BOMBER

What has happened to me, I have not been able to reason. I think at some point I must have gotten used to this kind of thing, but this seems to be it.

I'll try to explain from scratch.

In my entire life I have been an outcast because of my father, whom I don't even remember the reprehensible face of his that I hated to look at. I won't go into details, but I am certain that being carnally abused screwed me up for life. My mother, on the other hand, can only be described as a saint, she was the only thing that kept me happy in this hellish world. But her mental condition was not the best, the schizophrenia she suffered from and the fact that she was religious brought me some discomfort, she insisted that a demon was persecuting me, that it was the cause of my depression, I never had enough strength to talk to her about my problems therefore.

Fortunately, I was able to suppress all my fears, insecurities and traumas thanks to this special console that my cousin liked to bring from time to time, the TurboGrafx-16. It wasn't as popular or coveted as the SNES or the Genesis, but I still enjoyed it. My cousin used to stay for long periods of time in our home during vacation times, and my parents treated him almost like a brother, so it is not surprising that he was able to notice my severe depression and decided to do something for me in return, by giving me his console. I still remember when it happened, for a moment I felt again this emotional satisfaction that I wanted so much.

This device had a plethora of games at its disposal, but one hooked me more than the others: Bomberman. The ''chibi'' style of the characters and the gameplay that was so simple but so addictive and entertaining at the same time made me fall in love with this game, everything I suffered was overcome, at least for a moment, when I played it. And I may not have been the most responsible or popular guy in my school, but I invited a few close classmates to play and we had a good time in multiplayer.

And where am I now? Living paycheck to paycheck in a house I can barely rent, of course. What happened to my shitty pederast father gives me great joy; he died of brain cancer, alone, in a nursing home. My mother passed on to the afterlife that she longed for, long before my father, but she died quietly of natural causes, and all of this gives me some karmic peace.

I think it will be important to clarify that at some point my cousin moved into my parents' house, this was when they decided to put the house up for sale to go live with my cousin's parents after I moved. The point is that, days after my father's death, my cousin stayed on his parents' house for a while to take care of them and he calls me to ask if I wanted ''this old console we used to play on, the Turbografx.'' I replied yes, obviously. In my teens I didn't pay much attention to video games anymore and I completely forgot about that machine, also, I was missing some entertainment in my life besides cable TV, but it was strange to me that that console was in that house, and I asked him about it.

''Ah, your dad was fascinated with this thing! Since he settled in my parents' home, my mom told me that he spent his time playing video games.''

It took me a while to digest it.

The only escape I had, also became my attacker's.

I really hesitated, but nostalgia got the better of me. So I got it back the afternoon before I am writing this.

In the night, hours later, I sat on the cold floor of my living room and booted up the console, of all the CD-ROMs I chose Bomberman, I was still a fan of the franchise.

The game started... not so normally, I could have sworn there used to be a cutscene at the beginning that explained the short plot of the game a bit, but there wasn't one, anyway this was a bit old, I was hoping it wouldn't work flawlessly, and seeing the menu screen brought back several memories. It also bothered me a bit that the retro music was superficially obscured by the heavy rain at the time.

After all these years I felt comfortable being able to control Bomberman again, that is before more bugs inevitably started; Right after finishing the first level, I managed to see Bomberman's sprite go to shit, his face fading into a black void and his body turning into a colorful puke with mostly red and pink tints. The timer, meanwhile, was elongated horizontally and completely obscured the portrait of Bomberman's face that accompanied the little black bar that indicated how many lives I had left, and if I were to go by the glitches, it seemed that I had zero life or time. This was not fixed in subsequent levels, predictably.

The other thing I noticed was the death animation of the enemies, I knew they were a bit graphic in the original game that I enjoyed decades ago, but here they were slower, you could see them burning in great detail as their pupilless faces screamed without make any sound.

Anyway, I won the first stage, but when I started the next stage things really turned against me. No longer controlling Bomberman, but the blue counterpart of him, the white Bomber seemed to be the enemy now. At this point, I don't see how all the bugs or glitches in the world could produce something like this, it didn't seem possible to me at all. It would have been so easy to beat him anyway, if it wasn't for the fact that the wretch was beaming in the blink of an eye near me and planting multiple bombs in random places. It took me what I reckon was probably an hour, but I "killed" it, and my game inevitably crashed.

"Okay, one last try," I thought.

I restarted the console, went back to playing. My progress somehow got saved.

I went to the next Stage, and instead of the screen going black and big letters appearing indicating that I was going through the third Stage, I was met with something different.

''Look me in the face.''

I turned off the console without hesitation.

I haven't reconciled sleep, I don't think I will. My mind has wandered too much, I have thought about this a lot.

Not for long. No more.