Hologram

By Ethan Sarem

Have you ever dreamed of escaping reality and its dysfunction? Maroon has.
Have you ever dreamed of dwelling somewhere your kind is not degraded? Maroon has.
Have you ever dreamed of making your dream reality? Maroon will.

Maroon is a 20-something woman, both powerful and intelligent… Is she taboo in our world?
Maroon learns of a group who managed to escape reality, called the Rubicon Initiative.
Their concept sketches are in her possession, and she uses them to escape reality herself.

In the virtual world, Maroon is a goddess capable of anything… Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?
She is capable of creating a new life, away from they who degrade her… Who do I speak of?

Creating a total substitution for reality is easier stated than acted upon, but Maroon tries.
What awaits her when she crosses the Rubicon into the virtual world? Is it better than reality?
Or is it just a dream?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359569298

Book preview

Hologram

Hologram

Hologram ©2019 by Ethan Sarem.

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-359-56929-8

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from Ethan Sarem, except in the case of brief quotations for reviews and articles.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or things is entirely coincidental.

1. The Hologram Sketch

Do you wonder what life would be like

as virtuality? …Do you want to find out?

Virtuality describes virtual reality in one word, what would life be like as virtual reality?

A video game, but life is not a video game…

The choices you make have consequences

I agree with this statement,

but I also believe video games offer escape

from reality’s miseries

A chance to become someone else,

a chance to find happiness…

It begins with a dream

Is simulated happiness real happiness?

Could one relinquish their life to technology?

A powerful woman is something to be feared,

so is an empowered woman… Truth is truth

…What makes me say this, as a male author?

I believe sexism should be shown the door

A woman isn’t something to objectify,

she isn’t an object of man’s desire…

If only that was true

Let me make clear, this isn’t a romance novel… There is no man in this powerful woman’s life

A powerful woman doesn’t need a man to dictate her, not just because she’s powerful herself

Men think they’re superior to women,

think of them as objects…

I say this as a male author

I don’t think women are inferior,

yet there are men out there who do…

I’ll call them patriarchy

Patriarchy is corrupted by money and power,

the roots of evil… They fear a powerful woman

Because a powerful woman

shows patriarchy their place,

she’s feared and smeared, not revered

Yet no amount of slander disproves the facts, patriarchy is the enemy, not a powerful woman

Why can’t we embrace gender equality?

Is it a construct we cannot conceive? Is it utopian?

We have the power to change the world,

but does the world want change? I ask you myself

One way to make change,

allow women to be empowered…

Allow the people’s voice to speak

Maybe if we were empowered,

if the people’s voice wasn’t suppressed…

We’d be better off then

A powerful woman is at forefront of this story,

so is an intelligent woman… One and the same

She is empowered by her intellect,

though intelligence doesn’t buy her friends… Shame, that

Is it because an intelligent woman is taboo in today’s society? Or is it consensual sexism?

Regardless of the answer,

she has no friends in life…

She prefers to be alone, I’m with her there

She lives in a house amid other houses,

in a neighborhood like any other…

She never leaves

Her house has all the creature comforts,

minus a man… She neither needs nor wants one

Men think they’re superior to women,

think of them as objects…

Well, guess what? We’re not

…This is the powerful woman at story’s forefront, the intelligent woman? You’re joking, right?

Nope, I’m not joking when I say

this is our heroine…

Someone who cuts herself off from society

She prefers video games to real life,

and video games offer her salvation…

I wish I was kidding

Video games offer her escape,

chance to become someone else

and achieve simulated happiness

Is simulated happiness real happiness?

Could one relinquish their life to technology?

…This question she never asked herself,

she prefers video games to real life…

Why, exactly?

Events are scripted, outcomes predetermined… NPCs speak specific lines to dialogue prompts

…I realize I cannot reference our heroine

without a name, does she have one? Yes, she does

Her name is Maroon,

references both a color and a state