I used to have a pretty good friend named Gary. He was a good enough fellow. We used to shoot fireworks off at each other in stuff down by the creek every once and a while. Once we even made an ambitious bike jump over a really deep ravine and Gary, who used to be pretty daring, ended up shattering his pelvis in several places. After the ""pelvis incident,"" Gary was confined to an ""ass-cast"" as we called it, and retired to his quarters for what ended up being several years. I can still hear the last few words I ever heard Gary say in my head.
""Yea my ass is ok... I just got this sweet new game called World of Warcraft to take my mind off of it and it's really fun!"" That was the moment Gary realized reality is a painful place indeed, and that online video games are pretty fucking sweet.
Turns out, in the four years that I never saw Gary, he ended up getting decent grades and heading to UW-Madison for school. I saw him a few weeks ago for the first time in years shuffling down the sidewalk with a couple of twelve-packs of Coke and a big bin of Cheesy Poofs under his arm. He had a glazed look about him, intentionally tuning out the commotion around him. He seemed to be on auto-pilot, like he was just getting a necessary chore done, and almost dropped his whole supply of convenience-store goodies when I yelled from across the street (I swear I saw him reach for some imaginary weapon at his side, but caught himself before it was too obvious).
I offered to buy Gary a sub from Subway, partly to catch up, and partly as an apology for the whole bike jump fiasco (it was my idea for him to try it with no hands). Grudgingly, he accepted. Gary seemed a lot more fidgety and uncomfortable than I remember, like he had completely forgotten how to interact with other humans. When I asked Gary about his alarming transition from everyday kid to suburban hermit, Gary had some interesting things to say.
""Man, after shattering my pelvis and having to sit in my room for half a year, I realized something. Reality sucks, man. I could be flying over the mountains of Azeroth right now on my griffon, slaying three-headed, fire-breathing demons with one swing of my enchanted longsword.
""Now, thanks to you, I'm eating a sub-par ham sandwich with a kid I really don't care for at all, and my ass still hurts because I forgot my butt-pad."" He had a look of disgust on him as his eyes shifted around Subway, pausing a moment on the morbidly obese woman ordering a Philly cheese steak smothered in ranch.
""Usually I don't travel during the day anymore, so you're lucky you caught me,"" Gary continued. ""I had a long night of questing and forgot to pick up my regular twelve-pack at 3 a.m. I can't stay here long either, my clan-mates and I are supposed to be slaying Glorfingle, Lord of the Underworld, in 30 minutes.""
I couldn't help but think what I was doing in 30 minutes... I had a big research paper on fertility declines in modern-day Russia that needed attending to. Maybe Gary was on to something with his life realization. He looked healthy enough... strikingly similar to the day he crashed his bike. Maybe all those Friday nights Gary was holed up in his dorm clearing out dungeons while I was destroying my liver played a part in that. I was toying with the idea of heading over to GameStop for a look at WoW when Gary uttered what sounded like some sort of spell, and without even saying goodbye he got up, slowly and quietly inched his way to the open door, and sprinted out.
Reality just didn't do it for ShadowFiend, the night-elf from Doldramar (Gary, as he's known in Wisconsin). These gamers live among us, unnoticed. Their shades are drawn during the day, an obvious insult to the outside world. You may have one living next door or across the street; it's impossible to tell. They consider you, me and the rest of reality inferior to the world that awaits their fat, eager fingertips on their laptop. This is the way the world will be until reality is eventful enough to be made into a video game. But until then, the gaming will continue.
WoW addict? I might be able to help. E-mail me at aplahr@wisc.edu.
