Thirty Seconds

An extended edition of a poem I wrote recently, This story focuses on thirty seconds where a shut in reflects on the events that led him to cut out the world.

There are thirty seconds left on the clock as I rush through the debris of a long war which plays out before me in pixelated reality. I have my team ready and waiting beside me. They are strangers, but they are more my friends than anyone outside these four walls. I trust them with my life, or at least the life of the me who wields a rifle on my television screen. I have found my objective, and over my microphone I shout commands with a worn, exhausted voice.

My family is gathered around the dinner table downstairs. It is Christmas and, as is tradition, a chicken dinner is served. I did not receive my invitation this time. Instead, a knock comes to my door followed by the bells of metal on ceramic. My meal will be spent in my room, served on my regular tray and enjoyed with my virtual family. There is no greater feeling.

The walls crackle with steam, and heat glows through the cavern, filling lakes with golden light surrounding narrow paths. We have to make our way through the magma to win, and this is no easy task: enemies fill the hot caverns, and fire springs from the earth in sulfurous bursts.

My teammate falls. I rush to his aid, quickly working to revive him before we lose sight of our objective.

Her photographs still hang beside my bed. She looks so beautiful with her long onyx hair pulled back like that. I can see her face so clearly, as she stares out the window at the rushing trees. Her coffee eyes follow the telephone lines outside endlessly as her image remains tacked to my wall.

She was the reason I applied to The University. She gave me purpose: a reason to go to class. She took the same train I did, we went to the same high school. She didn’t notice me at first; I did my best to remain indistinguishable in high school. Standing out did not fare well for me.

The ring of light appears before me, and I take my place within its glowing sanctuary, drawing my gun. I await my enemies with persistence. I will eliminate anyone who stands in my way. The hoard of monsters appears before me. I am alone for now, but soon my backup will come. I do not have to fear loneliness here.

Somewhere on my computer, an email awaits me. I have sixty-three new messages. They come from only a handful of senders. Some are from my school.

“We regret to inform you that your standing at This University is in jeopardy. This is not our first attempt to contact you.”

I have been given several chances to appeal my expulsion. I have not complied. My enrollment at The University will soon be terminated. I knew it was an unavoidable outcome. The threat of my inevitable death as a student no longer instills me with fear. I do not need the confines of a classroom. I have instead found a world that is only as limited as my own imagination. I can live my life eternally in-game. I am an extension of my synthesized fantasy.

Laughter spills from the floor beneath me. My sister and her fiancé jest, and his hearty chuckle echoes from below my feet. I could listen for the next punch line, and a part of me wants to know, but instead I adjust the volume. I drown reality with gunfire and beasts.

Fifteen seconds remain…

The walls of my room are aligned with shelves, filled with box and comics I’ve collected over the years. They once kept me company, but most are filled with too many reminders of what I’ve left behind. So they instead hide behind my models and figures, who watch over me from their perches. My games are stacked before me, meticulously organized in neat little rows. They hold promises of my next adventures.

The clock ticks down: ten, nine, eight…

She sat beside me on the bus for the rest of the year. She was the type of person who kept only a few close friends; she enjoyed the company but too many people didn’t allow her to know them personally. She was surprised I was so withdrawn; my slender figure and shaggy hair was desirable to her and her friends. Apparently my look suited the cult, just not my hobbies.

She would ask about whatever comic I was reading that day. If it appealed to her she would take it home for the night, and we would spend the thirty-minute ride to school discussing the plot. She shared similar interest, but she knew how to balance the scale of reality and fiction: I did not.

Seven. Six.

It took me a year to finally ask her out. We were in our first year of college, and I think she’d been waiting for the question since we met. She always wanted to go somewhere; her vapid friends would invite her, and she’d in turn ask me to join. I was a third wheel in my own relationship. They would chat over coffee while I tried to control my shaking hands: Course schedules and internships commonly occupied their conversations. I wanted nothing more than to be at home, controller in hand, facing off with the fictional monsters that invaded my television.

They prodded me for information: what I would be taking next semester, what I was reading recently. I gave them short answers. I knew what went through their head. They were no different from the rest of the cult, they’d just gotten better at hiding it. She would take my hand in hers and squeeze. I could never tell if it was for my sake or hers.

We would proceed to maneuver through the crowds, mobs of angry shoppers and careless parents shoving their way to the nearest exit. My heart would race, but I couldn’t show my fear around her. I could take out an army single-handedly, but the mases that inhabited such public spaces made me wish for the safety of my dystopian paradise. While they spoke of shoes and makeup my mind was in another realm where ogres existed. My mind fought hordes of monsters and entire militias while they raided shelves of perfume.

Five.

Maybe she thought it would be easier for me with her friends around. Maybe she thought I’d be less intimidated while surrounded by others. But I just wanted to spend time with her. I just wanted peace and quiet, time to really learn who she was.

Four.

The look in her eyes when I’d walk her home made me want to embrace her. I wanted her to know that she was everything to me, that without her I would be lost. But instead I kept my hands in my pockets, and would allow her to give me a disappointed peck on the cheeks before turning with tears in her eyes. I wondered if she was only with me so she wouldn’t be alone. And then I would go home, turn on the TV, and hope it wasn’t true.

Three…

It wasn’t the first time it had come up. When we’d walk through the park, or she’d sit close to me on the train, she would ask if I really cared about her. I’d always said yes. She’d never believed it. Her friends would boast about the gifts they’d gotten for holidays; they’d show off sappy texts. But I never put much thought into gifts, and the texts she’d described never sounded truthful. I wanted to be me when I was with her. I thought she liked that person.

Two.

She sat on the end of her bed, her oversized shirt falling just past her naked thighs. I wanted to touch her. My fingers hesitated at her flesh, but then I withdrew. It all seemed to insincere, like I was only using her for something sick. I didn’t want to be every other man, spouting sweetness before the mount. She sucked on her lower lip, and I think I knew it was coming.

I didn’t want to be with her, she assured me. I did.

It was a mistake. It wasn’t.

Every word she spoke was a lie, but my jaw tightened.

I couldn’t form the words.

It was over.

I came home that night and slammed the door. It was the last time I stepped through that threshold.

One…

My mother used to lean against my door, her soft voice pleading for my company at the table night after night. She used to struggle with the handle, futile attacks against a secure lock. She turned to anger and threats. She turned to tears. But eventually, her desperation faded and acceptance overtook her. She still cries, and sometimes I want to open the door and invite her back into my life. Other days, I hate her for her pain.

Our objective is secure. The final enemies fall.

My family eats dinner without me.

My phone lies beside me, filled with unanswered messages from her.

The cult is employed in business. In psychology. In labs.

My internet friends have to go to work soon. They will leave me, but they can be replaced. It is the greatest part of a virtual reality; there is never a shortage of teammates here.

The timer hits zero. Objective secure. The fight has been won, but the battle continues.

From hot magma rises the great horned beast. He spreads his claws, ready to strike. We still have to take out the boss. Somewhere beneath the snarl that curls upon his snout is the remnants of something almost human, long since forgotten as he was swallowed by the darkness. His heated eyes glow with rage and sorrow and misery, manifesting itself into a creature no longer resembling conscious control. The beast was lost, drowned by his own troubles, becoming something even he himself could not tame.

I ready my hand. She doesn’t love me. My family has moved on. I have one final battle until the level is completed. Then there will be more monsters