Location: UR Island, Pappy Enoch’s Camp

“I are shure glad yu cood make it, Mistopher Ignoramus.”

“No problem, Pappy. And call me Iggy.”

“Awrite, then, Wiggly. I wil du that, evun if’n yu am my employur.”

I could tell Pappy needed to unburden himself. But first we swallowed some of his White Lightning, which he has designed so that avatars who drink it stagger and fall down. Luckily, the hangover ends in seconds.

“That were fun.  But I needs to ax yu sum’pin. Yu kin share it wif them-thar reedurs.”

“Yes. . .” My curiosity was at the frenzy-level. The Moonshiner, for all his antics, keeps his cards close to his overalls.

“Yu know that I bin tryin’ my durndest tu git back tu reel life?”

I nodded. “You had a nice first life, didn’t you?”

“That I dun had in barn-fulls.  Now, howsumdover, I are stuk in this fake wirld and am a-makin’ the best o’ it.  Got frends, a see-gar tu smoke, purty wimmin writin’ tu me, workin’ Shine n’ evun store likkur, a frendly dawg, sum Enoch rerlashuns now.“

“I dun gone on the town with Miz Kyo, ‘cept not tu a paintin’ Moo-see-um like yu dun, but to a fancy place: a rite nice trailur park tu see rich folks!  And—wood yu berleeve it!—I gots a fishin’ invite frum Miz Di.  Let me tell yu, hoss;  I plans tu rite ‘bout it soon.”

“I have a couple hundred extra Lindens in my pocket for that story. But Pappy, those don’t sound like problems.“

“Nawsir, Wiggly, but this am a diffrunt proberlum. . .I bin looking at folks’ pro-files in Secund Life and. . . “

Pappy means the information a resident provides in an easily accessed public window on-screen.  It has our favorite places, groups, links to Web sites, and information about our first and second lives.

“And. . .” I prodded.

“Wun person—not somebuddy yu know at all—dun put ‘I hate my first life’ rite in the pro-file fur the wirld tu see.  I red what yu writ ‘bout frends.  Heck, I dun evun red what the big krittur. . .”

“You mean Beeble Baxter.”

“Yep,  him tu.  What he dun sed ‘bout frends an’ actin’ responsurabul. So what shood I tell that-thar persun?”

I had to choose my words carefully.  I took (one) sip of Shine and braced myself.

“Nothing.  You can’t make them love their first lives. Nothing and nobody in Second Life can do that.  At best, this is a distraction for a while, and a place to talk to friends.  They still have to live in their bodies, unlike you.”

“Here I are, tryin’ to git the heck out of Secund Life an’ back to Enoch Holler, an’ other folks want to live here all the time.  Worries me, Wiggly, it du.“

Pappy looked off into the twilight.  He didn’t say another thing; he just passed the jug my way. I needed it.

“No problem, Pappy. And call me Iggy.”
“Awrite, then, Wiggly. I wil du that, evun if’n yu am my employur.”

Hehe. 

Pappy is very generous with that jug, thanky-Lord.

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