My alarm goes off at 7am, jarring me out of a weird fever dream in which I’ve gone back to school after a long illness but everyone I speak to refuses to tell me which classroom I’m supposed to go to for maths, and also our comprehensive is full of Americans who keep calling it a ‘high school’ for some reason. I spend the first twenty seconds of consciousness in a panic that I’m going to be late for class before remembering that I graduated from university a decade ago, roll over, smack the snooze button, and descend back into the insanity. It’s warm and soft there.
After trying and failing to get me out of bed at 7.05, 7.10, 7.15, 7.20, and 7.25, my alarm informs me that it Won’t Get Snoozed Again (try saying that in your head to the tune of the CSI: Miami theme for maximum effect of what it’s like to be trapped in my head) and that I can either get up and face the day or spend the next couple of hours trying unsuccessfully to navigate an M. C. Escher painting generated by a subconsciousness that hates me. Groggily I open my eyes straight into a shaft of sunlight and, cursing Yesterday Becka for not remembering and/or bothering/caring to close the bedroom blinds I stagger to my feet. This time I don’t step on an upturned plug, but only because the small occasional table I use to play my Switch in bed is in front of it. Knee banged and fucks thoroughly sworn, I stumble to the kitchen to obtain some Frosted Shreddies and then lurch unsteadily back to to bed with the bowl clasped in my hands and the spoon secured firmly in my teeth. I burrow back under the covers, impressively failing to splash milk all over the duvet, and try to remember what day it is.
I’ve been working from home in the COVID-19 lockdown for six weeks now, and basically have the following grasp on reality: either it is The Weekend, or it is Not. The difference is tenuous because if it is The Weekend then I sit on my sofa and play video games, and if it is Not The Weekend I sit on the desk just to the left of my sofa and daydream about playing video games. I’m incredibly lucky that my job is the kind that can be done from my living room and that we have not had to furlough any staff as of yet, but at the same time even my fat arse is starting to despair at just how bloody weird time has become. I used to confidently feel that “today feels like a Monday” or “it’s a right Tuesday today, isn’t it?” but now we don’t even have that. What day is it, primal instincts? Fuck knows? That seems about right. Arthur Dent couldn’t get the hang of Thursdays; I long for a day where I wake up and step on a plug as I lurch out of bed and confidently think to myself “yes, this, this is definitely a Thursday”.
I squint at my wall clock as I sit in bed with my Shreddies. This doesn’t help because I’ve forgotten to put my glasses on and it might as well be the Mona Lisa for how much I can actually make it out, but squinting helps get the brain juices flowing. There’s a tiny man with an even tinier clipboard somewhere in my mind telling me that it’s definitely a weekday, but which one? I know I watched a film with Maia last night, but did I do that as an after-work activity or was it actually a Sunday? Or is today Sunday, and the little man filled with dread is actually filled with dread because tomorrow is Monday? Did I speak to anyone on the phone yesterday? Send an email? I think I went to Aldi, but did I do that during a self-declared lunch-break or just when I discovered all the fruit in the fridge had gone off?
I glance at my phone. I could just pick it up and tap the screen and look at the date, but that would also mean looking at any notifications that came in overnight and as cabin-fever as I’m getting I don’t actually want to venture into the wider world just yet. There’s a difference between knowing in an abstract way that terrible things are happening and being directly confronted with said terrible things by looking at trending topics on a social media website. It’s either that or yet another email from LoveHoney; they have become the DFS of the lockdown sales and whilst it’s nice to treat yourself once in a while I need all of my carefully hoarded batteries for my computer mouse and keyboard.
Next to my phone, however, is my Switch. I was playing 80 Days before falling asleep (100% recommended if you love text adventures, steampunk, and steampunk text adventures) but it’s easy enough to close that game and launch the one next to it on the hopelessly crammed home screen. I wait patiently through the black loading screen by cramming as many Shreddies into my mouth as I can manage (eleven, I’m not good at this), before being confronted with the only person keeping many of us sane during these weirdly insane times: Isabelle.
She greets me with a smile and informs me that it is 7.46am on Monday, 27 April.
Just like that, the mystery is solved. But where there should be crushing disappointment – Monday already? Really? Where the flippity fuckety did the weekend go? – instead there’s a sense of excitement. It’s a brand new day! And that means things to look forward to. New items in Nook’s Cranny or Able Sisters; a possible vendor in the town square; CJ or Flik visiting to give me more money than they should for bugs and fish they could easily catch themselves; possible cross-bred flowers in my garden; new fossils to delight Blathers with; but, most importantly, a chance to hang out in person with my friends.
Suddenly a beige gulf of a day, utterly indistinguishable from the one that came before it and the one that was sure to follow it, was instead replaced with a brain buzzing with ideas. I’m not really happy with the north of my island and maybe Leif will be around to sell me some unique flowers to make it look pretty! Maybe Sable will say something cute. Maybe I will discover The Perfect Outfit in my wardrobe. There’s so much to actually look forward to!
…After work.
Grumbling, I crawl to the bathroom and stand under a cold jet of water, waiting for my antidepressants to kick in and lift the fug swimming around my head like a particularly low attitude cloud. Just seven more hours and I’ll be able to actually do something that feels productive today.
Unless Gulliver’s washed up again. He can fix his own bloody phone, I want my Manila Clams back.
Animal Crossing is a game that suits a certain type of person, and it’s not for everyone. But for the millions of people who have picked it up it’s a welcome escape not just from the doom and gloom of 2020, but also from sheer monotony. 99.9% of games exist on their own clock, the world within them pausing in their entirety once the game is exited or the console switched off, but Animal Crossing follows real world time and changes as the day hurtles on. If I play a little bit in the morning and then come back later in the day, the sky has changed – the weather – the villagers – even the bugs/fish available. There’s a sense that time has moved on, even as I sit unchanged in my living room day after day.
Playing the game also means I still get to ‘see’ my friends, people who I miss so dearly it hurts sometimes. I might be an introvert (working from home has its perks) but even I am aching to get out to see the people I love and care about in person, and Animal Crossing is the closest I can get. The new Expression system really contributes to this: I don’t just type things and spin in circles to show my friends how excited I am to see them (how is it that we, as human Animal Crossing players, know to do this instinctively? Are we mirroring dogs without thinking? Is this all part of a nefarious money-making scheme by Redd?) but I can also express myself emotively. A wave to say hello, a song to show thanks, the yelling expression when we’re mucking about. And if a letter or a package arrives the next day, it’s a sign that somebody is thinking of me, and I of them. We feel connected, even if only for a few moments. Even if we’re entire oceans and time zones away.
But Becka, I hear the voices in my head who I assume to be the two people who will read this blog post say, it’s only a virtual world! None of it matters! And I have a secret for you. Lean close, for it is a very terrible one that will shake you to the core: people are all that matter. Everything else is just stuff. It’s lovely to have stuff, don’t get me wrong; my living room is packed with it and I’d be the first to admit that I’m a clutterbug. But I’d drop all of this stuff in an instant if it would help a friend. I can replace a toy. I can’t replace a person.
Our world is nothing without people. I’m not talking about the world-world, planet Earth. I think that would get along just fine without us, to be honest. No, I’m talking about the unique world each of us inhabit for whatever span of time we’re lucky enough to be here. The personal world, the one we create around ourselves. Without people, that world is nothing. Without people we have no memories. No emotions. No sadness, or love or anger. No reason for anything at all. Buildings without people are just empty shells with no history. Books defiled dead trees. Art globs of paint on a wall, unseen.
If my little pixelated person visiting another pixelated person’s island to give them a pixelated flower that doesn’t even exist in the ‘real world’ is all that person needed to brighten their day, then it matters. If finally finding an item I want to finish my little patio in Nook’s Cranny is enough to make me smile when the real world around me is falling apart, then it matters.
I can’t find it now for the life of me, but I remember reading a transcript of a conversation Terry Pratchett had on an online message board in the early days of the internet with a fan who asked if the events of a book (one of the Johnny Maxwell series – I think it was Only You Can Save Mankind) really happened, or whether they were all just in Johnny’s head. Terry Pratchett’s response, paraphrased, was “they were real to Johnny, and that’s all that matters”. Well, my little island in Animal Crossing, including any of my real world friends who come to visit it, are real to me.
And it’s stopping me from going insane during this lockdown, and that’s all that matters.
AROFAN 