It's midmorning when I'm woken by a thread request tingling annoyingly in my head. It's my boyfriend, Mont.

I glance at my peripheral overlay and see a second glyph spinning around next to his visual icon. It's the symbol for urgent. I call up his emojo and can see that he's on edge. This strikes me as odd, as Mont's the most laidback and relaxed dude I've ever met. I call the accept request op and render in the garden, our special meeting place.

The garden is an environment I built myself based on a scene I read about in history. I like the smell of herbs and the natural bright colours of the everblooming cottage flowers. Once I told Mont that I'd like to have a real garden like this, but he didn't understand what I meant by the word real; like everyone here, he doesn't have an awareness of the outside.

Mont is waiting. A fashion fiend, his neat deep purple velvet three-piece renders with a high-quality texture that seems to absorb the light. He has a new hairstyle: a lighter pink modelled into the shape of pulled-back wings, so glossy that they look like plasto. He paid a small fortune to max out the luminescence in his eyes. They shine a bright emerald green with a motion blur delay effect applied that leaves a fading trail at his every movement. I'm used to his high-end appearance, but rarely make any effort myself. In fact, I make a point of wearing default ingee clothing skin: dark grey, long-sleeved tunic stitched together at the front with a tie, and long leggings (also grey). I don't want to annoy my friends so I set my display at a reasonable resolution. I also appear in my own true likeness. Not only couldn't I be bothered to look different, but the cost of rendering my library space means that I need to make sacrifices in other areas--I can't afford the ripoff costs of a decent alt.

We've been seeing each other for ages, but I still don't know for sure what Mont looks like outside of the Environment. He says that he displays his true self, but I doubt anyone could be that great to look at. It's okay, though, as couples aren't compelled to reveal their true likenesses until they initiate pairing routines, and that is a serious undertaking. I like him, but not that much. Not yet.

I find him pacing between two flower beds. He sees me hook in, but something's not right. He's avoiding eye contact and greets me in a way far too polite for a boyfriend.

He blurts, "I'm sorry, It's just that I can't stand it anymore."

"Stand what?"

"I think you know what. Your reading and all of the smugness and superiority that goes with it. Every time we meet, you have to tell me about something that you've read in a book or something ridiculous that you've learned from reading. It's all a useless, one-sided, unproductive bullshit, and I can't share you with this abnormal obsession."

He's talking fast, and it's taking time for me to process what he's saying. I don't know where any of this is coming from; he's never shown any hint of disliking my reading. For once in my life, I can't think of anything to say, so I just stand there while Mont continues his attack.

"I have a new game master and he told me all about what happens to readers and, unlike you, I actually need other people in my life. My GM says that the Environment provides us with everything we could ever need. Reading is not only a waste of time, it's just not natural.

"When people ask me what my partner 'does', I don't know what to tell them. Can you imagine what they'd think of me if I told them the truth, that you were a reader? I can't say that, can I?"

"Yes you can—" I get out three words, but he cuts me off.

"Hell no, I can't! For a start, people don't even know what reading is anymore. To be honest, I didn't know what reading was until I met you. I told you that I'd seen a book just to get your interest, is all." He shook his head and then those perfect green-energised widened at me. "Don't you get it? The word is a thing of the past; there's no such thing as 'written' anymore, so nobody reads and nobody needs to."

"It's writing actually. The word you are looking for is writing, not written"

"Written, writing—my point exactly! It's all irrelevant. There isn't even a glyph for it."

"Are you finished? I'm getting bored of this."

"No, there's more! I need you to know how I feel about that book of yours. It's like that stupid antique means more to you than I do. I'm sorry, but it all just creeps me out. Believe it or not, I want—no, I need to spend my life with someone normal."

"You're a real dick. Do you know that?" It isn't the most meaningful response, but I've just been ambushed by someone I thought loved me, and who stuck a knife into my throat. I can't understand why he thinks reading is a disability. Doesn't he know that it's what makes me special? Reading is a freedom, not a shame.

I should ask if he's breaking up with me, but the insults are too fresh. I know he can see my emojo turn to red. How dare he insult my book!

"You listen to me," I say with level force. "How could my book, a simple green parcel of papers offend you or anybody else? It's mine and it's personal. I read it because I want to and, as far as I know, reading's not a crime. Reading doesn't hurt anyone!"

"It does hurt you, Saki. It makes you a freak. And it hurts me to see you dedicate your life to such a waste of time."

"So what if I read? I wish you could realise just how ridiculous you sound right now. You're acting like reading killed the fucking dinosaurs or something." I hit eleven on the ten point scale of pissed-offedness; the only thing I can do beside lose it is pull a fistful of flowers out of the garden bed next to me, screw them up, and toss them to the ground.

I glance at his emojo in my peripheral. It has turned blue, so perhaps he's coming around. He says in a highly condescending tone that I'm sure he thinks is reasonable, "Saki-babe, I'm only saying this because I value our relationship. I just want to give you a chance to change. You must realise that you're wasting your future and, if we were to stay together, my future too!"

That's it. Love changes to hate as the ember inside me bursts into flame. "You're right, Mont," I say with the perfect mix of passive-aggressiveness, "it's not fair that you or any other possible life partner should play a distant second to my true love: Words—reading—my book. Would you like me to spell it? Bee-oh-oh-kay, Book!"

He cringes as if the extraction of the letters from the obsolete alphabet were an affront to his senses. "So, it's come to this then? I thought you might have chosen our fondness for each other over your crappy book!"

"No, the book wins every time." In less time than it takes me to turn a page, he means nothing to me. "It's over, Mont. Goodbye. Oh, and by the way, a note for your future love interests—when you're stimulating with someone else, make sure you turn off your fucking emojo!"

There, that should do it. The vision of Mont's jaw-dropped face fades from view as I terminate the thread and leave the garden. I'm returned to my last environmental channel, so am once again floating in the dark ocean depths, alone. But now I'm just that little bit more alone than I was moments earlier. Do I need Mont? Oh well, I think to myself, too late now, it's done. I call up a custom type-driven overlay and it takes me less than five seconds to echo the command to revoke his access to my Environment. Our relationship is officially over.

I drop out of the Environment. It's not painful, but the sensation of leaving the synthetic world feels like string being pulled through my frontal lobe and out of my eyes. 

***