i’m stuck in the loading screen of a game
and my avatar has lost her pants
I feel like I’m stuck in the loading screen of a game. Like I’m between levels, sword wiped clean and body patched up, waiting for the next world to render. But nothing’s happening. And it’s been long enough now that shit’s starting to feel weird and I’m wondering if someone’s fallen asleep at the controls or what the fuck the holdup is. Did I miss something? Are we even still playing? What game is this, again?
At first, it felt like a reprieve after the last Boss battle. That thing was a real piece of work. Wouldn’t die. Had me pinned to the frozen ground, venom dripping from its maw and into my face as it raked out my insides. Stripped the flesh from my chest in jagged ribbons, breathing carrion and rot down on me like the ugly apocalypse beastie it was, until I worked my sword free and forced the point up through its chin, through the roof of its mouth, out between its eyes. Twisted the hilt until I felt a crunch. Watched its life spill out into the snow just as mine began knitting itself back together beneath the weight of its corpse. Kinda poetic, really.
It took a minute to haul the dead thing off me. I wriggled free like a half-crushed maggot, breath ragged, snow churned into red slush beneath us. Somewhere overhead, I could hear the scoreboard pinging, rating my performance. I didn’t care to look up at the numbers. Just pressed my boot into the creature’s thick skull and yanked my blade free with a grunt, flicking it out to splatter the gore from it. A close call. But somehow, I had won.
When the bloodstained world dissolved and I rematerialised in a cottage by the sea on Bowen Island—furs and leathers replaced by flowy pants and a sunhat—I was ready for action. I stalked through the bright, white-walled rooms, sword at the ready, scoping the terrain. After establishing the perimeter was clear of obvious threats, I clocked the pile of notes on the table and the neatly aligned pens and determined this new Mission was to be an epic campaign of productivity. Smashing word counts. Summoning plotlines. Conquering the admin underworld. New levels, new devils. Let’s fucking gooooo.
But… nothing happened.
No informative cutscene. No magic scroll. No Press X to begin. I reached out to pick up a folder, but my hand met some kind of invisible forcefield—work desk repelling me like it was stationed beyond the accessible map. It pushed me back, out into the windswept garden, where I finally sheathed my sword in the warm soil by a rosemary bush and reclined on a woven cane chair, waiting patiently for the world to finish buffering. This shouldn’t take long, I thought. Might as well enjoy the sun and the feeling of grass in the meantime. Read up on some strategy.
Time passed in the stretching of shadows across the lawn and the nudges of cottage familiars demanding their dinner. Seagulls. White linen curtains. A kettle whistling like it had somewhere to be. I tried to reach the desk from different angles, but the forcefield prevailed. I started to wonder if it was enchanted. Or cursed. Or perhaps simply disinterested in me.
I lost track of the days in a dreamlike haze of sun-warmed limbs and rotating winds, brain as blank as an unrendered map. Watched the glittery surface of the sea rising and falling against moss-covered cliffs, the garden blooming, vines sprouting buds, bees doing bee things, this whole place seemingly on task—thriving, producing, progressing—while I sat there, useless and now mostly pantsless, somehow unable to do much more than drag my worthless avatar from bed to couch to kitchen (for mana), to garden, and back again, trying not to bump into too many objects along the way.
Which brings me to now. Feet propped on an ottoman, skin a shade darker than when I arrived, staring out at the most exquisite view and… thinking there’s something wrong with me.
The guilt of doing nothing, of enjoying this slow life, feels heavier than any sword. I can’t remember exactly what I’m meant to be doing, but I’m certain I’m failing at it. I can’t even tell if time is moving fast or slow. Am I waiting for an NPC to appear to trigger the next cutscene? Or am I the NPC?
Maybe I was never meant to be the Main Character charging off to Conquer Worlds and Achieve Things. Maybe I’m actually coded as a shrub or a mild forest creature and something glitched a few levels back. Now I’m too deep in the storyline to tap out, but not properly equipped to play this one either, and I’m left here with a general malaise re. the audacity of purely existing.
To be fair, dearest reader, I’ve only actually been here for a week—which I had to look at my calendar just now to ascertain, and rightly blows my mind because I could’ve sworn I’d already “wasted” at least a month here. Just sitting. Lying. Reading. Wandering about, slowly adapting to a world that is now—at long last—warm and soft and sun-filled.
Terrible.
And “wasted” not because I find my current situation unpleasant or devoid of value. It’s glorious, actually. The quiet mornings, the birds that come and go. The view—my god, the view. I could stretch out across the window seat and watch the sea for hours, get lost in the blue-tinged stencils of mountain ridges across the water, full heart melting like butter over a stack of pancakes.
I’m just painfully aware that I’m here on borrowed time. And before long, I pick up my phone as a distraction, simming and dissociating, some part of me bracing against the rising panic that I should be planning, should be prepping. Painfully aware that I’ve well and truly run out of loot and will soon be portaling into a new city where I’ll have to find work, navigate systems, get set up again.
(Yes, this has been a wildly dragged-out gaming metaphor, but I’m having fun. Let me have this.)
Plus, I should have at least half a novel written by now, my taxes filed, fifteen exciting shoots lined up, flawless skin, and the lithe rig of a nineteen-year-old stripper—I mean, tavern wench. Because Spring is supposed to be the season of rebirth and glowups, right? Full steam ahead. Get shit done. Ride the cosmic surge straight into your New Era xoxo.
What makes it worse is that I actually want to do those things. I want to be productive and creative and in motion. You should see the inspiration folders on my desktop. Life is exciting! There are possibilities!
But for some reason, right now, I just... can’t. I’m stuck in a loading screen that won’t finish buffering, watching everyone else sprint into Act VII while I’m still spinning in place, forehead pressed against a tree, trying to remember how to use both joysticks simultaneously.
𖤓𖤓𖤓𖤓𖤓𖤓𖤓𖤓𖤓
OKAY THIS ISN’T A STUNT. I just spotted a dorsal fin out the corner of my eye and hauled ass out of the house. Barefoot and half-feral, tearing down the stone steps to the edge of the property with gravel biting at my soles and two dogs going ballistic at my heels—unsure what was happening, but absolutely here for it like the good girls they are.
Chaos.
I skidded to the cliff’s edge, squinting in the setting sun, phone out like a hysterical dance mum, just in time to watch a pod of orcas swim past.
Orcas. I’ve never seen them before. One of my actual wishes for this whole Canada trip.
I lost count of how many there were. At least a dozen. Moving in pairs and clusters one after the other, their punched blowhole breaths carrying so clearly across the quiet bay it felt like they were close enough to touch.
A few minutes after they passed from view, a text came in from a kind neighbour, letting me know the whale-watching group had reported orcas along the coastline. I sent her my video, buzzing with excitement.
Turns out, the group is called J Pod. And apparently, it’s rare to see them here in the Salish Sea. So rare, in fact, she’s sending my footage along for ID and confirmation—because so far, I’m the only one who caught them on film today as they passed the island.
And I am so brimming with joy that I forget what I was even writing up until now and I’m gonna wrap this up here, because life is hilarious.
Sprinkling actual magic on my day like that, while I’m fretting about being an NPC stuck in a lag screen. Ptssch. Ridiculous.
Whatever other “Important Things” I thought I ought to be doing today—I was wrong.
I think I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
all images from Tumblr & Pinterest.
