Are You Ready To Join Us?

Matthew awoke on the sagging, stained beige couch that his grandma had purchased at Big Lots about fifteen years ago. It was around 1:30 PM, and the light was shining hard through the window of the trailer, the same one he’d grown up in. At 30 years old, he was living with his aging grandmother in a rundown, one-bedroom trailer home and sleeping on her couch. She cooked and cleaned, and together they lived on her social security and disability checks. During the day, his grandma went to Matthew’s sister’s house to babysit her small children while his sister was at work. So most weekdays, Matthew was all alone. 

He took a piss. While washing his hands, he glanced upward at his reflection in the mirror: he’d grown quite thin over the past few years, weighing about 130 lbs on a five-foot-ten frame. His black hair was tangled, greasy, and unwashed, and his olive skin had grown sallow and pimply. His facial hair was scraggly and uneven over his lip and chin; he shaved every few months when it got annoying, but didn’t upkeep it in the meantime. His hygiene had fallen to the wayside in recent months, and he only showered or brushed his teeth maybe once a week at this point. 

On his way out of the bathroom, he grabbed a half-empty pack of Newports, a black BIC lighter, and a can of room temperature Monster from the kitchen counter, bringing them all with him to his large and elaborate computer setup at the tail end of the living room, only a few feet away from the old couch he slept on each night. He sat down in his black computer chair and pressed the power button. While waiting for the starting screen to load he lit his morning cigarette, pulling the dirty yellow ashtray closer to him, and cracked open his energy drink. It was time to start the day.

After he logged in, Discord and Spotify started up automatically. His clan’s Discord server, The Defenders of the Swarm Allegiance, was already hopping with plans and chatter in their dozens of various themed channels. He typed out: “lol good morning fuckers let’s go farming for obsidian today” and was immediately met with several thumbs up reactions. Matthew switched back to Spotify and pulled up his Rammstein playlist, logged into Steam, and finally, opened up his game: Sylvanborne. 

The familiar loading animation burst onto the screen as Matthew gulped down the light brown liquid from the tall black can. Orcs and goblins and ogres threw spears at a group of elves and dwarves and halflings and humans on one side of the screen, who were armed with swords, bows, shields, and axes. Even though he’d seen this thousands and thousands of times, it was still fun to watch sometimes, so he didn’t skip through it. The login window popped up after about 30 seconds while a banner displayed across the whole screen with the question, “Are you ready to join us?” His heart raced from the excitement, the nicotine, and the Monster as he typed in his login info. This is where he truly felt at home.

Matthew was particularly proud of his character, a deep-elf of the anarchist alignment and a mercenary. He’d named the deep-elf Kalgo Zigri and joined the aforementioned Defenders of the Swarm Allegiance clan, where his character had risen through the ranks to become its top champion, especially in PVP. He regularly led excursions for material mining, knew thousands of plot quests, and of course, battles and raids. Kalgo easily had some of the best loot in the game, which had about 75 million monthly players from all over the world. He put on his headphones and started playing. Today would be a pretty chill day online, but he needed to make sure his character was prepared for tomorrow’s big event: the Crimsonhelm Tournament.

His character, Kalgo, had blue-black skin, amethyst eyes, and long silver hair meticulously pulled back into a stylized braid. He had white ritual tattoos all over an overly muscular animated body with a smirking expression. The character had become pretty well-known among other Sylvanborne players, and Matthew took pride in the way his character looked, making sure Kalgo could be distinctly seen by other players. He had a half-elven druid wife, Nayana, who was a beautiful, scantily dressed character with brown skin, black hair, and the perfect anime hourglass figure that existed only in female video game characters. She was played by a male gamer, but Matthew didn’t care. Only the characters mattered. They’d created about 15 different children NPCs together, and had managed to buy themselves a huge house on Haldrael Island, the most coveted location in the game. It was filled with luxurious, rare items that were nearly impossible to get.

It seemed like he’d been playing for only a few minutes when his grandma came through the door at six in the evening, puffing a cigarette of her own. Despite the smoking, she was relatively healthy for a 68-year-old except for a persistent cough and high blood pressure, but she took medication for both. She’d been retired from her position as manager at Family Dollar for about three years now, and had been helping babysit relatives’ kids since then. And she loved Matthew a lot, having practically raised him since his mom, who’d had him as a teenager, was in and out, spending most of her time with various boyfriends, getting pregnant, and moving around for jobs.

She coughed as she glanced toward the back of Matthew’s head in the computer chair. “Did you… did you clean up in the kitchen like I asked?” she inquired, speaking loudly enough so that he would hear over his headphones. He didn’t even turn around, though he slipped one earpad off to better hear her. “Nah,” he said casually. “I’ve got some things to do.” She sighed, wandering over to the kitchen to pull out some canned chili and Fritos for dinner. “My friend Mary Ann called me today and she said they’re looking for some kitchen people at the McDonald’s over yonder. I was thinkin’ you could go fill out an application. They even said they’re starting at $10 an hour or somethin’ like that because they can’t find anybody after this COVID mess.”

“Uh huh,” came Matthew’s response, before he put the earpad back firmly on his ear. He started laughing hysterically at the screen. Right now Kalgo was gathered in a virtual tavern with his clan friends and his half-elven wife. Everyone was telling jokes that were slightly off-color while his character guzzled down virtual ales and fantasy meals, like spiced gryphon kebabs served with blue potato wedges and honeyed fairy cakes for dessert.

His grandma sighed and didn’t say anything else to him. She grabbed a can of Monster, an unopened pack of Newports, and a paper bowl of warmed up chili topped with American cheese and Fritos and a plastic spoon, and set it right beside him at his computer desk. He didn’t turn to look at her but acknowledged her by responding with a simple “thanks.” He almost never ate food that wasn’t directly brought to him, since it took too much time and effort to make anything.

She went back to the kitchen where she promptly began washing dishes, inhaling a cigarette and coughing as she cleaned up several days’ worth of mess. Eventually, she sat down on the couch and watched TV in silence as he continued playing his game. Matthew stayed up until 4 in the morning, six hours past the time his grandma had gone to bed, which he hadn’t even noticed. He pissed again, smoked his last cigarette, and finally passed out on the couch with his pillow and blanket. 

For the past three years of Matthew’s life, every single day had been almost exactly like this one. 

Five years ago, his girlfriend Debbie had left him. They’d been together since high school, when she’d gotten pregnant in their junior year of high school. They had a little girl named Makenzie. Once he turned 18, he dropped out of school right before graduating and got a job as a car mechanic, but after a few years he found it boring. He started playing mobile games on his phone and looking for reasons to skip work every day. Eventually, he was fired. Once he was unemployed, he discovered Sylvanborne and he fell in love with it. Debbie was working full-time as a server and growing exhausted with her boyfriend’s inability to make money, clean up around the house, or help with Makenzie. He was supposed to be the main caretaker while she was at work, but it was hard to pay attention to a kid when he was playing a game all the time.

One day, Matthew was supposed to be watching Makenzie while Debbie worked a double shift. While he was leading a 24-person party through the Hunt of Stipulation, one of the hardest raids in the game, Makenzie walked out of the door of their apartment and went wandering down the crowded streets. Police found her about a mile from their complex wearing nothing but soiled underwear, hungry, crying, and covered in scratches and dirt. Matthew didn’t even notice she was gone until the police showed up at his door and saw the poor condition of the house and lack of supervision. CPS took temporary custody, and Debbie was enraged. She broke up with Matthew, kicked him out of the house, took parenting classes to get Makenzie back, and eventually won full custody in court.

Matthew had moved in with his grandma in his childhood home. For the first few years, he took part-time shifts at the Family Dollar where she was manager, and he was still allowed to have supervised visits with Makenzie every other weekend. When his grandma retired, however, they stopped giving him shifts because he was unreliable and distracted at work. He started playing Sylvanborne even more than he already was. And he had no way of giving Debbie anything in child support, so she stopped bringing Makenzie over to the house. He had no money to fight it, and honestly, he thought Makenzie and Debbie were better off this way. She’d gotten married to a nice electrician and had another baby. His grandma had sent them birthday and holiday cards on his behalf, and that was the only communication he had with them.

It’s not that Matthew hadn’t loved Makenzie and Debbie, though maybe he didn’t know how to express it very well. It’s that he wasn’t very good at being a dad or a partner, and everybody knew it. He wasn’t good at working. He found all of it stressful, and boring, and overwhelming. At first he missed having a girlfriend, and filled the void with porn, but porn only took time away from gaming. Eventually he no longer craved sexual release, and didn’t even masturbate any more. The only time he ever felt good at something was when he was gaming -- and he was great at it. And the only person who let him game as much as he wanted was his grandma. She used to nag him about getting a job, but since the COVID pandemic began, she had relented even on that.

The next day, he woke up around noon. Today was the day: Crimsonhelm. He would compete in solid PVP battles with some of the most elite players in the game as part of a yearly tournament. The winner would have an NPC designed after them in the next expansion, and that’s exactly what Matthew wanted. They usually had the tournament in person in Seattle where the game was based, and obviously Matthew couldn’t afford to go to that. He didn’t leave the house at all as it was. In 2020, because of COVID, the event had been canceled altogether. This year, in 2021, they’d figured out how to make it all virtual. It was his chance to shine.

After grabbing an energy drink, he headed to the computer and turned it on. That’s when he noticed the internet wasn’t working. His face began to flush, and he felt panicked. He had it directly connected to the computer on an ethernet line for the fastest speed, so it wasn’t the WiFi… was there an entire outage? He found his flip phone -- his grandma couldn’t afford smartphones for them both and he hadn’t had one since Debbie had kicked him out and stopped paying for it -- and dialed his internet provider. Matthew’s lip was quivering and he was nearly in tears after he finally got hold of a live agent 30 minutes later. “My… our internet is out…” he babbled, repeating his grandma’s name and address three times in a row to make sure they heard it. He hadn’t spoken to anyone other than his grandma or gamer buddies over voice chat in so long.

“Oh,” said the agent. “She arranged for the internet service to be canceled about two weeks ago. She’ll need to turn in the router and modem and the other equipment, so please remind her to send that in or stop by one of our stores.”

Matthew was flabbergasted, and his heart was pounding through his chest. “What? No! She was wrong. She can’t… she can’t do that. Turn it back on right now!” 

The agent paused for a moment before saying, “Well, sir, she hasn’t renewed payment for services. I could technically turn it back on, but your name isn’t on the account… I could start a new account for you if you’re ready to put a payment on file in your name.” 

Matthew snapped the flip phone down in despair, hanging up on the agent. He didn’t have any money, no credit card, not even any cash. His grandma kept the EBT card, the social security money, and the disability money all on her own. She had bought him the food he wanted and even paid the subscription for Sylvanborne once a year as a Christmas present. His sister’s house was so far away, and his grandma had the only car -- and he hadn’t driven anywhere by himself in two years. He used to have other video game systems and games, but he’d sold his consoles years ago to upgrade his PC and gaming equipment.

He called his grandma repeatedly, but her phone was off. He called his sister. Her phone was off too. He tried calling every number in his phone’s meager address book, even Debbie, but all his calls were ignored or went straight to voicemail. Matthew felt helpless and desperate. He raised his fist and punched a hole in the wall behind the couch. He was livid, but more than that, he was frightened. This was the most important day of the year. He took the blanket off the couch and flung it across the room at his computer desk, hitting the ashtray full of cigarette butts, which fell into the trashcan full of crushed empty Monster cans and caused them to all topple over. Then he grabbed the pillow and held it to his face, screaming and crying into the lumpy, soft mass.

How dare his grandma do this? On the day of the tournament? This was all he wanted and he was missing out on everything. What would his Discord friends say? He didn’t have any of their numbers in real life to text them. They only existed online, and now online was gone.

Shaking, he walked to the kitchen to see if there was something to eat, to settle his stomach. He barely ate any more, but now he didn’t know what else to do. There on the refrigerator, attached with a Precious Moments magnet, was a letter written on a sheet of yellow legal pad paper.

Matthew,

They’re turning off the internet today. I am sorry and I know you will be very mad, but I cannot let you live like this any more. Everybody says I just enable you and maybe they are right. If you want to stay at the house, we won’t have internet any more, because I don’t need it and you are addicted to your game. I’m thinking of moving in with your sister for a little while so that we can get some space. The water and electricity will be paid automatically by the county. I don’t want you to go hungry, so I left a few packs of energy drinks, a full carton of cigarettes, and plenty of food in the pantry and refrigerator. We can bring you more food if you need. If you want help getting a job or getting around, you can call your sister. I won’t be answering your phone calls for a few days. I think you need help. Mary Ann told me about this hotline for treatment centers and mental health stuff -- the number is 1-800-487-4889. I’ll keep paying for your flip phone for now.

I hope you know I love you.

-Grandma.

Matthew crumpled the paper into a ball and wept on the kitchen floor. He opened his phone and dialed the mental health hotline number, wondering if he might be able to talk to someone about all this, but hung up as soon as it began to ring. What would he say to them anyway? He couldn’t think straight. He didn’t need to fix his mental health -- he needed to get online. How much was he missing out on with every passing second? The event was starting any minute now. He stood up, hands still trembling, glancing repeatedly toward the computer and thinking of nothing except how much his clan friends were probably missing him and wondering where he was. Nayana’s player had arranged his entire schedule to be there the whole time to offer magic spells to help Kalgo in the tournament. 

He had never felt this badly in his entire life -- it felt like his world was crumbling around him. Everything he had worked for had been taken away from him in one foul swoop. He couldn’t let it happen. It didn’t matter what his grandma thought. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought. Nobody understood how important this was.

Crying and nearly convulsing, Matthew managed to put on a pair of his tennis shoes that had been sitting untouched by the door for many months. He opened the door and looked outside. It was overcast, but the natural sun still seemed so bright that it hurt his eyes a bit. He was gripping his phone, going through the numbers once more, dialing them repeatedly as he stepped onto the country roads outside the trailer park. He was determined that he would indeed walk to his sister’s house even though it was 10 miles away and he couldn’t quite remember the roads to get there. He had to get back online. He couldn’t miss the Crimsonhelm Tournament. People were counting on Kalgo. Kalgo never gave up. Kalgo never let down his clan. Kalgo was going to win.

(If you struggle with video game addiction, or have a partner or child who does, reach out to Game Quitters for free resources to help. Further help for addiction and mental health treatment can be found through SAMSHA at 1-800-487-4889.)

Cook with the author: Honeyed fairy cakes

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

4 tbsp colored sprinkles

1 stick unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

¾ cup buttermilk

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup honey, divided

12 purple cupcake liners

2-3 tbsp edible silver or gold glitter

24 white chocolate-covered pretzels (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Line a muffin pan with 12 purple cupcake liners. 

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. With your fingers, rub the softened butter into the dry mix until it resembles coarse sand. Fold in the sprinkles. Set aside.

In a stand mixer or a mixing bowl with a handheld mixer, combine buttermilk, eggs, vanilla extract, and ¾ cup of the honey until thoroughly mixed. 

Pour the dry mixture into the liquid mixture and combine, being careful not to overmix. It’s okay if there are a few streaks of flour.

Fill each muffin well about halfway full with the batter. You should have 12 fairy cakes total. 

Bake fairy cakes for 25 minutes. While the fairy cakes are baking, blend together the remaining ¼ cup of honey and edible glitter.

Take cakes out of the oven. While they are still warm, use a pastry brush to paint the top of the fairy cakes with the honey mix. If the honey seems too thick, you can microwave it for about 10 seconds. Let fairy cakes cool completely.

If desired, you can push two white chocolate-covered pretzels into the top of each cake so that it looks like fairy wings.