Playing Games

A short fiction submission.

Sometimes we overlook the violence of the blood for the love we feel so intensely. Home is a spiderweb of satellite locations where the crossroads and corn are everything and nothing. To some, it’s a prison with a life sentence. I’m in no rush to get there, but I will.

I watch as night turns to early morning and the vicious cycle begins with the creak of eyelids. A love pours forth faster than consciousness can keep up and set in, but it is not for me. A love for another held in dark glass bottles. Lately, it’s just from a plastic jug simply for the expedience of it all. I lie to myself. It could just be water, and he is incredibly hydrated. I am ever the optimist at my age; school has been teaching me so. Let’s face it, water doesn’t burn my eyes like nail polish.

I want nothing more than to forget the issues of my primary home, so this house is the next choice when I can’t escape to a friend. But third-best ain’t bad, right? It’s a roof with kid food always available, unlimited entertainment options, and even chores. That last one only applies if we are desperate to get out of the house and tend the farm. If I’m lucky I can find a praying mantis or two.

A nice reprieve from all of this is that I can always rely on video games. A tag-team match of him and I against any pesky thoughts that might leak their way in. It takes away much of the stinging air of shame about the jug, too. That shame just makes everything so damn claustrophobic. The jug mostly smooths out the emotions, but without it the video games aren’t the only games being played. This life of adults feels so foreign to me. I have my favorite chair in close proximity to the jug. In morning and afternoon, it needs to be ready. And when I am here, I make sure it’s there and full. Does this make me a villain? It was going to happen either way, and I’m just caught in self-preservation. But I still feel bad about it. What can I do otherwise? The thought of standing up for something else makes me feel like a coward. He just needs a little to digest and he’s ready to be dad, brother, uncle, conversationalist. If he doesn’t have the jug, he’s playing the other games. The games that spin the negative emotions to the surface, which start out subtle and passive, and build to a boiling point of dangerous dodgeball. It’s better to just have the jug ready. I’m not alone in this house feeling this way. The looks speak silently.

Even with the seductions of the jug, it’s still a tightrope of unpredictability, just less volatile. A little less physical. I can sense the love and pain in every breath, every swig, every blink. There’s a false belief that everything is going to work out. I try not to let my face stray; stay happy, but not manic. “Let’s play Goldeneye!” I say at two in the morning. Sometimes I make a mistake and suggest a game that generates too many negative emotions. Music is almost forbidden. A singer crooning about dealing with anger and suddenly those emotions are too much as the fists clench and eyes well up. My shoulders can’t always take the pressure of the squeeze while I watch a grown man sob about insecurities, failures, and that dreaded shame. The anxiety growing from scenarios like this make my stomach turn. I’ve heard rumblings from others about him. “Pathetic. Needs to get help. Wish he would just figure this shit out.” I don’t feel those. I can see this man for who he is as a father and a husband struggling to work through trauma. He’s fighting for his life in those glossed, abyssal pupils. His struggles are made mine in these late-night therapy sessions. But unlike my cowardice with the jug, I try hard to be here for what he needs. I try to be a friend first, perfect family second. There’s less judgment there…

The visits are less frequent these days. For a little while, it has been just phone calls. I always answer when I see his name on caller ID because it’s love. It always has been. But at some point, the calls slowed down from a couple per week, to once a month, to none at all. The phone just stopped ringin. And a little while after that, things had changed dramatically. Now it’s a family gathering about how the phone calls won’t be coming back. No more late nights with games and jugs. I can still hear his voice, but I don’t get to ring it up any time I want. I have to take myself back there for it. Sometimes I would just sit still in his favorite chair and close my eyes. Now I wander the trepid halls of my heart looking for your laugh. Otherwise, it’s just silence and thoughts on how this complicated love left us lying here… missing you.

Photo by Faruk Tokluoğlu on Unsplash