Stop all the clocks, cut off the internet,
Prevent the Guinea Pigs from wheeking with a juicy treat,
Silence the guitars and with muffled pads
Bring out the metaphorical coffin, let us now be sad.
After any intense and whirlwind experience, the sudden absence of the swirling elements that precipitated and sustained it leaves an odd and slightly bemused feeling behind. The Ready Up Glasgow meet is over, and as the empty Mikado packets and cider cans lay mournfully in the basement of Esc, writers, readers, and forumers return home, leaving the dust to settle and the console lights to dim.
Yet it isn’t so much the main event that leaves me feeling melancholy. After having a house full of bouncing guests, nights of laughter, snacks, games, and chat followed by days of silliness and happy snapping, it has all gone quiet. After declaring myself to be anti-social many moons ago, I am now forced to rethink, especially as I am now sitting here wondering what just happened. Wondering why things feel off-kilter.
An old friend who has recently joined the forum along with one writer and two forumers came to stay, bumping our house head count to six. A pound of bacon, 45 eggs, three loaves of bread, six potatoes, two baguettes, one cheesecake, four packs of Mikado, eight Red Bulls, three bottles of wine, one bottle of rum, two potato waffles, and two haggis later, we are surrounded by game cases, a bare fridge, and the general fallout from six gamers living, laughing, and enjoying themselves.
Slowly one by one, they peeled away. First we lost Rook, who had to fly home to Belfast, leaving his cheesecake ice cream behind and then Mark B0SS began his long journey back to London, hopefully ending up sitting next to a hot girl on the coach. Zoey was next, packing up her killer Dark Alice heels and heading for home, and then we were three. Pete waved goodbye a day later and we closed the door and took stock. Silence. No fridge door closing, no giggling or teasing, no laughing, no gaming, no buttons clicking, no achievements popping. The Xbox was off, the Pyramats were vacant, and the lounge… well, the lounge was a fucking mess, but it was an empty mess. And it was sad.
Writing for a community site, a curmudgeon like me never actually expected to become part of a community, never expected to really socialise, but slowly it crept into my bones and like Mr Oogie Boogie’s victims, it ain’t goin’ nowhere. I never expected, as the guest list grew, to feel so sad when everyone started to leave. I expected to flump onto a sofa and feel relieved, but instead there is an oddly mournful residue. Seeing an empty cheesecake box, a forgotten Buffy graphic novel or Poi, or the rolled up duvets, gives me pause. Seeing the Batman: Arkham Asylum game that we were gifted at the last meal positively brings me to a halt. And that is when it hits me.
Gamer I may be, but anti-social I am not. No longer can I say that I prefer to lurk in the corner and hide from everyone and part of me hates this treachery. At this meet, the corner didn’t get a look in as I was too busy talking and laughing. Ready Up has given me some wonderful friends, some good memories, and an empty fridge, but it has also evolved me from a grumpy, antisocial gamer to something slightly more agreeable. I still have a love affair with lurking in the shadows, but every now and again, I acknowledge that the light is actually pretty good, provided it isn’t divided into three red ring segments.
So amidst the debris of a gamer-vacated lounge and kitchen, I can just put the sadness aside and stack up the games, wrap up the control pads, and take that secreted pack of Mikado out of the cupboard and tuck in with a smile because I know (or at least hope), like all good evil cyborgs, that they’ll be back.
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