L1V3S: gamegirl_19

Written by Mandy Lee

You watch life go by in the reflection of your game screen. The sun rises and the sun sets, and you are annoyed because it creates glare. It gives you a headache. It makes you squint.
     You keep a big bottle of eye lubricant next to your gaming board, the dropper kind. Not a little one; a big one, but it’s always half-empty.
     The sun keeps rising and setting, until one day you start ripping off strips of electrical tape with your teeth, and tape that big black board to the window, that big black board that came just for this occasion. Sliding it into place, you catch one last glimpse of the too-bright world, blurry like an over-exposed photograph.
     Across the street, your neighbour is ripping tape with her teeth.

So, here is the History of the World According to You. The compressed version.
     You are kind of responsible for everything that’s happened. Partially. Almost.
     Not completely, because you didn’t write the program. You didn’t create it, you didn’t inspire it, you weren’t the one who slaved for years to bring it to fruition. You didn’t think it up, you didn’t decide its purpose, you didn’t set the goals or control research.
     You just marketed it. That’s all. You just worked for an ad agency, and you just did your job. You did the job a little too well, but that’s neither here nor there.
     If you think about it, if you really think about it, you are the greatest success in the history of advertising. You won, you won every marketing war there ever was—the cola wars, the fast food wars, the clothing, perfume and jewellery wars. You defeated cosmetics. You danced on the graves of film and television. You put a trophy head of toothpaste on your mantel and ate the heart of mobile technology.
     You designed the ad campaign that put The Game in every home, so in that way… yes, you are responsible.
     You are definitely not responsible for the hormone thing. That wasn’t your idea. You didn’t think that up. You didn’t even know, the first time you played. The first time you signed on. They told you it was a stimulant, to enhance your experience. To complete the biomechanical interface. A team of doctors observed the whole time, and you felt safe.
     You chose the screen name ‘gamegirl_19’ because you were in a hurry and didn’t take the time to think of something better.
     You regret that now; every time you open a letter addressed to Ms Gamegirl_19, you regret that.

The second time you played The Game, it felt a little different. You jacked in and the world jammed on its axis. Slowed down, or softened, or something equally as comforting that made you slide deep into your chair. Every doctor took their notes, heads tilted, curious.
     Maybe your world-view changed in that moment. Maybe your faux-reality started building itself at your feet. Maybe that time, that second time, you had no chance ever again.

There’s a reason you were one of the first. There’s a reason you were chosen to beta.

To read the rest of this story, download the following file:
L1V3S: gamegirl_19