In Memoriam: xxKellyjoxx Andel

by Kavella Maa | February 24, 2010 | No comments

I was going to blog today about this night club I ended up at, this place with great music and decent-paying dance camp pads, and how I finally figured out how to open up freebie packages and change my outfit painlessly, and, you know, frivolous stuff like I’m always blogging about.

And then I got the news that xxKellyjoxx Andel was dead.

I didn’t know Kelly. But she played Tiny Empires, and we were in the same Kingdom, and our King knew both her and her partner Jade. And he told the rest of us.

I should back up a step. Do you know about Tiny Empires? OK. Tiny Empires is a HUD-based role-playing game. You buy the HUD (“heads-up display”) here. It hangs around in the corner of your screen and cycles through turns, each turn representing a month. Each month, maybe stuff happens to you or maybe you get to choose to do something or maybe random things get announced or maybe nothing happens at all.

But here’s the important bit. Soon after you start playing, you become part of a Kingdom. And if you’re fortunate, it’s a friendly Kingdom. Like the Kingdom of the Background, of which I’m a citizen. I got assigned to my liege there, and she gave me just the warmest welcome. Also an invitation to join the Kingdom’s group, “Fellowship of Friends,” so I could be included in group IM chatter and receive the various group notices telling us to put on our HUDS so as not to miss a good upcoming turn.

Today, though, the group notice King Markie Carter sent us was a lot more somber than that, and I really didn’t feel like blogging dance clubs and camping pads anymore.

The three minutes passed. Markie thanked everyone for observing the silence. And then… such an outpouring on the group IM. Expressions of grief and shock and sympathy. Offers of prayers and support. Virtual hugs, virtual tears. Real tears. There was so much love being shared.

I don’t know any of these people in real life. I “see” them in chat and sometimes avatar-to-avatar, and some names over time I come to recognize and associate with my slowly accumulating idea of their personalities. “Internet acquaintances are only pixel-deep….” But what nonsense that is! Has anyone not felt it, the way the human reaches out from among the pixels to make contact with the human at the keyboard? Has anyone truly convinced themselves that there are no souls behind the avatars and IM handles they interact with, so that when tragedy strikes they never believe it real? Who does that?

Tragedy struck this week, and all the humans came out from behind their pixels to hold each other tight. And even if it was only spirits and not hands that touched, well, there’s nothing “only” about “in spirit.”

As promised, the Emperor gave Kelly a special title. Tiny Empires doesn’t have graveyards and headstones, but it has titles. Here is Kelly’s.

Sunday morning will be soon enough for blogging about dance clubs and camping pads. For now, let’s remember Kelly.

Let’s be more than our component pixels.