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Hobbies: Gaming, doom scrolling

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Strange, strange day...

Oct 15, 2024 at 12:00 AM

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This morning I opened my eyes and immediately want to go back to sleep. I was lying sideways on my keyboard. My monitor was still on, and a huge “GAME OVER” plastered over the 34” 165 Hz monitor - clearly I fell asleep while trying to pass the difficulty level of this stupid game. But there was something else too - in the bottom left corner, someone had left a message in my chatbox.

What started out as a joke, turned out to be a wake up call. For months I've been letting myself go while looking for a reason not to. But who knew the reason was that simple? And who knew that a dead stranger on the Internet would point it out to me?

I, like a fool, did everything a sketchy faceless user told me to in order to "solve the murder". But it led me to unexpected places - and just a round the corner no less! 

I went to my favorite froyo shop as a child, and got the cheesecake bits like I always did. They tasted sweet, and familiar. The woman there used to give me a free scoop every time I went there. Today she didn't recognize me, and I don't blame her for that - greasy, long hair, acne-prone face, shaggy clothes,... But apart from the wrinkles forming on her forehead, her smile was still kind. She was the same as I remembered.

I traced back the stranger's footsteps, but it led me to my treehouse in the woods nearby. My dad helped me build it, and I remembered having fun - running around, climbing, falling, rolling on the ground. But as I grew up it got forgotten - thrown to the back of my mind, never resurfacing again. When I started climbing the ladder today, step after step, it was so childish and ridiculous. But as the leaves crunched up beneath my feet, I felt at peace.

When the stranger pointed me to the exact cemetery where my mom was buried, I should've ran or blocked them right away. But I was anxious with the possibility of a confrontation with the fact that I've been avoiding for months, and with which I can't deal. I bought some fresh flowers, and walked through the pavements between green patches of grass until I saw my mom's name. The warm October sunlight held me in its embrace as I burst into tears. Strangely, as everything became so real, I felt a sense of relief that I hadn't felt in a long time.

Exhausted from the first time going out in a while, I went back home. The stranger said the last moment of their life, they heard a song. It was Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 - my mom's favorite song. I would always play it for her on the piano, and now, even though I'm playing it to an empty room, I'm playing it for myself for the first time.

I got reminded of how good life could be, and how I used to love music. I won't go online again for a long time - I need to take back all the time that was wasted.

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