For this story, I was inspired by some personal problems... and chance encounters on the internet.
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Escapism:
noun
"the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy."
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Video games are enjoyable. In fact, they're sometimes all too enjoyable. Whenever he plays them, he thinks he hears the angry roars of a mother echoing in his ears.
He also thinks he may be permanently traumatized from them.
(Take your pick between video games and mothers. Perhaps even both?)
His friends know him as someone laid-back, chill, and unruffled. They adore him for his jokes and witty verbal punches.
The ones who understand him a little more know that his jabs are his way of showing affection; his way of showing trust that they won't turn him away because of his provocative words. His way of showing them a face that's closer to reality.
However, no one really knows how he feels. Heck, even he doesn't know!
As he slowly immerses himself in one of his favorite MMORPGs, he finds he can't feel guilty for spending a large chunk of his rather diminutive salary on it. His mother would have scolded him harshly; fiercely tearing away his shell and exposing the vulnerable truth inside. But she wasn't there anymore, and hadn't been for years.
Sometimes he knew. He wasn't really living, just existing.
But he couldn't bring himself to remove the blindfold that he had painstakingly crafted out of shattered dreams. In the end, he still did his best to avoid touching the void inside.
Only one person had even a small inkling of his plight.
His best friend had brown eyes, black hair, and a tough personality. However, he was always gentle with him. Perhaps it was because his friend had seen the dents of sadness in his facade before they had been quickly smoothed away.
He'd been understanding enough that he hadn't broached the topic. Instead, he tried to fill the gap with small gestures of affection: helping him with chores, occasionally helping him with groceries, listening whenever he needed to talk, and just being there for him when he needed it.
To be honest, even he himself didn't know what was happening. He found he couldn't name the things roiling inside him, nor explain how he both felt and didn't feel. Preferring not to poke at it, he drowned himself in the numbingly cold fire of electronic images and dialogue.
Lately, he wondered why he let himself exist. If he couldn't live, then why not die? As a loyal atheist, he believed death was simply the state of nonexistence. Hopefully he'd be able to float, unconscious, throughout a black, fuzzy oblivion for the rest of his death. But he knew the answer to his question. It wasn't death he constantly avoided - it was the pain. The pain and the effort.
He hated pain. Disliked it, to say the very least. He was sure he could find a way to painlessly kill himself - but it was too much effort. Was it asking too much to just die peacefully in his sleep one day? Ideally tomorrow at midnight? And he also knew the answer to this question. Unfortunately, it was.
To sum it up, he was just a lazy coward. And so his only option was to destroy himself on the inside instead.
His friend had been getting nosier as well. Or was it just more worried? He couldn't quite tell. Late night visits, staying over, and he'd even caught his friend rummaging through his bathroom cabinet once. He'd told him that he was looking for some paper towels, but he could tell he was lying. He could smell the stench of it, see the ugliness of it, and feel the wrongness of the words as they were uttered. He didn't expose him, though. What he did do was wonder why his friend had been looking through his bathroom.
His resolve hardened over time, and he slowly gathered his courage bit by bit.
One day, he went home from one his very, very rare trips outside. It was to commemorate himself, he supposed. A last trip outside to remember before he did it. His friend had stopped him right at the door and anxiously asked to come inside. He'd detected a hint of desperation, a dash of nervosity, and a great deal of care. They'd had a talk. A very civilized talk on the sofa over some tap water.
His friend had told him he needed to see a therapist. He'd be paying.
He blinked. Why was his friend wasting his money when there wasn't anything wrong with him that needed to be addressed? By a therapist, of all professions? It had been late at night, and the numbness inside was at its strongest. In the end, he agreed to go. Since there wasn't anything special nor wrong, it would stop after this one session anyways.
He had been so, so wrong.
They talked for many more sessions. Each time the marvelous old lady in front of him attempted to "correct" his "mindset". It was... a bit nice. It reminded him of a milder version of his mother. He didn't really see the point, though.
After some time, he began switching therapists. The first one had declined to provide her services after a couple of months, and so did the following. He'd overheard snippets of them on the phone with his friend: "thickskulled", "oblivious", and "twisted" were just a few examples of the various reasons they'd brought up.
Instead of being helped by these sessions(which he now paid a good share of for), he felt lost. It was as if the one rock that had anchored him to existence(not life) was slowly being chipped away by the torrents of probing questions and the beating of disappointed looks.
However, his games never left his side. Together, they foraged through thick and... just thick. There was no thin in his life anymore.
He let the waves wash over him as he braved the following years.
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In memory of
_____ ____________
For himself.
_ _ _ _ to _ _ _ _.
In loving memory of
______________ _______
For his devotion to his family.
_ _ _ _ to _ _ _ _.
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Who's grave was who's?