“Mental World Online… never heard of it.”

I was making a sandcastle, when this guy came up and talked to me. I know I’m a little old to be doing this.

“It’s a game. You can play it with augmented reality or in a game world, I usually stick to the game world.”

“Augmented reality? Like, it displaying on a board when I read the news?”, I said.

“Yeah. I’ve got a friend who plays there who looks like you. She’s pretty.”

“Really?”

“He’s a guy though. His character is female.”

I don’t know how to take that. But for him to come out and say it like that, he seems confident. I  couldn’t say that if a girl friend of mine was playing a guy and he was attractive.

Entering Augmented Reality...

“Wow, pick a class huh? I only read a little about it, Negativer is definitely me.”

It had to be Negativer or Positiver. I wasn’t interested in the whole role playing game part but when he said “you can create monsters out of your thoughts” I had to check it out.

There were two classes that could craft, but looking at the wiki it seemed way too hard for me.

I had enough trouble doing art with brain chips, I’d rather just do it in real life.

I was lounging as usual at home, Mom’s house.

At my age, having to move back in was shameful!

If only I could get married! Then again, maybe I should just stop saying no to everyone.

I’d rather have my career take off.

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My art career, which doesn’t exist.

I drew and painted here and there, but it never turned out right.

I looked at the empty canvas in the corner. The paint cans. Aren’t you lonely?

“If only I can make a monster like one that's in my imagination…”

I was dreaming. There were plenty of drawing and brain chip aided design programs out there.

I read somewhere it was even possible that you could just ‘suggest’ the concept of something to someone’s mind and the imagination would make it itself.

That’s great.

You don’t need to hire an artist then.

None of those programs were good enough though. I would struggle with the user interface, post some amateur work online, get no attention then go cry.

Well, not cry. It’d hurt though. It’s like it was me on the canvas that they were rejecting.

I knew it wasn’t good. That hurt the most. I was asking for it, wasn’t I? Doesn’t it take years of using those programs to get good enough to get paying work? I was ignoring that.

I wanted it to work right away.

And after so long of not drawing, I drew less and less and distracted myself. I had a job, friends, and I messed around with sandcastles. Stuff like sandcastles too, like knitting, crochet, papercrafting.

Oh, and the painting. The painting, how much could you put into each stroke? I looked at famous painters. Some paintings were worth millions with only a few strokes. Wouldn’t that be the best? A single stroke, an entire world!

“Huh, so skill? ‘Monster Summon’”

It said input thought or feeling.

It didn’t say negative thought or feeling though. I wonder why? Isn’t that the whole point behind this class system?

I’ll try a positive one then. That guy earlier, he was nice to talk with.

“‘Input Thought’?”

That didn’t work.

I thought of him again.

“‘Monster Summon’!”

I put some feeling into it. At one time, I was in a play, I was going to be famous when I grew up.

A tiny monster appeared before me. It had horns extending backwards like an antelope, grey fur all over, and a grumpy old man face.

Is this a Yeti? It says level 1 too, that's disappointing. Maybe I need to play the RPG part to get to a higher level, then I can summon higher levels? I checked the wiki, it’s true. I loathed that.

It was exciting. I stared at the Yeti, and it stared back at me.

“Go over there!”, I ordered.

It ran over to the corner of my messy room and hid in a lump of clothes. I didn’t know it could do that.

They made it a little transparent too. Guess so that’s people can see through them well enough even if a bunch of monsters are around, it could be dangerous if a train or car was coming at you.

I shivered.

Good thing about the only thing I do is work and go home. I go to beach when I get frustrated about not painting. It’s easier to work with sand.

Maybe I should fight with this thing?

Ah, I’d have to go online, I don’t want to socialize right now, I’ve had enough.

Maybe I’ll just make more monsters. I like this one, but it looks ugly.

How much emotion can I put in? How many thoughts can I put in? Could I put everything into a single monster? Just like I wanted to put my feelings on a canvas.

Could I put all of me, in a monster?