Portal World

Portal World

A Novella of the Future

James Oermann

Copyright 2020 James Oermann. This publication is protected by the laws of the United States of America and applicable international laws. No part of it may be reproduced without the written consent of the author.

Portal World.

Jack - a forty-something yuppie. Able to mix in any crowd. Looking for adventure and escapism. He plays polo, chess, and squash. He grew up in the suburbs, had a loving relationship with his father, but was always distant from his mother. He is a basically good person who is looking for his place in the world and struggles to make sense of what life has become. The difficult realities of the world he finds himself in make for many seemingly contradictory behaviors in him. He does not know who he is and the conditions of his world and life causes him to be put into positions where he must reconsider who he is and make sense of life. Jack is a flawed person but looks for the best he can do in life; it is not easy for him. He looks first for what he can get out of Portal World but realizes that it is not what he thought.

Gillian – Jack’s wife. An attorney, looking for some meaning in life and goes into the portal to experience new and exciting things. She enjoys relationships with many men both in and outside Portal World. All in all she is pulled into Portal World and allows it to take over her life. She is dark, driven, moody, cunning, and resourceful. She is also oddly both confused and focused at the same time.

What are the post-industrial values of this society?

Power, money greed, water, land, air.

What are the life-lessons we can learn about this? Everyone goes home. We find our centre at the end.

Ideas of existence, reality, values, degeneration of society.

Education system has failed, world is becoming more myopic and narrowed.

A general sense of falling apart, segregation, disenfranchisement, and limited future.

Culture and people have changed because of the degradation of society and environment. People have become obsessed with survival, how to escape the unpleasant realities of their world.

People try to find escape and answers in Portal World.

Portal World is a virtual world that people go into to escape the current one. They live alternative lives

where people create new identities but life is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

How do we know society is degraded? There are no jobs, no opportunities, no morals, no family.