“First blood!” I see the words on the screen for the fourty-fifth time tonight. I feel pride as I sink lower in my chair in the dark of my room. Sitting at my dark desk, I shout and play more and more. My mother suggests I go outside, but that world is too bright for me. 2D offers no disappointments, and I can only improve in this endless world I live in. It’s more real to me than any other in existence. And so I stare at my screen hour after hour, in this dark room of mine.
The Addiction
Another game! I put the disc in and I play. I play for hours, days at a time. I must get every achievement, beat all the levels. I practice and play, practice and play. I will win the battles, I will be the best, I must succeed. And I do. Just like that, just in that moment of clarity, it's over. There's nothing else to do, nobody else to beat. The fun is gone and it will never fully return, and so I move on. Another game and another, like an addiction, with every high, there's always a new low.
