RATED BY THE DEAD!

I found the dead David Foster Wallace fan sprawled on the telehub near the Welcome area yesterday, a black corpse lying in a pool of his own blood.

"Are you dead, sir?"

"Quite," the corpse tells me.

His name was DuPlessis Guillaume, and when he talked, his hands didn't make the typing pantomime that avatars usually do, in Second Life. Instead, a ghostly clattering noise emanated from somewhere near his gory chest.

"So I see!" I say. "By foul play?"

"Nothing so terrible," says the corpse. "I fell from a high place. I don't have so many specifics."

"I'm the in-world reporter, so I need to report on this."

"Ah, yes," says Guillaume. "Enjoy your blog."

I thank him profusely. "Some of my best fans are lying in pools of blood when they read me."

By now, two women have stopped by, to scrutinize the carnage.

"I have to admit it's better than the puke bunny," Mysturuy Zaius says, finally, and her friend Suggie Liu goes, "Ewwww."

I turn to Mysturuy. "A bunny was puking?"

"Yeah," she says, casually. "I'm sure you'll see him around."

"I actually enjoy lying here," the corpse continues. "Get to see all the avatars coming in through the hub. Actually, [I] just thought Second Life needed a bit of Second Death."

"Oh," I say, "so this is some kind of Munchausen’s syndrome, a plea for attention?"

"Actually, not many people notice the dead body. Most just drop off the platform, or try and kick me off it.
I try and shift back to my spot when nobody's looking. Actually, this is the first conversation I've had with people as a corpse. The most I've done so far is just rate people as they pass."

"You haven't rated me, and I've been here awhile," Mysturuy Zaius huffs.

Every now and again, one of DuPlessis Guillaume's arms reaches up, sickly twitching. "That's just an accident of the animation," he explains, sheepishly. "When I look around, it makes me twitch."

By now, a few more residents have arrived, and are peering down at him. Meanwhile, I check his profile, and notice that the corpse has only been a resident for less than a month.

"DuPlessis," I say, "I see you're new. Did you come to Second Life to die?"

"To look around, predominantly."

"He's waiting in line for his rebirth," Louis Michelson interjects, and then yells: "Teleportation kills! Walk instead!"

"Alas, poor DuPlessis," I say, "I knew him, Horatio. A man of infinite jest."

The quote from Hamlet's speech about Yorick's skull is the first thing that makes DuPlessis, well, a bit more animated. "Hamlet, are you making reference to the book Infinite Jest, or 'poor Yorick'? I'm flattered that you got the name reference."

Turns out, "DuPlessis Guillaume" is a character from David Foster Wallace's massive novel. I ask him if DuPlessis dies in the book, too. "Pretty sure," he says.

"Wow, they called in the army," Suggie Liu says, impressed. And indeed, two men with combat fatigues and assault rifles have shown up, to join the crowd.

"Uh oh," one of them (Draigar Liu) announces, "We got some sorta bio hazard here."

Once again, DuPlessis' dark arm raises off the platform, rattling in the wind.

"I guess," says the corpse, embarrassed, "if/when they get custom animations [created], they will be able to make a better twitch."