Jake forced his
eyelids closed and felt the momentary surge of white hot pain as moisture
returned to his eyeballs - blinking didn't manifest when you were this close to
the top of the leaderboard after three straight hours of CounterStrike. He
couldn't fail his teammates, even though they were complete strangers, probably
sitting in their own dank bedrooms in some far-off suburbia.
Jake took a hasty mouthful of congealed pizza from his desk and poured a few glugs of Diet Coke down his throat, the syrup compounding an intestinal rumbling and the slow degeneration of bone density that would make it harder for him to articulate his corpulent pork of a body to more productive ends.
Existing online and inside video games was a far cry better than sinking time into coursework or real human interaction, and at any rate Jake’s potent mixture of social retardation and physical repulsiveness made it increasingly justifiable to not even try. His mother was the only person he'd actually seen this week.
"Mum!" It’d be refill time soon, and a bathroom break would be wise.
"Hey mum!" No response from downstairs. "Pamela!"
It was early evening, and Jake couldn't face the world outside his room if it was soaked in crepuscular sunlight. Most people closed their curtains at night, letting the sun purify their spaces when the earth was kind enough to face it. Jake thought the sun was a pain in the arse, swimming through the dust to stress every sticky mark on his monitors and putting an impossible glare precisely on his crosshair. He couldn't remember the last time the curtains were open.
He opened a new browser window and pounded an address into the keys -- 'isitdarkoutside.com' -- and the screen returned a large, repressive 'NO'.
Back to it then.
Jake took a hasty mouthful of congealed pizza from his desk and poured a few glugs of Diet Coke down his throat, the syrup compounding an intestinal rumbling and the slow degeneration of bone density that would make it harder for him to articulate his corpulent pork of a body to more productive ends.
Existing online and inside video games was a far cry better than sinking time into coursework or real human interaction, and at any rate Jake’s potent mixture of social retardation and physical repulsiveness made it increasingly justifiable to not even try. His mother was the only person he'd actually seen this week.
"Mum!" It’d be refill time soon, and a bathroom break would be wise.
"Hey mum!" No response from downstairs. "Pamela!"
It was early evening, and Jake couldn't face the world outside his room if it was soaked in crepuscular sunlight. Most people closed their curtains at night, letting the sun purify their spaces when the earth was kind enough to face it. Jake thought the sun was a pain in the arse, swimming through the dust to stress every sticky mark on his monitors and putting an impossible glare precisely on his crosshair. He couldn't remember the last time the curtains were open.
He opened a new browser window and pounded an address into the keys -- 'isitdarkoutside.com' -- and the screen returned a large, repressive 'NO'.
Back to it then.
Brendan McBryde
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