Life in a Fishbowl

by Len Vlahos

  And now her mother was ruining it.

  Right there in Megan’s house were the biggest, fanciest television cameras in the world, the most important producers, and the wealthiest sponsors, and all they wanted to do was film her, Megan Stone. Okay, maybe not her specifically, but still. And now she wasn’t allowed to talk to them? It was so unfair. Megan knew it had to be because of Jackie and her stupid YouTube thing.

  She couldn’t understand her sister. If Jackie would just let her hair down and try a little makeup, she’d be pretty. And wasn’t that better than being smart? What was so good about being a brainiac? Weren’t those kids the ones who got picked on? Wasn’t their life kind of miserable? It’s not that Megan wanted to do badly in school—and she didn’t—it’s that she knew there were more important things.

  If Megan wasn’t allowed to talk to the producers, if she didn’t talk on camera, she wouldn’t be on the show. What would the kids at school think if Megan wasn’t on TV anymore? They would think she was a loser, that’s what. She would become a nobody. And to a girl like Megan Stone, there was nothing worse.

  Just before she went to bed later that night, the same day her mom had laid down the law about the family doing nothing to cooperate with the Life and Death producers, she did something she hadn’t done in ages. She got on her knees and prayed.

  “Dear God, please help my mom understand how wrong she is. Daddy wanted us to be on this television show, and we owe it to him to see it through. Please send me a sign so I’ll know what’s right.”

  When Megan stepped out of school the following Monday and saw the limousine waiting for her—when all her friends saw the limousine waiting for her—Megan knew her prayers had been answered.

  ***

  The meeting in Azeroth, a war council called by the all-powerful Guinevere the Glad, stretched over three days. It took place in a stone castle on a windswept virtual plain. The building was an impressive structure surrounded by a moat filled with unspeakable pixilated terrors. Looming above it all were twin spires, each flying pennants. It looked like a cross between Churchill Downs and Westminster Abbey. The grandeur of the location underscored the gravity of the meeting inside.

  News of the war council spread to every corner of the realm, and everyone wanted in. Character upon character converged on the palace, creating an impromptu fair on the field beyond its walls. There were merchants selling goods, heroes fighting the monsters that the game insisted on spawning, and, of course, player after player after player dueling one another. It was a kind of Dark Ages Bonnaroo without the bands.

  Only those with an invitation were let beyond the moat. Players who lived in Portland or had a connection to technology, television, and/or medicine were recruited. In an unprecedented move for a Warcraft guild, invitees were required to give their real life names, occupations, and places of residence. Two senior guild members were tasked with screening and reviewing all applicants, turning away far more than were allowed to pass.

  It had taken Jackie no small effort to get there. She had “borrowed” her mother’s credit card, and then spent more than five hours downloading the Warcraft software along with a never-ending stream of updates. She’d found the one spot in her room blind to the ATN cameras—in a corner on the floor, next to her closet—and sat there, huddled over her computer.

  After a while, one of the producers poked her head into the bedroom, wondering how Jackie had vanished. When she saw Jackie sitting cross-legged on the floor, her MacBook in her lap, the producer shook her head and left. Twenty minutes later, and just a few minutes before Jackie finally arrived in Azeroth, a technician came in and affixed a new camera to the ceiling, aiming it directly at Jackie’s corner. His face was riddled with guilt, and he muttered “sorry” before he left the room. It didn’t matter to Jackie; they still couldn’t see her computer screen.

  Jackie’s character was a male dwarf warrior called Gerald the Generous, the name a nod to Hazel’s character. When she—or rather Gerald—first arrived in Azeroth, he was standing in a small outdoor plaza, surrounded by walking, running, and leaping avatars. The theme was medieval, or maybe more aptly, computer-generated medieval fantasy.

  An enormous, green-skinned female elf was standing in front of Jackie’s dwarf, its arms gesticulating wildly. When Jackie moved her mouse over the character, she saw that it was Guinevere the Glad—Hazel. Jackie had no idea what to do. The two of them stood there like that for a couple of minutes.

  Jackie was just about to give up when she noticed a small chat box on the World of Warcraft dashboard.

  Hazel

  Can you hear me?

  GtGen

  Hear you?

  Hazel

  Yeah, do you have your headset plugged in?

  GtGen

  I don’t have a headset. Besides, anything I say out loud will just wind up on TV.

  Hazel

  Right, of course. Okay, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. We’ll type.

  For the next hour, Gerald the Generous followed Guinevere the Glad from one virtual glade to the next. Jackie learned how to manipulate her character, how to fight monsters, how to talk to people, how to pick up and drop materials, how to attach herself to a group, and so much more. She found the game mind-numbingly fun.

  When she and Hazel arrived at the palace, they crossed a drawbridge and found two guards arguing with a muscular, human male warrior just outside the colossal stone door. Hazel could hear the conversation; Jackie could not.

  “I am invited,” the male warrior was saying.

  “Sorry, newb,” the guard answered. “This is a private guild meeting. No one under level fifty allowed.”

  “What’s going on, Farsifal?” Guinevere asked.

  “This newb is lost,” he answered. “We’re trying to help him understand.”

  “Nyet!” the warrior insisted. “Jackie invite me.”

  “What’s going on?” Jackie typed into her chat box.

  “Some kid who says he knows you,” Guinevere responded. “I think he’s Russian.”

  “Max?” Jackie typed.

  “Solnyshko! Please tell them I am good.”

  “Jackie, did you invite someone?” Guinevere asked. “I’m not sure that was such a good idea.”

  “It’s okay. He needs to be here. You can trust him.”

  Ten minutes later, Guinevere the Glad was banging the butt of her sword on the stone table, calling the council to order. The myriad side conversations died down.

  Jackie waited as the first part of the conversation took place by voice. Hazel had warned her that this would be the case.

  “This guild has done more good in the land of Azeroth than any in the realm,” Hazel began.

  There were murmurs of assent.

  “We have slain mighty foes.” The murmurs grew louder. “We have recovered plentiful bounty!” Louder still. “And we have helped those in need.”

  The assembled interrupted with “woots” and “huzzahs.”

  Jackie’s Facebook IM flashed.

  Max

  Solnyshko, what manner of talking is this?

  Jackie

  I can’t actually hear them, Max, but don’t worry about it. This is a role-playing game, so it might sound funny. Just follow along the best you can.

  Max

  I will do my hardest.

  Jackie

  “I will try my hardest,” Max, or “I will do my best.” I think you got them mixed up.

  “We all know why we’re here today,” Hazel said. “Jackie Stone, daughter of Jared Stone, needs our help. Jackie will now tell us her tale.”

  Hazel had prepared Jackie for this—that she would need to tell her story to the guild. She had even written an introduction for her. Jackie copied and pasted it.

  “Good people of Azeroth, members of the guild, I come to you with a heavy heart and ask that you hear my song.” After that, Jackie just started typing in her own manner of speech, and pretty soon, everyone else reverted to the i
diom of the early twenty-first century. She told them about her father and his disease, thanking them for the money they had raised for the eBay listing. She told them about life on the set of the television show. She introduced them to Max and explained how the two of them had made The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon. And she told them about Ethan Overbee, and how he had turned her home into a prison and had confiscated her phone, and how he and his minions were watching Jackie and her family twenty-four hours a day.

  “What we need is a rescue,” someone said. Others agreed.

  “No,” Hazel answered. “Jackie’s request is simple. We need to get her a camera.”

  For the next hour, and spilling into the next two nights, the guild discussed various plans to get Jackie a camera. In the end, they settled on the simplest plan of all. Throw her one over The Wall.

  No one was more surprised than Jackie to learn that the knight chosen for the task was her awkward, pimply-faced classmate, Jason Sanderson—the boy who had told her she looked nice in her Easter dress all those years ago.

  It made perfect sense to Jackie that Jason lived in this world. When the real world treats you like garbage, why not find a better world, one without prejudice, judgment, and cruelty? She was only sad that she hadn’t discovered this world for herself years earlier.

  Jason was known in Azeroth simply as G. Ranger, and was now known to the guild as a hero among men.

  ***

  Ethan knew the younger Stone girl would be easy prey. Hell, most of America would have known. In her interviews with the producer, the short segments that aired each night, Megan tried too hard. She fawned for the camera, used her hand to brush her hair back a little too often, and used the producer’s name too emphatically. It played well enough with America because she was so young—Megan was cute, and she knew it—but overnight polling, which peeled away all nuance and stripped things down to their bare essence, said that her unfavorable numbers were on the rise; America was starting to see Megan as a stuck-up and self-absorbed brat.

  Of course, those poll numbers were never shared with the family lest it affect their performance. But Ethan had seen them. In fact, Ethan was counting on them.

  “Hello, Megan,” he said as she climbed into the limousine. Megan, overwhelmed by the opulence, muttered hello in response. “Would you like something to drink?” Ethan motioned to the bar stacked with soda, juice, and milk. “We have Nantucket Nectars. You know, that’s Jo Garvin’s favorite.” Ethan had no idea what Jo Garvin liked to drink, nor did he care. But he had seen how Megan adored Jo, and he was all too happy to exploit it.

  “Oh, yes, please, Mr. Overbee. I would simply love a Nantucket Nectar.”

  Even here, Ethan thought, the kid can’t dial it down.

  “It’s a shame about Jo,” he said, passing her a bottle.

  “Why? What happened?” Megan’s concern was, Ethan could tell, genuine. His face betrayed no hint of the delight he was feeling inside.

  “Your sister’s video, Megan. It probably ended Jo’s career.”

  Megan sighed. Written in that lone syllable of exhalation was a lifetime of frustration with Jackie, exasperation at why her sister had to be so weird. “End her career?” Megan asked.

  “Yes. Jackie’s video made Jo look like a fool, and America doesn’t suffer fools gladly.” Ethan didn’t really think either statement was true. Jo would rebound, the tenacious ones always do, and America, he believed, was populated by cud-chewing cave trolls.

  Megan felt bad for Jo—she was a star after all—but she wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with her. “Didn’t you take Jackie’s phone away?”

  “We did. But Jackie’s video is only half the problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can tell that your mom is upset with the show, upset with me.” Ethan leaned in and dropped the volume of his voice, turning Megan into a coconspirator. Megan had used this same trick on Jackie countless times but didn’t immediately recognize it on the receiving end. She nodded and leaned in, too, completely unaware that she was being played.

  “I think,” Ethan said, leaning in closer, “maybe she asked you and Jackie to stop cooperating?” Megan was silent. She felt uncomfortable at the line of questioning. More than anything she wanted to be back on the show, but she didn’t want to get her mother in trouble with the network.

  It never occurred to Megan to ask how Ethan knew what her mom had told her and Jackie. Not that he would have told her about the cameras in each of the house’s two bathrooms. Ethan had strict instructions that the director was to never use or even watch footage from those cameras. It was the most ignored rule on set; male members of the crew would routinely watch Deirdre—and her teenage daughters—shower.

  “I know how hard it is to defy your mother,” Ethan offered, seeming to read Megan’s mind. “I went through something similar when I was your age.”

  “You did?”

  “It was in eighth grade. Is that the grade you’re in now?” Of course, Ethan knew the answer to his own question. Megan nodded. “Right, so you’ll understand. My mother and father didn’t like the group of friends I hung around with. If you can believe this, my parents thought they were too square.”

  “Square?”

  “They were nice kids, but a bit goofy. One of them loved movies so much that all he wanted was for us, our whole group of friends, to make our own movies. He had a Betamax recorder—”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, this was back in the 1980s, before there was all this digital technology. It was a great big camera that used videotapes. To us, it was the coolest. Anyway, he used his Betamax to make movies. We all starred in them and had fun doing it. We would charge other kids in the neighborhood money to see them. My parents hated it. They thought I should have been hanging around boys who played sports, that sort of thing.”

  “Most of my guy friends play sports,” Megan offered meekly.

  “And that’s a good thing. But my friends back then, we were like a team, a fraternity. You know what a fraternity is?”

  Megan nodded again.

  “So anyway, I decided to ignore my parents and hang out with them. And this was doubly hard because my father was a colonel in the air force, and a pretty scary guy.”

  “So what happened?” Megan asked.

  “To tell the truth, those guys are the reason I went into television. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I had listened to my parents and hung out with different kids.”

  None of Ethan’s story was true. His father was a mid-level manager at a regional bank, never in his life had he touched a Betamax recorder, and, like Megan, he only ever hung around with the popular kids. He wouldn’t have been caught dead with the AV Club nerds. But the story, culled from a spec script that had crossed his desk, served its purpose. The girl was wide-eyed. Ethan almost felt a pang of guilt as he realized just how young thirteen actually is. Almost.

  “So, Megan, are you willing to do what’s right, even if it means going against your parents’ wishes?”

  “I-I think so,” she stammered.

  “Good,” he said, patting her knee. Megan recoiled on instinct, but Ethan didn’t notice. “Here’s what I’d like you to do.”

  ***

  Sister Benedict settled into the ebb and flow of the Stone household with relative ease.

  Her singular mission was to extend Jared’s life as long as medicine and technology would allow. Where the caregivers and the church failed with Terri Schiavo, Sister Benedict would succeed with Jared Stone. The doctors warned the Sister that a brain tumor was a decidedly different matter than Mrs. Schiavo, whose brain had been severely damaged when it was starved of oxygen due to a massive cardiac event. But the Sister, who knew precious little about medicine, put her faith in God. He would not have brought her all this way, would not have granted her entry to this house, if He did not have a plan.

  Besides, Cardinal Trippe had made it clear to the medical team that Sister Benedict was
his emissary on the set, and that she spoke for him. The Sister knew that she was not exactly following the Cardinal’s wishes when she instructed the doctors to do everything in their power to keep the man alive, but she was able to rationalize it. The ends, the Sister thought, sometimes do indeed justify the means.

  Beyond the care of her patient, the Sister tried her best to avoid any connection to the television show. Of course, one did not set up camp in the Stone household without becoming a willing or unwilling participant.

  Obeying the Cardinal’s direction, Sister Benedict succumbed to the daily interview with the producer, and to being filmed almost continuously by the many “hidden” cameras. The first time she saw herself on TV, on the episode of Life and Death that aired the night she arrived in the house, she was mortified.

  When did I grow so old? she thought, reaching for the lines on her face. Is this what I’ve become?

  She dwelled on that thought for a moment and then shook her head to clear it. She recalled something her first Mother Superior used to say: “The ability to compartmentalize is a necessary fabric in the thread of any good nun’s cloak of invincibility.” It was advice—given to her when she was still Angela Marie the novice—that Sister Benedict would turn to again and again. To be a nun was to be in a state of perpetual conflict. Discipline and obedience locked horns with compassion and forgiveness, self-imposed poverty was a source of mockery in a society driven almost entirely by consumerism, and chastity and desire could never be reconciled.

  The Sister considered herself above base instincts like desire and materialism, but in the end, she was human, and some days, one or the other would tug at her conscience. As a young novice she would mention these things in confession, but the penance was always the same—a few Hail Marys, a few Our Fathers, and her soul was clean. As she grew older, she knew enough to mete out her own punishment, and kept her darkest thoughts to herself.

  When she saw her aging face, with its harsh mouth, squinty eyes, and not-so-subtle facial hair on the television screen, the Sister acknowledged the sin of vanity, turned off Life and Death, and recited “Hail Mary, full of grace” over and over again.