Stella had been a Vegas Showgirl her whole life. One evening, after the early shift, she had been having a well earned fag break in the carpark when she had spotted the old Oculus headset that had been discarded beside the industrial bins. Furtively looking around, she grabbed the headset and stuck it straight on to her head. She expected to see nothing but the whole thing lit up like Christmas. The headset was one of the first models and had been around back in 2020, when virtual reality had been in its infancy. She immediately started to paint and draw in thin air. She knew exactly what she wanted to create. A virtual glitch clown. She had always wanted one as a child but her mother did not approve of their creepy glitchy clown features. So she painted her own virtual one.

He became her constant companion. Now, she very rarely removed her headset as she missed him too much. He used to say that neither of them could remember who was real and who was virtual. His best line was that “with legs like yours, darling, you have to be the virtual one…”.