Living Vicariously Through Others
The afternoon sun filtered through the neatly trimmed oak trees, casting stripes across Sammy's plush, unused rug. His suburban home hummed with the gentle thrumming of automated systems.
For Sammy, it was just another Thursday, full of hours of time that needed to be filled. Sammy stared at the flickering holographic display on his wrist. A million experiences at his finger tips and yet all of them felt boring.
He had tried all the virtual safaris, the deep-sea expeditions, and even the simulated zero-G moonwalks. Each time, the initial thrill soon gave way to a familiar dullness. He was a ghost, a voyeur. But today, the Live Extreme category pulsed with a new offering.
Apex Jumper: Grand Canyon Descent
The thumbnail displayed a silhouetted figure against a vast blue sky, their arms outstretched in a dive. Below, the canyon waited.
Sammy tapped the suggestion.
"Welcome to Apex Jumper," a smooth, synthesized voice invited. "Today's performer is designated 'Jet'. Please ensure your VR headset is calibrated with a neural interface for maximum immersion."
He slipped the polished headset over his eyes and felt the cool gels attaching to his temples. The suburban living room vanished in an instant. In its place was the cramped, metallic interior of a small aircraft.
The drone of the engine vibrated deep in Sammy's chest. It felt so real despite it not actually happening to him. He was no longer Sammy from Elwood. He was Jet. He felt the subtle swaying of the plane and the chill of the air outside. The crew looked excited.
He was, or rather Jet was, performing a final check of the parachute rig. He patted it with a confident, almost casual air. He felt the tension and energy coursing in his limbs.
The flight lasted a few minutes as it ascended high into the sky. Sammy looked out the window at the vast tapestry of the canyon below.
He felt Jet's breath hitch just slightly as the cabin door turned green. This was it. This was the moment of pure, unadulterated sensation delivered directly to him. He felt the cold rush of the air as the door hissed open. He heard the roar of the wind. He saw the distance to the ground. He was ready to feel something.
The wind tore past his face as Jet pitched forward out of the plane, a practiced moment that sent an artificial jolt of adrenaline through his veins. For a breathtaking instant, he hung suspended. His arms stretched out, taking in as much of the air as possible.
The initial rush was an overwhelming symphony of sensation. Sammy felt the sudden drop and the exhilarating acceleration. The world spun, a blur of geological wonders, as Jet executed a grateful somersault before stabilizing into a classic freefall.
The air pressed against every inch of his skin and he could hear the excited whoop coming from Jet. He could feel that same elation in his chest. The sun warmed his face even as the wind whipped past. This was it. This was the raw experience he craved.
But then, there was a subtle flicker, an almost imperceptible glitch in his peripheral vision. Jet was reaching for the ripcord, a routine motion that had happened a thousand times. The familiar, comforting sound of the pilot chute deploying, pulling out the main canopy, should've followed.
It didn't.
Instead came a frantic, desperate tugging. The blue sky remained fully in his vision, without nylon covering it. Sammy felt Jet's muscles bunch. The tendons in his virtual hands strained, an animalistic effort. A faint tremor ran down his spine, following by a sickening lurch as Jet's body began tumbling into an uncontrolled spin.
Sammy felt a wave of disorienting nausea as his brain struggled to reconcile the immersive visuals and the neural panic.
"Malfunction! Main won't deploy!" Jet's voice suddenly reverberated in Sammy's head. There was a blood-curdling panic.
Sammy's own heart was now hammering in his chest. This wasn't supposed to happen. This was supposed to be a performance. The data overlay, usually pristine and informational, suddenly flashed crimson.
PARACHUTE DEPLOYMENT FAILURE
Jet's hands scrambled to get the reserve chute. Sammy saw the frantic blurring of fingers and the desperate fumbling. There was a terror contorting Jet's face. Another tug, harder this time, was fueled by a primal desperation that Sammy could feel hundreds of miles away.
Time seemed to warp, stretching out into an eternity of falling. The ground was now rushing up with terrifying speed. The craggy features, the precise shadows, and the unyielding nature became horrifyingly clear.
The air tore at Jet's clothes, screaming past his ears. The high-pitched shriek seemed to claw at Sammy's sanity. Every nerve ending seemed to register the inevitable collision.
As the ground rushed up, the final seconds blurred together. Sammy's virtual eyes caught glimpses of figures below. Their faces turned upward as they grew larger. They were people, tourists or ground crew maybe, standing near the rim of the canyon. Their mouths were open with horror, their hands flying to their faces or pointing in poses of helplessness.
"NO NO NO!" Jet's screamed was ripped away by the wind.
Sammy thrashed in his seat, his real-world body powerless. He wanted to shout, to do something, but he wasn't there. There was nothing except for the fall. The world around him turned into a blur of reds and browns. Then a hard patch of jagged rocks filled the entire view. There was a final gust of wind, a flash of blinding white, and then...
The Neuro-Sync's feed exploded into a cacophony of white static as jagged lines of black obliterated the image. The only thing Sammy could feel was the darkness.
Sammy ripped the headset off his head. The cool gel remained on his forehead, giving him a clammy feeling on his skin. His living room now felt alien. He was still sitting on his plush sofa, safe and unharmed. But his body thrummed with the phantom agony of the fall. His stomach still hurt and his ears echoed with the terrible shriek of wind. He had been forced to experience a death that wasn't his own, but felt so intimate.
He stared at his hands, expecting them to be trembling, but they felt numb. The silence of his home was deafening, amplified by the cacophony of the last few minutes. Outside, a bird chirped innocently. It had no idea. A faint scent of freshly cut grass drifted through an open window. Everything felt normal. A cruel, indifferent normalcy.
He had just witnessed a human life extinguished. He had felt the despair and the crushing finality. And yet there was nothing else. No collective mourning or grief. Jet, the "performer", was just gone. He was just another anonymous data point for the VR company. Sammy hadn't even known his real name.
The promise of vicarious living was to experience everything without risk, without consequence. Yet that promise was a lie. He was left with an isolated he couldn't explain or even truly claim as his own.
His comfortable life remained suffocating and empty. His headset had not brought him closer to anything. It only underscored the wide canyon between a simulated experience and authentic human existence.
He had tasted death, but he hadn't truly lived. And in that chilling realization, Sammy felt more alone than he ever had before.