“Heya Mom, living the pixel life in Spencerville. Mornings are nuts chasing squirrels, then brunch but ugh, veggies 🥴. Evenings are epic, AI Frisbee games and beach crashin’, not a fan of digital baths tho. Evening barks off to real goodbyes. Missing real pats but living the good virtual doggo life. See you on the other side, belly rubs & peanut butter promises 🐾❤️- Ace”

Listen to the story here.

It was a thrill to watch Ace spring into action each morning as the faux dawn blanketed Spencerville. She would bound around her cozy backyard, chasing squirrels made of pixel and wire, her paws kicking up trails of dust that shimmered in the morning light.

Nearing breakfast time, her nose would twitch, picking up the scent wafting from “Tail Waggers”. I swear even digital meat and cheese smells can make an artificial Labrador drool. Peanut butter, her personal favorite, was reserved for special occasions. “Pup-Tizers” never failed to please Ace too, their specialty – meat stuffed bones.

Where Ace found vegetables, she thought of them less as food and more as an inconvenience. If by some error a green bean or some peas were offered, it was disdain that played out on her LCD face. A food protest would follow, squeaky toys effectively squashed under her weight, the artificial ears flopping all over her square, attention-grabbing head.

The evening brought joy as the lights of the ‘Shih Tzu Stadium’ came on. Ace and her brother Caffrey, who also shared this alternate pixelated reality, would sneak out for an energetic game of Frisbee. The programmed audience in the stands would cheer. Oh, the joy of scoring and the fame, even if it was a supercomputer orchestrating the events.

The duo often ended up at ‘Boxer Beach’ as the AI sun was setting, splashing in virtual waves while I watched from their favourite cafe – ‘The Canine Cafe’. Resting on the pixelated sand, while Ace played endless fetch, was a solace only a pet owner could understand.

An unavoidable bath at ‘The Groom Room’ would usually follow their beach escapades. Ace was as fond of this, as a cat was of swimming. Even in this digital reality, I couldn’t change her aversion to baths, and I honestly didn’t want to. It was Ace’s reactions, both real and programmed, that made this artificial world feel real.

Days ran into nights and weeks into months, but the joy of seeing her romp around happily never abated. For in this world, Ace wasn’t just my pet, but a companion, a friend, and an eternal source of delight.

Spencerville, with its surreal landscapes and tireless energy was an ideal world to remember Ace as she was, energetic, enthusiastic, affectionate, and a bit stubborn. Even being confined to a digital utopia, Ace was still Ace – the very embodiment of her jovial Labrador spirit. Despite the longing to pat her real self, every bark or chase still managed to bring a smile to my face – forever secure in the knowledge that one day, in some parallel doggy afterlife ruled by love, belly rubs and peanut butter, we’d be reunited once more.

As I shut down the virtual contraption for the night, I couldn’t help but remark, “In a strange world made up of silica, wires, and dubious amount of coding, love somehow managed to prevail. Oh, what a world, eh Ace? What a world indeed…”

The End.