever smiling face to make your dreams about me true. When you lose sight of this fragile line between dream and reality new monsters emerge I might fail to defeat.

No, the task of level three is neither to enter my dream and try to walk through it into my reality nor to pull me into your dream, even worse into your heart, forgetting that I remain a dream shape. …. Sorry friend, each one can step across his own borderline only – you into your reality, I into mine. Outside the game you’d find a very different person anyway… How about you? Is your virtual dream image exactly the same as the material you??

Ok, I think I warned you enough… – come on, take a break from reality – consciously! – dream an interactive dream with an online friend, relax and be happy, never grieve because she is not material! Keep this dream to the computer, and, if you absolutely cannot avoid it, to sleep as well. Do refrain from making it a daydream! 

Let’s go, log in to “Dream Raider”!

Just Wasting My Time ...

Whatever am I doing here, 

sitting at my screen??

My chat room is closed; 

I am just too tired to go to bed.

So I like to talk with strangers that 

I have never seen
I freely allow their crazy thoughts to give aches to my head
Concealing my gray sky 

with their black clouds
I am slowly but surely getting doubts…

Can I really find a friend behind this cold glass screen?
Well I don’t know, it almost seems so for a while…
We keep each other company, try mending broken dreams
While I write a tale or load another file.

Saying things like: ”Such is internet – don’t ever care too much!”
(For me neither! - In a sideline – I do not want your heart!)
I’m online just too often – yes, sure we’ll keep in touch.
However distant, we’re a mouse click apart.

So if you have to come to me to hear some little helpful lies
I have enough of them for everyone (but me) in store!
Your problem finds an open ear, and I hope good advice
But I have only words to give not more…

Ok, you may cry on my shoulder if that will comfort you
Perhaps I’ve re-encouraged you a bit before logout
I can’t brush those clouds away to make the sun break through,
Just search that little silver lining on your cloud.

Can I really be a friend behind this cold glass screen?
Well, I don’t know… I try my best to be.
But don’t take that for affection – I am not even real!
So don’t start crying on my shoulder over me!

Maybe you need a substitute, but I can’t bring your love to you!
Well, many times your eyes see clearer after getting wet.
Now don’t let my disillusions completely disillusion you…
But you cannot find your future through a chat!

Can you really find a friend behind this cold glass screen?
Well, I don’t know… at least you have found me…
Wished I could help you keep your spirits up – whatever may have been…
So until you’ve found someone better have a friendly chat with me!

What am I really doing here sitting at my screen?
Well, I don’t know – I just can’t get away
I’ve been in so many minds I wished I had not seen -
It seems better still than be alone all day.