Non-Fiction

Up all night reading (Dougie C's Girlfriend in a Coma - a real page-turner). Up before the sun with blood gushing out of my nose. A morning spent in bed racing to the book's end. Moving only to hock more bloody phlegm or wet my dry mouth with artificially peachy iced tea. A bowl of off-brand Froot Loops and the last of a carton of soymilk. Checking the results of the previous day's blogs. Conversation with a friend I've never met. How many hours? Saying nothing; just putting words together. The kind of meaningless chatter everyone should take a while to enjoy now and then. Casual. Comfortable. The washer stops. The dryer starts. The washer starts again. The roommates shuffle laundry. I rinse my bowl, shower, insert my contacts. Mom answers the phone. Typos fixed. Dewy's Adventure on the Wii. Water boils. Noodles soften. One more level. A timer's beep ignored. Turn down the heat, drain the pot. Heat oil. Add vegetables and synthetic meat. Spaghetti sauce. Tiffany plays DOOM on his hacked Wii. I enter the box of a room without a word. We sit. Silently transfixed to the screen. Worlds from another time given life by a machine of the future, coaxed into existence by law-breaking nerds. Unspoken contimplation of history that's already passed. History that can never be repeated. The Z-axis changed everything. A shakey segue to talk of Duke Nukem. KILLS: 97% ITEMS: 84% SECRETS: 0% There may be a door here. Shareware endings. Buy the next exciting episode. MasterCard. VISA. Return to our rooms. Pre-heat oven. Measuring cups. Artificial butter. Sugar. Peanut butter. The sound of the mixer attracts an audience. Brown sugar. Vanilla extract. Teaspoons. Flour Baking soda. Mash with a fork. Someone taps the door of the fridge. No one takes responsibility. Gunstar Heroes. Squabbles. A Link to the Past. Beaters. Will the kids born today remember their first games the way we do? The oven beeps. Stones overturned. Trees rammed. Pop-culture philosophy. The games of today have no secrets. Hidden pixels. Simple geometry. Patterns. The endless thirst for realism has given us games without memories. There are no secret doors hiding in the walls of a believably rendered house. Seeing everything. Leaving no secrets. The dirty secret of high definition. How will Halo compare to Commander Keen? Hope for physics. Super Mario Sunshine was still full of wonder. The Wind Waker. We move on. Entering the dark world. Twisted. Demented. The pink bunny listens to the pumpkin-headed goblin. Fight Club on DVD. Fear of nudity. No one ran the dishwasher. Tofu fried. Reminiscing about catchy, brain-dead popular rock. Remembering the pick-up trucks the blared country and waved confederate flags. The popularity of rap. Songs have laid dormant in the mind for years, but spring to the lips as if it was still 2003. A sandwich alone in my room. An unexpected blog post. A plastic cup of iced tea. Homework?

Why was this, discounting Christmas break, the best weekend of recent memory?