Grady Des Jardins

Jackie Burr, Instructor

English 2010, Section 3

12 March 2019

Adventures In Joy and Rage

It was summertime. The morning sun was intruding through the shutters covering the

window, disrupting my sleep, so woke slowly, aching to lay in bed for as long as I could,

wanting to feel the warmth and comfort of my blankets and pillows. But alas, it couldn’t last

with my sister knocking on my door, alerting me that breakfast was going to be ready soon. I

groaned and rolled out of bed, groggy from a long slumber, vacating my room to go into the

kitchen for breakfast. My mom, dad, and sister were already gathered around the table for a

delicious breakfast my mother had prepared. I ate and conversated with my family a while.

After a good meal, I was ready to begin my day.

I found my way downstairs. I could feel an instant change in temperature. The cool air

was refreshing. Eager to have some fun, I went over to my Xbox and turned it on. The white

light burst to life as it began to hum quietly. I then grabbed my television remote, pushed the

power button, and my TV clicked on with a flash of the screen. The screen displayed the Xbox

home page. The tiles reflected the recent games I had been playing like FIFA and Call of Duty.

However, there was one game that I was especially looking forward to diving into. Finding and

turning on my purple controller, my favorite color, I clicked that particular tile and it made a low

humming, whoosh-like noise. The game’s loading screen pulled up. An array of male and

female characters, each of them unique in some way or another, stood in a row. I gazed as the

loading bar that stretched across the screen was filling up painfully slowly, dragging along as if it
was taunting me and my frustrated impatience. I sat in my chair uncomfortable, bouncing my

leg up and down rapidly, dying with anticipation. There was no desire in me to wait; I just

wanted to play. As soon as I became irritated, the game finished loading and there was relief. I

heard the familiar music chiming on, indicating that I could soon play. Fortnite was finally ready

for me.

“Press A to Start” faded in and out of golden yellow font in front of a crisp blue

background. Excitedly, I pushed the shiny black and green “A” button on my controller several

times out of anxiety. But yet again more waiting. A spinning outline of a circle came up; this

time loading up the game. Although I was frustrated at that spinning sign of waiting, I remained

excited, my fingers clicking buttons on the controller in hopes that it would make it speed up. Of

course it didn’t, but to me it made the unbearable wait somewhat tolerable. Eventually, it loaded.

I did not hesitate to ready up and jump into a game. I clicked the “Y” button to start, and again

another loading screen. This one seemed the most tolerable and the least at the same time

because I was so close to being able to do what I wanted to do. My impatience was getting to

me, but before my eyes the game loaded and I was in a lobby filled with 99 people—all of whom

had to fall in order for me to find what I was after. I wanted to win, and the only way to do that

was to be the last one standing. I was confident in my pursuit.

Just seconds after joining the lobby, the match started. In the battle bus, I decided on a

location to go. I felt like some action, so I went to a highly popular place called Tilted Towers. I

commanded my character to jump from the battle bus and fly into the would-be war zone. Many

others floated around me, so I was weary and chose to land at a tall building I thought would be

safe. I have never been so wrong. There was no weapon anywhere on top of the building, so I

ventured to the floors below, hearing footsteps in every direction. It sounded like a stampede of
elephants was raging through the building. I opened a door to a room to find a gun, but instead

there was an enemy; they were poised to kill me. Frantically, I spun around to go back the way I

came. The effort was futile. The enemy player blasted a shotgun shot into my back. I had died.

I hit the “B” button to return to the lobby in order to go into another game. As the next game

loaded, I could feel my anger bubbling inside me like a grumbling volcano. The death made me

want to throw my controller, but I knew that would be silly. After all, it was only a game, and I

was going to get another chance in the next game. There was no need to get emotional in that

way.

The second time around, I played my cards differently. I landed somewhere mildly

isolated, Greasy Grove. A few other players had the same idea as me. But this time, I landed at

a house loaded with loot. I got protective shields, an assault rifle, a shotgun, and the gem of my

inventory; a drum gun (it was basically a tommy gun, the gun gangsters used back in the 20s).

Once I had my kit, I left my house. I sought out an enemy, the only other survivor of the carnage

that had happened while I was busy collecting my arsenal. I ran straight for them, firing my

weapons, stripping their health away until their soul was lost and they were dead. My adrenaline

pumped after the fight, so I traveled around the map, defeating a few more enemies until it was

me versus one other. This was the true test of my journey. Should I win, I would feel a euphoria

in the presence of my accomplishment. Should I lose, I would feel cheated to have been bested

by my opponent. The two of us engaged on the battlefield. We took turns firing volleys of

bullets back and forth, both of us taking damage. I decided I was done with us showering each

other from afar, so I pushed up to confront my opponent head on. I lasered bullets from my

drum gun. The bullets tore through his shield. I knew the player was weak, so I chased my

adversary as they ran away in a panic. But those efforts to run were futile, much like mine in the
previous match. I shot my shotgun, clearing the last obstacle from the game. It was over. I had

won. Joy flooded me as I cheered. I was ecstatic, yet calm. All my worries and stress were

gone in that moment and only triumph remained. It seemed like video games had brought me

peace, and happiness, denying any negativity. My day after that was bliss, and it was all thanks

to having a simple yet fun time relaxing with video games.

I sat back in my chair and thought to myself a moment. My feelings almost go the better

of me. Anger was filling inside me the game before my victory, enough to think of doing

something crazy, but I didn’t let it take me over because it was only a video game; a make

believe world of pixels and coding. The point of getting angry over it was absent. Video games

were meant purely for the fun of the user, not to induce negative emotion. It is best to ignore

those feelings and embrace every ounce of the positive ones like joy, courage, and confidence to

name a few. Throughout my years of gaming, I have learned something valuable from this

experience. It taught me that no matter how enraged I get, there is no way video games could

make me any bit violent since the world is figurative, and any pained pathos are mirages created

by my exploratory imagination. Gaming is a way to escape, to forget all that is wrong in the

world; it is a light that shines in a dark cave, giving that cavity a fugacious light that I long to

hold onto until reality bites.