I Have Become My Father, the Destroyer of Worlds

Change is inevitable and history repeats itself. Two aphorisms spouted about to make a small man dislodge from the ranks of the meek, and join the billions of uplifted faceless, clueless, shoeless utterers that preceded him. By verbalizing the phrase, he alone stands as the latest acolyte, the babyfresh recruit planting the flag of redundancy on a mound of Trying to Make Sense of IT. In a few seconds, he will witness the changing of the guard, replaced by a new babyfresh, tumbling down the order of Legacy. But anyway.

I have become my father, the destroyer of worlds. It started off with a simple merging. K moved in, and our household of three become four. Our collected assets in terms of furniture, shoes, assorted goods of varying importance, did not stop at a meager 33% increase. A lofty, roomy, ascetic apartment layout is now cramped, crowded, decorated. Homely, as is the way of women. With the whip of a magic wand, a house is turned homely, and along that line, a gaming rig set up in the corner of a living room is to the feng shui what the bubonic plague is to nightlife. Obstructive. After hard negotiation, I had on numerous occasions declined the proposal of moving my rig into the storage room, where there with some maneuvering and planning was enough room to fit the desk, towering desktop chair, with sufficient elbow room. It was beneath me, I thought. To be banished, in my own home, to a utility closet. The term cave has been used, in connection with another derogatory slur.

It was all well and good, until we swapped bedrooms with the kids. Now, the streaming rig sitting closer to the place of sleep, K utilizing nights for sleep, and not for farming watch hours, polishing thumbnails, cutting, editing, voiceovering, talking to herself for hours on end, we had a problem. I was too loud. Seeing the wireframes of my future endeavors crumble into dust, I glanced at the utility closet, storage room, scrub, and saw a future.

Necessity is the dictator of change, on a personal level. Can’t really say that to the Russian people, can we? And necessity so dictated, that in order to salvage the sacred hours of night, when everyone’s asleep, unbothered by whatever I do in the dark, deeds cloaked by the beaming light from the computer screen, I had to set up shop in that previously forsaken space, 1.5 m wide, 2 m long. The appalling idea was now the personification of what I try to achieve in front of that screen, a catalyst for eliminating distractions. Limit the space in which you move, and can move, and your efforts have no place to go but inwards.

After consulting our options on the actual hows, dragging an Ethernet cable from the router across the skirting boards, or connecting a divider to the fiber optics outlet, the only reasonable solution was to install an external network card, connecting via wireless. A trip down the road, chit-chatting with support personnel, tinkering on the PC feeling like a ripe tweenie again, I had run out of excuses. No place to go but forward. So I cleared out the closet, freeing up just enough space to fit the desk and chair, and started disassembling, reassembling, and assessing. The jokes fell like artillery shells over Odessa. How I’d finally achieved true bliss, in a cave reserved for men. And as the final details sorted themselves out, it struck me hard, ruthless, forcing me to reach for the cumfy, perfectly ergonomic gaming chair from Aposso, handmade with upholstery in Italian velvet. I have become my father, the destroyer of peace and quiet.

How? When I was ten, we moved from the countryside to the city into a townhouse in a quiet part of the outskirts, a middle class dream where you could let your kids roam free, getting up to all kids of mischief without causing any actual harm, or being exposed to it. And my father had an affinity for playing Combat Flight Simulator, which is basically War Thunder with Achtung Die Kurve graphics. A Microsoft release that he played every night, no exceptions, while building up a good marination of beer and boxed white wine, trying to shoot down the guy on the other end, voice chatting, having the time of his life. He played with real life WW2 pilots, spending life’s last leg reliving the glory days. And where, did he do this? In a scrub. On the second floor. Hidden from sight, assorted boxes, tools, pots, pans, and other miscellaneous crap stored for use on-demand. The inevitable change has occurred, the woman has conquered, and in doing so, history has repeated itself. The flat circle has completed its revolution. Hide the booze, accept Jesus Christ, for nothing can save me now.