Speaker 1: I wish I could say that my parents death had meaning,
that they died for a good reason, But they didn't.
I was only eleven years old at the time. A
drunk man racing home to catch his wife cheating blind
sided them on a turn. My parents didn't die heroes.
They didn't die for a grand purpose. They died because
some one took them from me too early. This was
the first time I felt real, raw grief. The memory
of when I was told the moment it happened is
snap shot in my mind, like a burn that never heals.
The way my guts sank, like the dip of a
monstrous roller coaster, the pit left as my child's self
realized the permanent nature of it. I can even still
feel the tingles in my fingers as the shock set in.
The words played in real time, but my body felt slowed.
Breathing became manual, as my vision tilted over and over.
I was not emotionally ready for this. I was barely
emotionally handling school, so them being taken so callously left
me empty for longer than I'd liked to admit. After
their passing, my grandparents moved into my parents home with me.
They packed up their lives and tried to pick up
where my parents left off. Four years. They tried to
connect with me, but I was emotionally unstable. I resented
them for trying to take their place. Their love hurt
me in ways they couldn't win. They tried to coddle
me during and after the funeral. For four years. They
tried to break down my walls, but the walls I
built held strong. I sank myself into the last connection
I felt I had with them. Games. My father was
a software engineer, so he spent a lot of time
on the computer, and to my mother's dismay, he dragged
me into the digital world. Early on. I couldn't get
the hang of using a mouse and keyboard. I think
my hands were too small at the time, so we
bought me a console. We would huddle around the TV
and play all the best co op games he could find,
or snooping for presents. One Christmas, I even found a
stack of games magazines red marker circles around games that
specifically mentioned local co op. This is how he always
managed to find a perfect game for us every time
I skimmed over this in the moment, having not found
the presence. They hid so well, but looking back, my
heart breaks knowing how much care he put into this
harby of ours. However, there were times I'd catch him
playing games on his own. He was a PC gamer
born and bred, so that was where i'd find him
playing solo, but he never seemed to put the same
energy into finding new games to play. Rather, I'd always
seen him playing games of pixels and numbers, simulation games
from his era of gaming. I'd asked to play too,
but he'd always tell me I was too young for
these kinds of games, and that when I was older,
he'd show me how to play them. This always welled
mixed feelings of annoyance in the moment and anticipation for
that time to come. But eventually games lost their luster,
no matter how much I played, trying to honor them.
In my mind, I was now playing solo. Not seeing
the screensp with another player alongside me was a constant
reminder of the pain I was almost exclusively broad up
on split screen CORP experiences. I was never into playing
without my dad, but that's when it hit me. My
father would play solo, but he'd play those weird pixelated
simulation games so I had it in my head that
to enjoy those types of games would make me the
adult I idolized him as, but I didn't know where
to start. He never talked about them, saving that for
a time that would never come. His computer was locked
behind a password that was forever lost. So I had
to find these games myself. I took to the best
resource I knew of to solve the greatest mysteries on Earth. Google.
I put him buzzwe of what I could remember simulation
games in the single player old and press search. These
words were not very specific, so it yielded a wide
variety of stuff, and after hours of scarring each page,
I found a foreign post about a game someone had made,
even though it was made in recent times. The screenshots
they used to advertise it had that retro style I
was looking for. But it wasn't just how it looked.
Something else drew me to this game above all the
others that had a similar vibe. Its name Family Simulator.
It boasted an extensive game system that you had to
manage to keep up an ideal family, something I wouldn't
have gone for, opting to lean towards shooters, but it
was this dichotomy that made me take the plunge. The
instructions were fairly simple for my first time, not just
popping in a disc. It ran through an ex file
that did all the decisions for me. As the green
bar field, A sudden wave of emotions overcame me. My
father had always kept me from these kinds of games,
always thinking I'd prefer the modern titles he kept up with,
so this really felt like a chance to connect with
them post mortem, no matter how little it was. I
launched the game. Initially I was met with a black screen,
and then a studio logo screen. An image of a
heart came up alongside the words Famco most likely the
came creator, trying to get their name out there. Nothing
flash your significant, but charming for something probably made by
one person. The title screen faced, followed by a basic textbox,
a little line flickering, beckoning me to start writing. The
question was simple, tell me about your life. I thought
for a moment I had been asked this a lot
by counselors, my grandparents and kids that never cared about
me before they heard the news. A gesture I dismissed
at face value with a blunt I'm fine they should
have known the answer, so I felt insulted each time
I was asked. After a while, my grandparents were withdrawn
about asking this, seemingly respecting my decision of maintaining distance,
and yet for some reason that frustrated me too. But
looking back, I'd never truly thought about the answer above
a simple no, much less answered it honestly. I kept
all of this inside, and it finally bubbled up to
a point, the straw that broke the camel's back. I
started typing. All the frustration, sadness, envy, jealousy, all of
it was being shoved into this game. Time blurred while
I hashed out my rant. I was putting my soul
into this answer for the first time ever. It felt silly,
even in the moment, knowing I was going at it
into some indie game of pixels and text. I didn't
know why I was giving this game so much information
about myself, but it felt good to get these feelings
out somewhere where I knew I couldn't be judged. I
could just say my piece and not hear hollow rhetoric
about hope and healing, and it felt good. The black
Box a silent listener that I needed something that wouldn't
pity me, but would just listen. I hadn't even gotten
into the game, and I was exhausted. I had tied
out everything I missed about my parents. How I dearly
missed the meals my mother would make, my father taking
me out to a field just to throw a ball around.
How he'd show me neat tricks that would have me
barely laughing. The way he would get up five hours
before any of us to tell us that he woke
up early, only to go back to bed a few
minutes after informing us. I missed staring at the watch
I gifted my mother, with my dad's help, of course,
that my mother adored when we went out for special occasions,
The way they treated me, how much I loved them,
how much I missed loving them. Every single minute detail
was handed over. The game accepted the information with a
satisfying ding sound, and I was sent to another menu,
this time character creation. Now I've never been the creative sort,
so I blatantly just made myself. I named myself Alex
set brown hair and brown eyes, a simple white T
shirt and jeans. I was also prompted with adding personal
details like my birthday, number of friends, and my likes
and dislikes. What I didn't expect was the choice of
a family. It was in as in depth as the
character creation itself, only a couple of presets. Preset one
was a woman with red hair, a simple crop top,
and some shorts. The men not too dissimilar from my
own outfit. Preset two was they looked like my parents.
It sounds crazy, but it just felt like them. The
models were just ash above simple pixels, but they carried
so many of their characteristics I grew to recognize in them.
The jovial look my mother wore on a near constant basis,
my father's stoic stature that exuded the confidence that he
was always trying to pass on to me. It was uncanny.
I was at a bit of a loss. I know
I missed them, but I didn't realize how much I
still missed them, even after four years. I mean, for
a second, I had been convinced that these were my
parents in some way. The game was something I was
looking to sing some time into as a distraction, but
now it fully captured my attention. I accepted all the
settings and the game loaded up. It played a scenic
shot of the house before fading to me in a
room with the family. But as soon as I spawned in,
I was shocked with a loud bang. I jumped a
little in my seat and my heart raised at the fright. Alex,
go to bed yo of school to morrow. Those games
are going to make you sick. It was my grandmother
on the other side of my door. I always had
my door locked, so this was how she would communicate
with me. I checked the time and it was already
two a m. As much as I hated to admit it,
she was right. But sleep didn't come easy with my
curiosity swelling around my head about this new game. Perhaps
I was mistaken, but the thing I had seen as
the game had just loaded in was too much to
be a coincidence. Surely it couldn't have been a mistake.
The setting was a near perfect rendition of the house
I grew up in, the house I was in right now.
The more I thought about it, the more excuses I
made to cope. How had the game replicated these things
so perfectly? But it was the room that was what
I couldn't explain. I saw a dining room, but the
details were too familiar. The shade of wood on the
square dining table, the layout of the cabinets, the door
that led to the kitchen. It was almost entirely the same.
It could have been coincidence. My house was a common
suburban build with similar layouts in the rows of houses
near me. But it was the layers of coincidences that
had me stumped on an explanation. I breathed a sigh
of relief as I realized that I was the one
that handed details over. Perhaps I really had given the
game too much information. This thought didn't entirely settle me,
but it eased my mind enough to get some sleep.
I rose out of bed with a heavy groan. I
looked over my clock and bolted awake. Seeing that I
missed my first alarm, I quickly got up and rushed
my morning routine. As I boarded the bus, I prepared
mentally for another crueling day of education. School was meant
to be an escape, at least that's what I was told,
and place where you kick back with your friends and
get into little adventures, all while building your future. For me,
though that couldn't be further from the truth. I was
an outcast, no small fault of my own, and I
refused to socialize. I couldn't when I started high school.
It was not long after the incident. My only thought
was if only I could speak to them one last time.
This floated in my head as my peers attempted to
make conversation with me. By the time I realized I'd
made myself alone, the cliques were formed, and I was
labeled as a quiet, weird kid, a prime target for harassment.
Arriving at class, I was reminded of the grim reality
I was facing the thing I dreaded for a week,
group assignments. I attempted to weasele myself into a group,
but of course Jonathan and his bodies ensured that I
would achieve no such thing. The truth was that Jonathan
was just as insecure as I was, but the difference
was that he projected his much louder than anyone else,
and I was the conduit for his emotional baggage. The
teacher saw me alone and exclaimed that whoever I had
no group, would take a test instead. He spoke like
he was talking to the class, but he was obviously
just about me. I sat in the corner of the classroom,
away from everyone else, But instead of getting on with
the test, I started to dwell on the game again.
I could easily chalk everything down to coincidence, but what
if it wasn't Could I speak with them again? The
notion was absurd. Thinking my parents was somehow in that
game was an impossibility, But with so much unresolved, there
was an irrational part of me that wanted to believe
it was true. I on the test with how distracted
I was, and school couldn't end any sooner. But I
knew it wasn't over yet. Jonathan had a knack for
finding blind spots from authority. Somehow, he'd always catch me alone,
despite my best attempts at staying within eyeshot of people,
though this sometimes didn't even help when other kids would
just turn a blind eye to his outbursts. The only
constant was me. A slap here, a slap there. I'd
learned to ignore them, but in my already emotional state,
I ran crying when I got home. My eyes had
already run dry. As I entered through the front door,
my grandmother greeted me, how a school to day, honey,
she soothed. Despite her soft tone, the sadness quickly turned
to frustration. I shrugged her off with a plunt. It
was fine, and I ran past her. Rushing past the kitchen,
a glint caught my eye, a watch. I didn't have
time to check. I needed to get back on the game.
I slammed my door shut and latched the bolt. I
booted up the game and was loaded in. It was
me in my own house with my parents, and it
was everything I had always wanted. My pixelated character walked
over to my mother, and as I got close to her,
a black square appeared. Press enter to interact how a
school today? Honey popped up, followed by a box I
could type in this question again. I'd grown to hate
this question. The people had asked this never seemed to
actually care about my well being, more so just going
through the motions of conversation. But I felt safe opening
up in this game. The disconnect helped me disassociate from
judgment before, so I wanted to try it again, even
if to just vent privately. This is where the game
became my escape, another reality where everything was as it
was always meant to be. Jonathan keeps bullying me. The
Kitten class despise me, and I can't even muster rub
the effort to stand up for myself, because in all honesty,
it's the path I chose. I miss you, ma'am. I
wish you were here to guide me, to comfort me.
As soon as I sent the message, she instantly responded,
I see, sweetie, Mammy is here for you. Your father
and I missed you so dearly. The NBC responded, I
felt warm. Those were the words that I had been
craving and craving that my grandparents, no matter their efforts,
could never satisfy. The dialog option disappeared, and with it,
so did my ability to interact with her. The sadness
lingered over the fact that the interaction was so short,
but I wanted to see more. I decided I'd take
some time and explore the house and maybe see if
I could interact with her father too. I walked down
the corridor of my childhood home towards my father's office.
I prompt appeared, asking me if I wanted a knock
on the office door, and I accepted. He called to
come in, and the screen faded out and back in
to us in the office. In reality, it was now
a room for boxes still unpacked from my grandparents moving in,
But here the room was back to life. My father
sat at his desk, which spent the majority of the
small offices with This time, the conversation began without a
need for me to initiate any prompts. The words of
my MPC father flashed across the screen. Hey, Champ, everything
all right. No textbox came up for me to type in,
he staid. This time I was met with two choices,
yes and no. After the talk with the mother, I
was feeling a lot better, so I chose the first option.
That's great to hear, Champ, he responded. This made me smile.
Though he would cycle through nicknames and titles to call me,
Champ was sometimes one of them. It might have been
added as a clear shay, but even as a coincidence,
it still made me happy. Then the NBC asked me
if I wanted to play ball with him. Even though
I knew was or virtual, there was still a small
excitement at the idea of playing ball with my dad again.
The screen faded to black and we were in the yard.
We passed the ball around for a few minutes, the
game looking like nothing more than a PowerPoint presentation animation
but in its own way it was endearing. Sleep came
easier this time, for the first time in recent years.
I was fulfilled, as if I had felt parental connections again,
even if only virtually. Still, some moneyes set in as
I contemplated the legitimacy of the interactions I just had,
if there was simply the execution of basic code or
something more. In the moment, I was absorbed with trying
to connect to my parents, but lying in bed, I
was debating whether feeling satisfied emotionally from a bunch of
pixels was healthy. The next morning, as I rushed through
the house to catch the bus, I noticed my father's
office door was slightly ajar. I'm not a superstitious person,
but that room was not in use by my grandparents
or myself. It was, for all intents and purposes, a
storage room. I gently pushed the door open, and the
first thing I noticed was that the boxes had been rearranged,
as if whoever had moved them needed space for something.
Then I saw it, a ball lying in the middle
of the room. The move boxes could be explained away.
The ball being there made my head spin with questions.
It looked uncanny to the one i'd just seen in
the game, not identical, but too close to be written off.
The call from downstairs had me pull away from the scene.
I was already running late, and then the bus wouldn't
wait forever. I gave the room one more look before leaving,
the snapshot replaying in my head the whole day at school,
Another arduous day of school, more isolation, more pointless assignments,
more Jonathan. Getting home couldn't come any faster. When I
got home, I tried going straight to my room, but
was stopped. My grandmother deliberately placed herself in the way
of the stairs, making sure I couldn't get past without
hearing what she wanted to say. First, Alex worried about you.
We thought giving you space the heel would help, but
every day you've just shut yourself in your room. I
know you missed them. We missed them too. My grandfather
stepped around the corner and joined her side. He wasn't
on his feet much in his age, having waited for
my grandmother to start as he joined. How can you
know how I feel. You're not my parents, I yelled back,
my emotional bottle bobbling. Did my surprise this didn't elicit
anger from my grandparents. Rather, their faces turned soft. Look
at us, we're old. You don't think our parents are
gone too, But you're forgetting something. They were your parents, sure, However,
they were our kids, our daughter and son in law.
We loved them, and every day we hurt without them too.
My grandmother soothed, we raised them good, and we can
raise you good. You just have to let us in.
My grandfather added. I soaked in what they said, but
I closed it off. It wasn't the same, it would
never be the same. So, with my eyes welling, I
just ran to my room and locked myself in. After
sulking on my bed, I was left with silence. I
hated being with my thoughts, so I turned to the
noise I used to drown them out. The game. He
loaded it in, and I was back with my family.
My mother greeted me, and I welcomed this much better
than how I felt cornered earlier. However, instead of a conversation,
she simply told me to wait where I was, so
my character sat at the table. My father came in
and said some comments about work, something he'd always do,
regardless of if I understood what he was talking. About
or not, but I didn't mind. It was always nice
to hear him talk. Soon, my mother came back in.
Her outfit had changed a more fancier apparel instead of
normal house clothes. She wore a red dress and her
hair was made up into a bun. Her arms were bare,
which is how I spotted something that stood out in
the game. It looked like a few red pixels with
a yellow dot in the middle, unmistakably a watch, and
my heart was in my throat. It was uncanny to
the watch my father and I had gotten her for
a birthday, red band with a gold face. It really
was them. My eyes bald hard trying to take this in.
We have a surprise for you, she said, And I
knew what it was before I saw it, because I
smelled it. The smell of cake wafted it in and
I instantly recognized it a black forest ghatto, the cake
she always made me for my birthday. In the game,
she bawled it out and set it on the table,
candles already set on top. I checked the date on
the bottom right and completely forgot what day it was.
I hadn't celebrated my birthday since they passed my grandparents
tried to, but I always dismissed it. It was hard
to think of my birthday as a celebration without my parents.
A jingle played to the tune of the Birthday song,
and confetti flew around the room. My parents looked elated
as my character blew out the candle, something I wouldn't
have been able to do in my current heaving state.
But the smell lingered longer than I thought. At first,
I thought it was my emotions getting the better of me,
but there was the unmistakable smell of cake in my room.
Happy Birthday sun. They both exclaimed, we want to take
you out for your birthday our treat. My mother said,
pick any place you want. Where do you want to go?
My dad asked. A textbox appeared, prompting me to type
in an answer. I contemplated the answer. My first thought
was KFC. I know it's cheap junk food, but for
some reason, it was a bit of a family tradition,
though it might have been an indicator of our financial status.
But I thought about it more deeper than what the
game was, asking where did I truly want to go? Well,
the answer would be to be with my parents, So
I typed in the place then everyone had told me
where they went Heaven. That's a wonderful choice, son, they exclaimed.
Grab your thing, son, Let's go there, my dad said.
Then the screen faded to black, then crashed. My heart raised.
No no, no, no no, I muttered to myself, had nauseum.
I slapped the side of my monitor, knowing, damn well,
it wouldn't do a thing. I was so close. My
heart was setting the idea that I'd somehow see them again.
But in the silence, I started to think about it.
What if this was something they were telling me? The
last thing they were telling me felt like the game.
To get to where I needed to go, something had
to end. Life. Life is what needs to end to
get to Heaven, the place I wanted to be to
be with them. I looked around my room, then remembered something.
When they passed, I snuck into my dad's office and
took his old letter opener a drink it he'd show
off to me to open mail. He'd sometimes let me
use it myself, which my mother didn't approve of. It
was too sharp for a child to be playing with.
But as I slid it out of my drawer, hidden
away from my grandparents. I looked at it. Would it
get the job done? I put it down. This was ridiculous.
I tried to talk myself out of it, but each
rationality was answered with retal. I was unhappy, I had
no friends, I had no family, I was alone, so
why not join them? Even if it didn't work, it
would put me out of my misery. I stared at
the blade, deep in thought, and was ripped out of
it with a loud bang. Alex, can you get out here? Please?
Here was my grandmother on the other side of the
locked door. The shuffling footsteps I could hear catching up
must have been my grandfather. They had no idea what
I was up to. There was no way for them
to know, so they must have been just bothering me.
My eyes returned to the knife once more, the thoughts
coming back, yet I was ripped from it yet again
with bangs, more of them this time. If you don't
want to come out, can you at least let us in?
This was new They never tried twice. The door acted
like a voicemail. They'd say their message, then leave me
to respond to it, or not let us in. Those
words lingered in my head. I always went to them,
but I never let them in. This was my space
I'd carved out for myself, and I used it to
keep everyone out. This was the choice I had go
through with a plan to see my parents or see
what they wanted, and it was the hardest choice of
my life. The silence of the room weighed down on me,
and my breath shallowed. Could I make it quick? How
painful would it be? Would I actually see them? But
the lingering thought was if I could do it with
my grandparents on the other side of the door. So
I went with the second option to see what they wanted.
I hid the knife and slowly unlocked the door. Stood
outside with my grandparents big grins on their faces. Happy birthday, Alex,
they said. Enthused, I didn't know how to respond, and
they continued, I know you don't like to celebrate, but
we have something special for you. Come with us, my
grandmother said, So I did, my mind, too foggy to
do otherwise. They led me to the kitchen and in
the middle sat a cake, an exact replica of my
mother's black Forest gatto. This opened me up. What how,
how did you why? I was too stunned to form
a question, too many of them flying through my mind. Remember, Alex,
she had to learn it from somewhere. Making this cake
for your mother was a tradition that started with me,
she said proudly. I got something for you too, Alex.
My grandfather wheezed the walk from the stairs, taking the
wind out of him. He hobbled over with a box
wrapped in a red ribbon. I looked at it, not
having any idea what they could have gotten me. They
didn't know me, not in a personal way, to not
get me something generic. But I couldnt not open it
with them watching me, So I slipped the ribbon off
and looked. And what was inside it was something that
made my headlight from shock, needing to have to sit
down after seeing it. It was a watch with a
red strap and a gold face. My mother's watch? Is this?
I started, not having the energy to finish asking yes.
After the investigation, the police held on to it for evidence.
It took a while to get it back, but when
I did, I had it restored to give you on
a special occasion. My grandfather answered, I have something else too.
My grandfather added, he built his arm from behind his
back and pulled out the ball i'd seen in the office,
like the one my dad used to have when he
played with me. I've been practicing some tricks in the
old office. Bet you didn't notice. I'm not as good
as your old man, But he showed me some of
the basics. He smuggled announced. He twirled it around and
tried to catch it as it span, but it caught
his knuckle at a funny angle and bounced wildly away,
almost hitting the cake. My grandmother's friendly demeanor dropped as
she shot him the dirtiest look at almost ruining the cake,
which made me do something I thought i'd lost the
ability to do. I laughed. It poured out of me
years of pain leaking as joy took its place. Here
they were. They were not my parents, nor could they be. However,
they knew that and loved me all the same. They
were never trying to replace them. They were just picking
up where they left off. And I realized that I
didn't have to be alone, and from then on I
always let them in.