Let's Play: Will Not Let Me Go (Finished)

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

This game isn’t the kind of game that usually lends itself to a Let’s Play, since it’s both short and choice-based. But, it placed higher than any other short game and any Twine game on this poll: The most famous games you've never played - an IFDB Poll

My guess is that some people who voted for it are too sad about the subject matter to play it, but for everyone else, I’ll try this playthrough (which will mostly be me posting text from the game. There are some choices, and feel free to chime in, but this is more of a Let Me Play than Let Us Play.) And it might help people who were avoiding it see if the material is as bad (or good) as they feared.

The game opens with animated text on a grey screen:

The text reads:

You can leave off reading the story and then come back to it later.

The story will remember where you were

It then fades to the single word:

Remember.

We then transition to the first main passage:

Funerals are a kind of spectator sport for you these days. You come to see who’ll show up, [what…]

The brackets around the word ‘what…’ pulse in and out, inviting us to click. The game frequently has starts and stops of thinking, where the character tries to recall what to say.

Clicking on ‘what…’ keeps the former text but expands on it, adding:

what well-meaning but thoughtless words they’ll say, that sort of thing.

This one’s in the late afternoon instead of the heat of the day, thank goodness. There aren’t any clouds between you and the sun, just red red rays coloring everyone crimson.

It’s the usual graveside arrangement, with one of those green tents over the open grave and the casket on a

This time, no brackets pulse around ‘the casket on a’. Clicking on it expands; I’ll include the last word or two before expansion to make things clearer.

on a—some kind of contraption that’ll drop it into the hole once the platitudes are done and no one’s looking any more. The funeral home workers scattered cheap plastic seats around the grave like birdseed. At least you got one. There’s not much fun about being old, but they do give you a chair when you damn well need one.

Being so close to the front, down with the mourners, means you’re also close enough to the preacher to hear him over the tent fringe snapping in the wind.

We have two options here: mourners and tent fringe. While I usually won’t pause for every choice, I will here in case anyone feels like commenting. In general, the game has a progress bar at the top that updates as you go. My plan is to make on post per progress update.

Choices do matter, in the sense that you get different text and can’t go back. I don’t believe they influence the longterm behavior of the game.

[pieartsy (Aster F)]

i’ve played this before and it’s devastating

i’ll spoil in case other people who havent want to make their own choice

mourners

[SomeOne2 (Max Fog)]

I know this is a Let’s Play but I’m commenting just to say I’ll be reading this entire thing from the background. It’s an incredible game.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

Thanks for the feedback!

Picking mourners, we get a new page of text:

It’s the usual mix of folks. Some are here because they loved the person who died. Some, like you, are here because they’re expected to be. Many are dressed in their everyday clothes, which annoys you, just a bit. If you’re going to a funeral, dress up. The dead person won’t know, but you will, and showing respect’s the right thing to do. There aren’t enough people in suits or dresses besides you and the preacher.

Our character is a bit more old-fashioned then most, and is sat at the front of a funeral. But they don’t seem really invested in what’s going on.

The preacher means well, which is part of his job description when you get down to it. Mean well; do well. Visit the orphans and the widows. Most else is noise and distraction. He’s got on a dark and somber smock

Clicking ‘smock’ corrects the word and appends more:

somber suit, the kind that’s meant to show he’s there on God’s business.

He gestures with his worn, dog-eared Bible and flips it open one-handed. You wonder if he practices the move in front of a mirror. “I’ll be reading from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth,” he says all serious-like.

“Behold, I shew you a mystery;
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump:
for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

“So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

That last part is indented:

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump:
for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

“So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

“O death, where is thy sting?

“O grave, where is thy victory?

“The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We shift to a new page. So far we’ve been hearing pretty standard sincere Christian burial services; I’ve heard many of these verses in my own family services and was touched by them.

It’s not a bad Bible passage. It didn’t launch the preacher into a bunch of hellfire and damnation talk, thankfully. You’ve been to one funeral that went that way. It was like being strapped in a dentist’s chair, and the only thing that made it tolerable was that you didn’t pay for the experience.

Besides, the verses must’ve done their job because the man next to you is working hard not to tear up, though he’s not succeeding. He glances over and sees you staring, so you look down and fiddle with the funeral program they handed you.

We don’t know many people here. I looked at the man the last time I played, but this time I’ll check the program.

A Thomas Kinkade painting glows on the front. The inside has the dead person’s name, Virginia, along with a terrible poem and “With Our Deepest Sympathy” above the funeral home’s name. Because nothing conveys deep sympathy like a small fold of paper printed by the thousands.

It’s also full of those infuriating…

Interesting. I got that same text last time, but only after seeing a description of the man. So some choices give more text than others.

Clicking ‘infuriating’, we get:

those infuriating euphemisms like “Entered Into Rest” instead of “Died” and “Interment” instead of “Burial.” It’s another piece of the junk that gathers around a dead person. Maybe the man next to you finds it comforting.

Ah, I see, it loops around.

He’s sandy-haired, like you used to be before you went gray and then white. He’s in a suit, same as you and the pastor, and his face is completely still in a way that shows how hard he’s working not to cry. He keeps twisting his wedding ring around and around his finger. He must have known her well.

“Let’s close with one of Virginia’s favorite hymns, ‘It Is Well With My Soul’,” the preacher says. “If you’ll join me.”

It’s one of your favorite hymns, too. The hymnist wrote it after a ship sunk with his four daughters on board, so it fits the occasion. “When peace like a river attendeth my way,” you sing out, your baritone voice rougher than it used to be. It’s been…

Strange coincidence, the two of us having the same favorite hymns.

It’s been—well, years since you sang in the church choir, and you still miss it.

Then the graveside service is over. The man next to you stands up and rests his hand on the casket, gently, as if to convince himself that it’s there. “Love you, mom,” he whispers. The woman beside him leans on the casket, letting it keep her upright. The wind lifts her fine gold hair into a halo, and the sun’s red light catches her tears. Embarassed by the raw emotion, you put your hand on your four-legged cane and stand. The sandy-haired man takes your other arm, surprising you.

“C’mon, dad,” he says. “Let’s get you to the car.”

We learn a few things here: that the man next to us is our son, that the woman who died is our wife, and that we don’t remember anything.

We then get a title drop:

I’ll pause for the next scene. In the meantime, I found an icon in the lower right that lets you switch color schemes, which is nice.

[jwalrus (Adam Biltcliffe)]

@mathbrush

“C’mon, dad,” he says. “Let’s get you to the car.”

Oh, heck, I knew exactly what the premise of this game is and I still was not ready for this.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

We start off the game proper with new art:

The links are brown now (or blue if we change style).

“That’s one large order of hashbrowns, scattered, smothered, covered; two eggs, scrambled, side of grits; and an oatmeal with fruit and a glass of OJ.” Gerald grimaces across from you. Ever since that scare last year he’s watched what he eats and been jealous watching what other people eat. You like the man, but you won’t give up hashbrowns with cheese and onions for him. “I’ll be back, top off those coffees for you.”

As the waitress walks away, Dick leans back, clearly pleased with himself. “Finished the kitchen yesterday.”

“About time,” you say with a grin. “You’ve been at that remodel for…

(as a reminder, sometimes clicking expands text, as happens here)

for…well, I can’t even remember how long.” You pretend it’s a joke, but you really can’t remember. There’s a blank spot there.

We get our first amount of progress on the progress bar now:

“Hasn’t been that long.” Dick shrugs. “Besides, I’ve got the time. I’d been putting the remodel off, but once I retired I left my excuses at the office.” Dick loves working with his hands. He’s tackling all of the projects he’d talked about for years and years but not done. He updates you weekly on his progress.

Dick mentioning retirement reminds you that you should tell Dick and Gerald about your own upcoming retirement, but then you hesitate.

I think I’ll choose the options that can get us in the most trouble: in this case, retirement.

“Speaking of, I’m retiring at the end of this month.”

“Good for you, Fred,” Gerald says. “Say, if you get bored, you can join up with Dick and work on his house.”

“Thanks, no. I’ve got plenty to do my own self.” The waitress stops by and tops off your coffee. You wrap your hands around the mug and let the heat seep into your fingers before you doctor the coffee. “I’ve been down to three days a week for a while now, and I thought, well, why not go down to no days a week.” What you don’t say is that you’re far slower than you used to be, far less able to make columns of numbers add up. Problems keeping track of dollars isn’t a trait people want in their accountant.

“You’ll love it,” Dick says, and he nods once. “Really love it.” And you will. Probably.

Somehow I had expected that we retired a long time ago and they’re humoring us, but now I’m not sure.

“So what’s next on your list, Dick?” you ask. You take a sip of coffee while it’s still warm.

“Can’t decide between the guest bathroom or Eugene’s old room.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to burn your house down and start again?” Gerald asks.

“Heh. Not really,” Dick replies.

“Besides,” you say, “you’d be a terrible arsonist. You’d take forever pouring the gas just so around the house to make it burn the way you’d want it to.” It’s the engineer in Dick. Some people measure twice and cut once. He thinks about the best way to measure, measures twice, re-thinks how he’s measuring, measures three more times, and only then does he maybe cut once.

There’s a lull in the conversation, the kind of hole that tends to get filled in with talk of sports or weather.

I’ll choose sports. (Oops, misclicked. Guess it’s weather)

“So how ‘bout the weather,” you say.

“Hot,” Dick says with a shrug. “Not much else to say. You following the news about the plane that exploded?”

“Shot down,” Gerald says definitively.

“They say something exploded in it,” says Dick.

“Right. A missile. A terrorist missile exploded in it.”

“Who’d want to shoot down a plane?” you ask.

“Terrorists,” Gerald says. When he gets all certain like this, he can be a right pain. “It’s a terrorist thing. Probably linked to the Olympic bombing.”

Dick shakes his head and frowns. “I thought they had a suspect. A security guard.”

“Jewell!” you say, louder than you meant to. The name popped out of your mouth, like it had been floating around in your brain where you couldn’t feel it, waiting for a connection to hook it and drag it out of you.

Gerald isn’t having it. “Two big events, nearly back to back? It’s got to be a terrorist thing.”

Huh, I wonder what prompted us to say ‘Jewell’. The singer?

“You’re awful hung up on terrorists, Gerald,” says Dick.

“Eye witnesses saw the plane get shot down. There was a streak of light. Multiple people saw it.”

“Multiple people have seen sun dogs and called ‘em UFOs. Doesn’t make them right.” Sometimes Dick’s natural skepticism annoys you, but right now you’re enjoying him doubt Gerald’s theories.

Gerald gives up arguing the point. “I saw the news reporters trying to talk to the dead peoples’ relatives at the Day’s Inn,” he says.

“Ramada Inn, actually,” Dick corrects him.

“Right, Ramada Inn.” Gerald turns to you. “See? You’re not the only one who forgets things.”

There’s a familiar and sudden flush of anger, like your whole body’s been set alight. Your ears turn hot and your hands tremble, more than they normally do. Dr. Johns warned you you’d have a looser grip on your emotions, but you’d discovered that already. You should let this go, though it’s so hard not to lash out.

‘Let this go’ shares words with the title, but I’ll pick lash out:

“> No, but I am the only one who’s literally losing his mind. You think forgetting what hotel chain some grieving relatives are staying in a hundred miles away is like what I’ve got? Do you?”

Dick intervenes. “It’s closer to fifteen hundred miles away.”

“A hundred, a thousand, a million—I don’t care! It’s a minor thing that doesn’t impact his life at all. Of course he’d forget it!”

Gerald holds his hands out in front of him like he might have to ward you off. “Hey, hey, easy there.”

“You take it easy.” You keep your voice down as best you can, but your best isn’t all that good right now. “If I’d lost my foot in Korea, would you say, ‘I know how you feel, I twisted my ankle once’?”

Dick and Gerald don’t reply. You realize how far forward you’re leaning. You sit back and take a deep breath.

The waitress arrives at the table, arms loaded down with plates. “Hope you’re hungry,” she says. “Eggs for you, here’s your oatmeal,” making Gerald grimace again, “and here’s hashbrowns. All set?” You all nod yes. “Holler if you need anything else.”

You dump ketchup on your plate, fork up some hashbrowns, and dip them in the ketchup. The potatoes are piping hot and crispy around the edges, with onion bits frozen in a sea of melted American cheese. You used to be more careful about food, but why bother now? It’s not your ticker that will take you out. You can always claim you forgot Dr. Johns’ advice about your diet.

You start to drink your coffee when you realize that you can’t remember if you put sugar in it already or not.

Last time I played, I picked ‘put sugar in it’, and it turned out I hadn’t, so I had bitter coffee. This time I pick ‘not’.

You grab a sugar packet and tear it open with a quiet rip. You pour it in and stir the coffee around for a bit. But the first mouthful of coffee is sickly sweet, far too sweet to drink. Fifty-fifty chance, so of course you guess wrong.

Dick pauses, a spoon full of grits halfway to his mouth. “The coffee off?”

“Must’ve been an old pot.”

“You look like you just bit into a mad cow.”

“No,” Gerald objects. “We’re not talking about mad cow disease while we’re eating. We can talk about the Wal-Mart greeter job Fred’ll have to get when he’s fed up with being retired and doing nothing.”

I’ll pick ‘mad cow disease’:

“Do you think we’ll get mad cows here?” you ask.

“No. This isn’t fit for mealtime—”

“Doubtful,” Dick says. “We don’t grind up animals for feed as much as the Brits do.”

“I don’t think we—”

“It’s near about put me off hamburgers, I can tell you that,” you say, shoving your coffee cup aside. Better you switch to water anyway. It’ll keep you from being all jittery by late morning.

Gerald sighs and gives up trying to change the subject. “At least I’m safe. I can’t eat beef any more, so no mad cows for me.”

“Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.” Trust Dick to know the full term for it. “The cows eat brains and then their brains rot away…” Dick trails off. He carefully doesn’t look at you.

“Maybe that’s my problem,” you say. “I ate bad beef. Guess the docs were right and I should’ve switched to chicken years ago.” Gerald looks taken aback at your joke, and you feel bad for blowing up at him like you did.

A stray thought makes you say, “Where’s Tom been hiding himself? It’s been ages since he came to breakfast with us.” You, Dick and Tom have run around together for a long time. You met when the three of you worked for the same small company, you as the accountant and business manager, Dick as an engineer and Tom as a sales rep. You took to eating lunch together whenever Tom wasn’t off on a sales call. The receptionist—what is her name?

what is her name? Ruth?

what is her name? Ruth?—anyway, she saw you three come down the hall together and called out, “If it isn’t Tom, Dick, and Freddy.”

You like Gerald, but Tom and Dick are two of your oldest friends.

The realization that no one answered your question brings you out of your reverie. Dick and Gerald are studying their food like they’re trying to read entrails. “What?”

“The last time he was here, the two of you really got into it, hammer and tongs.” Gerald won’t meet your eye. “Remember how—” He clears his throat. “Well. You told him you and he were through.”

Wait, that can’t—

You wouldn’t—

He was one of your best friends.

He is one of your best friends. You can’t believe you’d want him gone. You want to deny it happened, but Gerald wouldn’t lie. Not about this.

[note that ‘is’ is in actual bold, not a hyperlink]

I choose ‘deny it happened’:

“I think you’ve mixed me up with some other Fred.” You laugh, but no one else does.

“Fred,” Dick says, and when you see his expression you feel the pit open up, the one that’s always waiting these days, swallowing moments and memories and now, evidently, whole people. “He felt it best not to push you. Said you needed some time and figured you’d call when you were ready to see him again.”

“When?” you ask.

“When what?”

“When did we fight?”

“Late last year.” Dick’s sigh is heavy, like twenty years of friendship just settled on his shoulders, a yoke that used to be far lighter. “Not too long after you told us.”

You should call him. But you can’t. You could ask Dick to talk to Tom for you, even though hiding behind Dick doesn’t sit well with you.

I’m going to choose to call him.

“I’ll call.” You pull the small set of folded index cards from your back pocket and a pen from your front one. The cards are a poor substutite for a working brain, but they’re better than nothing. You carefully write, “Call Tom. You argued. Ask him what about.” Your handwriting’s gone spidery over the last year, but its webbing helps hold you together. “We’ll hash it out like we always have.”

“Good.” Dick’s nod feels like absolution.

Some time during your conversation the waitress slipped the bill on the table. You start to fish your wallet out but Gerald puts his hand on your arm. “My turn to pay.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” you say, which wins a small smile from Gerald. He’ll be okay. He counts out several bills and some loose change and puts it all on top of the bill.

When you get up and start for the door, your gait’s a little unsteady. Has been for months now. Poor circulation or nerves or something. Keeping up with your health’s near a full-time job. Another good reason to retire. As you pass two women in a booth, one of them mutters to the other, “That drunk was in here last week, too.”

Guess it’s time to do like Dr. Johns said and get that cane.

I didn’t know before that dementia could affect the way people walk, but it makes sense from people I’ve seen in real life.

There is a pause, the screen darkens, and the progress bar moves. More next post.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

New section, new colors.

You snore yourself awake, your eyes popping open. Your mouth’s terrible, like…

terrible, like coffee left out for days. You take stock. Were you asleep for the night?

for the night? Were you reading?

Were you reading? Watching TV?

Were you reading? Watching TV?

It’s dim but not dark. Must be getting on in the afternoon, or maybe it’s morning. You’re upright in the**…the stuffed thing**.

You’re upright in the chair. Can’t have been night. You were probably watching TV. You feel to either side of you for the clicker. You don’t find it, but you do find a book.

We’re really struggling here. This one page has 5 clicks just to reach this point. It doesn’t get much better:

You blink, eyes heavy. There’s something missing.

There’s something missing. Round, goes on your face.

Round, goes on your face.

Glasses, right.

They’re not in your sweater pocket, or on a chain around your neck. Did you take them off to sleep? They’re around here somewhere.

This was all still the first page. We now open up into an exploration section.

You lever yourself upright with your cane. It’s something you used to hate, that cane, but now it’d be like hating your legs. Come to think of it, you do hate your legs, far more than you hate the cane. The cane doesn’t fold up unexpectedly on you.

Your living room is quiet this morning. Your chair is over in one corner near the TV and a TV tray. There’s a big seasonal sofa opposite the chair, with a pile of papers lying on it. Photos decorate the wall above the sofa.

Maybe you left your glasses in your bedroom.

Having seen my son (who has a congenital weakness) slowly lose the ability to walk, which was hard even though we knew the course it would take before birth, I can imagine how hard it would be to slowly find your legs giving out on you unexpectedly and losing permanent function. I’ve seen several loved ones get dementia, but the last time I played this I hadn’t seen someone with the loss of leg function.

I’m going to choose reverse order, so bedroom.

You make your slow way into the hall towards your bedroom. More photos line the hallway in haphazard rows. Doors lead to the kids’ old bedrooms and your own.

The hallway behind you goes back to to the living room.

I hope we didn’t miss anything important by skipping the photos, but I suspect the game is designed to be impossible to miss important points.

As a completely mood-killing side point and at the risk of self-focus, this brings me back to 2017. I had semi-retired from IF to work more on real-life issues, but I had an inspiration for ‘the greatest IF of all time’. I was consumed with it, and thought that I could either win, or, like I did in 2016, place in the top 3, and be like Eric Eve where eventually I could place top 3 in IFComp 3 times.

I ended up placing 5th, which was pretty disheartening at the time. Since then, though, I’ve looked back and the games above me were magnificent. Eat Me and Wizard Sniffer are two of the greatest of all time, and Harmonia set the standard for UI design and beautiful layouts.

But I never really think of Will Not Let Me Go as an amazing classic when I think back on that comp. But replaying it, it’s clear why it did so well, despite its niche topic and mostly-linear story. It has a wonderful depth of emotion, characterization, and pathos.

Anyway, back to the game. I’ll check the children’s rooms, that ought to be full of some kind of suffering (I’ve been rewatching Madoka Magica in between playing this, and the themes feel similar).

One of the bedroom doors is stuck, or maybe locked. You should go find the key and the can of…

the can of WD-40 to fix it.

No, not now. Right now you’re hunting your glasses.

If you repeat that to yourself enough you’ll remember to keep looking for them.

Clicking that goes back to the earlier choice between kid’s bedroom and my own. I choose my own.

You’re surprised to see a man in your bedroom, on the other side of the white bed

Disturbing (the lack of period is intentional, too)

You’re surprised to see a man in your bedroom, on the other side of the white sink. Without your glasses you don’t recognize him, but surely you’d have heard a stranger break in. It must be your son, Michael. Or was Dick coming by today?

It might be better not to guess, and figure it out as you go along.

That’s just very sad. I’ll pick ‘son’.

“Michael?”

“Dad,” he says. His smile reminds you of your own.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Checking up on you.” In case you’ve done something stupid, he means, but he doesn’t say it. There’s so much he doesn’t say these days, volumes of unsaid things. “Just get up from a nap?”

Standing is hell on your feet, and your slippers don’t grip like they should on the tile floor, so you risk sitting on the lid of the toilet opposite Michael. You ignore the smell of Lysol cleaner and say, “I was reading.”

I thought it would be ourselves in a mirror, so this is shocking to me. Also, strange that our room is actually a bathroom. Are we in a different house altogether, was it remodeled, or are we disoriented?

The mention of reading jogs your memory about your glasses. That’s when you realize where they must be.

“Give them back,” you say. “I know you took them.”

“Took what?”

“You’ve got my glasses.” You’re getting a good mad on as you think about what Michael’s been doing. “You’ve been sneaking in here, taking my things. Hiding them from me!”

“Have you looked in your bedroom? I bet you left them on the nightstand.”

“You’re trying to trick me!” You stand as quickly as you can, which isn’t that quick. Those NASA guys down in Houston didn’t have as much trouble standing the…

standing the Saturn rocket up.

“Go look and see.”

“They’d better be there,” you growl, and stalk out.

Is the anger a common thing with dementia? I’ve mostly seen women with dementia, and they both acted like children, getting lost and crying or throwing a brush at people; I didn’t see as many angry outbursts, but I was not the primary caretaker in either instance.

We’re back to the choice between kid’s bedroom, ours, or living room. I don’t want to see Michael again, so i’ll go to living room.

It’s the same options as before. I’ll go to the Kitchen. I can’t check the photos now. A bug? It sill allows me to see bedroom. Could be intentional. I’ll choose Kitchen.

A refrigerator and cabinets take up one kitchen wall. The gas stove is on the other wall next to the window.

The kitchen table is bare, which must be Virginia’s doing. You tend to leave things in piles, like the small drift of papers on a drop-leaf table. You’ve dragged a kitchen chair over by the doorway to the living room.

Choosing refrigerator:

The food inside the refrigerator is stored haphazardly, as if there was a small explosion in a…

explosion in a Piggly Wiggly.

You’re a bit hungry. A small sandwich wouldn’t ruin your dinner, surely.

wouldn’t ruin your dinner, surely.

Then the blurry label on a milk jug reminds you that you’re looking for your glasses.

Back to the main kitchen area. Choosing ‘cabinets’ gives me:

The cabinets have glasses in them, but they’re not the kind you’re looking for.

Then we’re back, and I head back to the livingroom. Only option I haven’t tried is sofa (though maybe I can go to my real bedroom now?)

Choosing sofa:

You rest your weight on your cane and lower yourself, slowly, slowly, to the sofa. There aren’t any glasses in between the…

between the cushions. They could be under the sofa, maybe.

under the sofa, maybe.

You could get on the floor. Gravity would help you get down just fine, but then you’d be stuck there. “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”

Who told you that?

Who told you that?

Oh, the woman on the TV.

No, you and the floor aren’t friends any more. Best hope your glasses are elsewhere.

We go back to the living room but with some added text:

You carefully get to your feet. Going from sitting to standing makes you think of Thanksgiving parade floats, like you need a team of people guiding you and keeping you aloft.

Your living room is quiet this afternoon. Your chair is over in one corner near the TV and a TV tray. There’s a big seasonal sofa opposite the chair, with a pile of papers lying on it. Photos decorate the wall above the sofa.

Maybe you left your glasses in the kitchen or in your bedroom.

Bedroom it is, then.

I go back to ‘your own’, and this time it’s not a bathroom:

The covers are rumpled from your fitful night of sleep. You’ll have to make the bed after you find your glasses. Virginia hates sleeping in an unmade bed. The nightstand next to the bed has a couple of drawers in it where your glasses might be hiding.

There are still more photos hanging above your dresser. Virginia loves having them around. “It keeps our family with us in spirit,” she likes to say. One time after she said that, you told her that you could always stuff your parents after they died and mount them in the living room. “Our house’ll be a cross between Madame Tussauds and a mausoleum.” She hit you, gently, and laughed.

He said nightstand, so I’ll check there:

The top drawer sticks a little when you open it, so you give it a harder tug, and almost lose your balance. Finding your balance again is thankfully easier than finding your glasses has been so far.

The drawers are full of stuff you’ve collected over the years, the destitute

over the years, the detritus that always ends up in nightstand drawers, but no glasses.

I’ll try the covers:

You fold the comforter further back from your side of the bed, and then the…

and then the quilt, and then the striped bedsheet. No sign of your glasses. To make sure, you reverse the process, pulling bedsheet, quilt, and then comforter back into place. It’s not quite making the bed, but it’s better than nothing.

Back to the bedroom, with a truncated description:

The covers are rumpled from your fitful night of sleep. You’ll have to make the bed after you find your glasses. Virginia hates sleeping in an unmade bed.

There are still more photos hanging above your dresser next to the hallway door.

This is harrowing. A couple times I tried to speedrun by going where I thought the answer is, but the game seems intentionally to be forcing me to feel lost and confused.

I head back to the living room. Only options are kitchen or bedroom. I choose kitchen.

A refrigerator and cabinets take up one kitchen wall. The gas stove is on the other wall next to the window. These days you leave the stove alone, and your eyebrows are the better for it.

The kitchen table is bare, which must be Virginia’s doing. You tend to leave things in piles, like the small drift of papers on a drop-leaf table next to the door to the carport.

Outside? Fred, this is not good.

You’re by the mailbox, envelopes in hand.

Geez. (I didn’t skip anything).

Wait, were you mailing these? Or is this today’s mail?

I assume it’s today’s mail, but let’s pretend I’m mailing them.

The flag’s down and the mailbox is closed. It’s empty when you open it, so that’s no help.

Maybe you should go inside.

You start back up the driveway when you realize this isn’t your house. It’s someone else’s.

Oh crap.

You must have wandered away. Every time it happens you tell yourself you’ll know better next time, but you don’t.

You look around for your house. One up the hill looks like yours, though it’s hard to tell since you don’t have your glasses. But then again, there’s one down the street that could be it.

Both are bad. Let’s go downhill.

You make your way down the street, cane in one hand, mail in the other. Virginia will know what to do with the mail. Your slippers push tiny mounds of snow in front of you, which makes you think to check for a trail behind you, one that you could reverse and follow to your house, but you can’t tell your tracks from the ones left by other people.

When you get to the house you thought was yours, you see you were wrong.

The snow starts to fall again, cold on your cheeks and nose. Impulsively you stick out your tongue and catch a flake, like you always do. Michael, your son, loved catching snowflakes with you. You’d make snow angels and throw snowballs at him and your daughter Rebecca until the cold and wet drove you all inside.

Shouting. Someone’s shouting. Further down the street, someone runs towards you, waving her arms. “Virginia!” you call out as the woman reaches you.

as the woman reaches you.

“No, it’s me,” the woman says. “Rebecca.”

“Rebecca.”

“Oh!” you say in surprise. “That’s my daughter’s name, too!”

“I know, daddy.” She takes the mail from you and links her arm through yours. “We should go back inside.”

Makes me think of this old video about a woman at a busstop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuRHHmXbzYs

As the two of you head back through the snow, a thought occurs to you. “Can you not tell Virginia I went walkabout? She worries more than is good for her.”

The woman doesn’t say anything for a moment. You start to ask her again when she says, “I won’t.” She sounds so sad. “I promise she can’t find out.”

Another image, progress bar change, and color change, but that’s for next time. We’re about 1/3 of the way through.

[lpsmith (Lucian Smith)]

@mathbrush

I thought it would be ourselves in a mirror, so this is shocking to me. Also, strange that our room is actually a bathroom. Are we in a different house altogether, was it remodeled, or are we disoriented?

I remember being very confused by this when I originally played it, and I think I didn’t realize at the time the extent to which you-the-player being confused is on purpose, to mirror Fred’s confusion. Here, I think the deal is that you went into the bathroom instead of the bedroom on accident, and are now indeed just looking at yourself in a mirror. You’re so confused by this that you imagine it must be another person. It implies a level of hallucination that goes well beyond what we’ve seen so far, which is why I think I was so confused at the time.

Watching this playthrough, I also am wondering if the anger issues Fred is having might have a societal cause as well as a physiological one. For men of that generation in particular, anger was the only socially acceptable emotion to have. After decades of that, it’s not surprising that in difficult times, and as your filters wear away, you’d turn to the one emotion you have real experience with, that you kind of know how it works.

[pieartsy (Aster F)]

@mathbrush

Is the anger a common thing with dementia?

Yes.

Aggression & Anger | Alzheimer's Association

very well health article that isnt embedding

[jwalrus (Adam Biltcliffe)]

Are we seeing this out of order? When we went from the prologue (which feels like it’s just about as bad as things could be) to talking to Dick and Gerald (where we seem to be coping a lot better), I figured that the prologue was a flash-forward to how things will end and the rest of the game was going to be working up to that point. But this most recent scene reads more like it’s after Virginia’s death?

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

That actually makes a lot of sense @lpsmith, and I think that ambiguity is part of what’s most unsettling in the game.

Thanks for the links @pieartsy !

@jwalrus I saw your comment after reading and writing a bunch but I had similar thoughts as you.

New section:

The Sundays when your church does the Lord’s Supper are great. The hymns you sing are better, the sermon’s far shorter, and you get a small snack. You told that to Virginia one time and a deacon overheard it. “I don’t think you should make fun of a sacred observance.”

“I figure if He’s big enough to make the world, He’s big enough to deal with my jokes,” you said. The deacon huffed off like a steam train. Maybe he had to go swap out the stick up his ass.

“Let us stand now and sing hymn number 372, ‘According To Thy Gracious Word’.” The music minister gestures like he’s opening a window. You rise along with the other choir members, robes rustling.

Then you realize you stood up without your hymnal. You’ll have to hope you remember the words.

(each of the following lines, when clicked, displays the next line, all on one page)

According to Thy gracious Word
In (?) humility,
This I will I do, my (something) Lord:
I will remember Thee.

Gethsemane The body given (tum te tum)
My bread (hm hm hm) be:

You give up and only pretend to sing the rest of the hymn.

The deacons gather with Pastor Mark to distribute tiny squares of unleavened bread on silver platters. When a platter reaches you, you take one square and hold it in your palm. The bread gleams tooth-white. “This is my body, broken for you,” the pastor says. You chew the bread, which lodges itself between your teeth. Everyone spends a moment picking the bits of bread out with their tongue while trying not to be obvious about it.

The platter with the tiny cups is heavy, weighed down by the glass and liquid. It’s Welch’s grape juice, because everyone knows alcohol’s bad for you and you certainly can’t admit drinking it. As Tom always says, the difference between Baptists and Methodists is that the Methodists will say hello to each other in the liquor store. “This is my blood, poured out for you.” The juice washes away the rest of the bread, replacing it with an acid tang. Quiet clicks fill the sanctuary as people put their empty cups in the holders on the backs of the pews.

Huh, what kind of bread are they using? In my church today we had like a honey soft bread.

One final hymn and a prayer, and the service is over. A hum rises as people greet each other and make lunch plans. You normally go down into the sanctuary proper after singing, but you tire more easily these days. You might should head to the choir room, change out of your robe, and go find Virginia.

I choose choir room:

You lift your hymnal and music folder and file out of the choir loft with the other singers. A bunch of them head into the sanctuary, the defined rows becoming a turbulent mix, so you side-step the dawdlers and head for the choir room.

Plenty of your fellow choir members beat you to it. There are two entrances to the room, so people inevitably come in both and end up milling about like sheep without a shepherd. They clump together around the table where you return today’s anthem and the hangers where your choir robe goes.

I don’t have a strong preference, so I’ll pick hangers:

Choir robes go on numbered hangers. Hanger 17 belongs

Choir robes go on numbered hangers. Hanger 17 belonged to you.

It’s time to be done singing in the choir. Past time, really. You delayed the decision for as long as you could, but you can’t fight time, not and win. You’re more unsteady on your feet than you used to be, you can’t learn the anthems in time for the service, and your bedtime has crept early enough that you fall asleep most Wednesday nights during rehearsal.

It’ll be strange, sitting out in the pews with Virginia. You’ve not been out there since Rebecca and Michael were young enough to spend the service squirming like puppies. You’d sit on one side of them and Virginia on the other, bookending them so each had a parent to help them behave.

They grew up and moved into the youth group, which meant they sat in the youth pew down front, where they pretended to listen to Pastor Mark and parents kept eyes on them. You went back to the choir with Virginia’s blessing.

That was a long time ago, though.

You always have to do this little juggling act in the choir room where you take off your robe, remove your sports coat from hanger 17, put the robe and stole on the hanger, and shrug on your coat. Once that’s done, you pick up the folder with your sheet music to return it.

As you make your way through the other choir members, a hand falls on your shoulder. You recognize her when you turn around, which isn’t guaranteed these days. “Liz!” She’s the soprano who’s had to suffer you singing the baritone parts at the back of her head for years.

“Hey, Fred! I wanted to tell you, I’m sorry you won’t be singing with us any more.”

A lot of this reminds me of my family and me. My grandmother was the organist at my church and at one of our temples (used more rarely than churches and for individual ceremonies rather than group discussions). It was a real bummer to her when she had to stop a few years before her death. Similarly, my grandfather first ‘won over’ my grandma through his singing and we had lots of family group singing and instrument playing through the years, though his voice wore out. My dad has been in church choirs for a long time (auditioned for Tabernacle Choir at one point) and got me to join at a young age. I’ve always enjoyed singing church songs (at one time I thought of it as my favorite genre, though it’s still in top 3) but don’t do choir because I ruined my voice as a missionary singing until my throat hurt in NYC in the winter rain.

You had lunch on Monday with Yancy, the music minister, and told him you were done. Then, that Wednesday after rehearsal, you told the whole choir, though you don’t remember any of the details.

You figured you needed to tell them since word kept getting out. Some people were bound to get their back up if you didn’t tell them about your condition. Besides, once you started telling folks, you assured them they could tell others as well. Keeping a secret like that in church is like carrying water in a colander. So you talked to the choir as a group.

But Liz you told direct.

“You insisted that no one throw you a party,” Liz says.

“Was someone offering to throw me a party?”

“No, which is why you kept telling us not to hold one.” Liz looks like a stereotypical school librarian, stern and serious. When she smiles, though, the librarian vanishes and you see the warm, funny person she really is.

“That doesn’t sound like me. One last chance to eat your chocolate pecan pie? And I pass? I reckon I’m not in my right mind.”

I reckon I’m—” You stop yourself at the last second and instead say, “missing out.”

Oh, I was surprised Fred would openly say that, makes sense he backed out last second.

I’m somehow reminded of my great grandmother who lived with us in her 90s in a big house with lots of relatives. One of my cousins, a teen boy, was in a spare room, and great grandma came in in the middle of the night from the room down the hall and tried to get in bed with him (not in a sexual way, just sleepwalking). He woke up to a 90-yr old woman next to him and screamed. After she went back to her room with help from older people, he pushed a dresser up against the door so she couldn’t get in again.

“Crazy.” “Out of my mind.” “Loco.” “Insane.” “Idiot.”

Before, you’d never realized how often you said those words.

“Tell you what. I’ll bring one of my pies for you next Sunday.”

“Young lady, are you trying to butter me up?”

“The butter’s for the pie, Fred.” The corner of her eyes crinkle with mirth.

Tom sticks his head into the rapidly-emptying choir room and shouts, “Hey, Fred, get out here or we’ll pick the restaurant without you.”

“Looks like I’ve got to go,” you tell Liz. “But don’t forget that pie.”

“Not a chance.”

Tom, Virginia, and Tom’s wife Rachel are talking in the gathering area right outside the choir room. Tom takes one look at you and asks, “You taking your music with us to lunch?”

Okay, really confused about Virginia being here. Is it really our daughter, or a hallucination, or are our memories out of order?

Crap. “I—I’ve gotta—just hang on a sec.” You double-time it back into the choir room, clicking open your three-ring binder and fishing out the sheet music to the anthem you sang. You toss the anthem into the wire basket on the table where everyone else’s returned music is.

Yancy’s tidying up the room since the herd of choral sheep has headed off to find grass. He raises an eyebrow at you. “You’re more than welcome to take your music home and keep singing with us, you know.”

You wave your hand dismissively at Yancy, though it’s tempting. You shelve the binder in slot 17 in the bookcase and head back to Virginia and the others.

Rachel, Tom and Virginia have been waiting with varying degrees of patience. Tom keeps looking out the double doors to the parking lot.

“What’re you in the mood for?” Rachel asks. “Burgers? Soup and sandwich?”

Ah wait, isn’t Tom the guy we got angry with?

“Nah, let’s go to the Nile,” Tom says. It’s his favorite restaurant, so you end up going there a lot. You also end up going there a lot because Tom has a habit of ignoring what you want to do. It’s been a low-level but constant annoyance the whole time you’ve known him. Talking to him about it doesn’t do anybody any good. Tom denies it and gets indignant; you get even angrier.

You’ve been swallowing that anger for years.

You’ve been swallowing that anger for years. Maybe that’s why you say what you do:

“You sure you want to go there? You know they let blacks eat at the Nile now.”

Oh gosh, didn’t know Fred was racist. My family from that generation often were more racist, but not this overt; I had a great-aunt who told me that they had licorice candy as a child called N-word Toes, and it was just accepted. I had someone a generation above me say that Michelle Obama looked like a chimpanzee (which everyone in the room called out). On the other hand, they were all very supportive when my church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) removed its ban on the Priesthood for people of African descent, and everyone is supportive of my gay cousin’s black boyfriend, so it’s a mixed bag. Disappointed to see this in Fred though.

“You sure you want to go there? You know they let blacks eat at the Nile now.”

You didn’t set out to say it. It just popped out of your mouth.

“Fred!” Virginia whispers, horrified.

“Fred!” Virginia whispers, horrified.

You realize you didn’t say “blacks.”

Oh man, Fred, this is why you shouldn’t even think things like that. (I know that’s sermonizing but this is generally why I don’t like things like chat groups that talk bad about others behind their back; secret hatreds often become public hatreds).

This also might be a sign of the mental issues. I had a great uncle who was a nice guy his whole life, then got a brain tumor in his old age and ended up cheating on his spouse and being really sexually promiscuous and changing his personality a lot. She had to get a divorce.

You can’t un-say what you said, much as you’d like to. It’s hard to know what’s worse: saying things like that, or knowing you’ll likely say more things like that in the future, or knowing that sometimes you won’t remember at all.

You should apologize, but the words are lodged in your throat, stuck tight.

I doubt apologizing will even work, so I’ll go with ‘lodged’.

“The Nile’s fine, Tom,” you say. That’s almost an apology, right? Letting him have his way? “We’d better get there before the Methodists.”

Virginia shakes her head. “We’ll head home. There’s ham from last night I can reheat.”

You want to argue with her so badly, but the anger’s passed and left you tired. When it went, it took some vital spark of energy with it. “Home it is.”

“We’ll catch you next week, then,” Rachel says.

Virginia tells you, “I left my purse in the sanctuary. Go grab it for me and we can leave.”

Every time I have to go somewhere alone I’m terrified.

The sanctuary’s nearly empty now. Most people have braved the cold and gone to their cars. One couple—you think they were in your Sunday School class—are careful not to see you. That way they don’t have to talk to you.

There are too many folks who act like you’re contagious, like sitting next to you or talking to you would leach their brains away, too. You mostly shrug and work hard not to let it bother you.

Virginia’s purse is on her usual pew, tucked tight against the arm. It’s a white leather thing that’s more for decoration than for practicality.

When you straighten up after getting it, Pastor Mark’s appeared beside you.

“Yancy told me you’re stepping down from choir as of today.” The pastor’s handshake is firm, his hands calloused from the work he does around the community. “Sorry you won’t be singing, but now I’ll get to see you during service.”

With Samuel Mark for a name and wood-working for a hobby, Pastor Mark must’ve been destined to be a preacher. He’s been at Second Baptist for going on a decade now. He replaced a man who, it turns out, didn’t take kindly to things the church did like ordain women deacons. He’d tried to split the church, but he ended up being the one to split. Sam’s been a calming influence and done wonders for the church’s work around the city and elsewhere.

“You want I should make faces at you? Keep you on your toes?”

Sam’s laughter is a deep rumble, the sound of distant thunder. “The congregation does that plenty without you piling on.”

Yancy? Reminds me of Bez’s Yancy games.

In the following companionable pause, you say, “I’d best get back to Virginia. We’re headed home for lunch. Don’t want to leave her waiting.”

Sam nods. “You do that.” You move towards the door, but stop when Sam says, “Fred?”

“Yeah?”

“All us ministers are here for you, but we’re not gonna press. Not our way. Know we’ll only do what you’re comfortable with us doing, and remember you can call on us any time. Tell Virginia too, will you?”

Your eyes are wet, and you blink rapidly. Your emotions won’t be leashed any more, but you’ll be dipped if you’re going to cry in front of the pastor.

“I’ll let her know.”

Okay, this has to be a flashback, there’s no way literally even sees and interacts with Virginia and we still talk to Tom.

The screen darkens, but progress doesn’t change:

Perhaps the darkness of the screen represents us ‘sundowning’? Maybe I should check the original again.

Pamphlets on the table. Three of them. Pictures of empty, hollow rooms.

“This one looks nice.” The man touches one with his finger.

You nod and smile. Safest thing to do these days. “Is that your hotel?”

“No, dad, it could be your new home.”

“I’ve got a home,” you say.

“Dad, we’ve discussed this. Placement will give you more freedom—”

“I’ve got a home!” He doesn’t listen. He never listens now. “I’ve got a home! My home! This is my home!” You shove the pamphlets away, and keep shoving.

The man scootches away from your swinging arm. “We can talk about this later, dad, please, just calm down.”

“My home!” you say again. “My home! My home!”

Okay, new update on the progress bar, it’s light again, and Virginia’s back. More next time.

[jwalrus (Adam Biltcliffe)]

@mathbrush

Okay, this has to be a flashback, there’s no way literally even sees and interacts with Virginia and we still talk to Tom.

I think, rather than my original guess that the funeral was a flashforward to the endpoint of the story, the funeral is the midpoint, and we’re alternating scenes going backwards in time (maybe ending up with the onset/diagnosis of Fred’s condition) with going forwards.

Or maybe they’re just jumping around completely at random, but I can’t help but look for structure. If the pre-funeral scenes are going backwards, that probably means we’ll never find out anything more about Virginia’s death or about whatever happened with Tom.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

Each piece of art so far has had one color element in it that matches the hyperlink (unless you change the style with the style option).

irginia’s voice floats from the hallway. You stop reading, turning the paperback book upside down on the TV tray to mark your place. She must be feverish again.

The living room lamps are off this evening except for one that spills light onto your overstuffed chair and the TV tray next to it. Earlier, Virginia slept fitfully out here on the sofa, and the lights hurt her eyes. She’s had the flu for four days now, and she can’t find anywhere where she’s comfortable.

“Fred,” she calls again, her voice coming from the hallway to your bedroom.

We’re back in the past. Will we flash forward?

Rebecca and Michael and their families watch you from their pictures as you walk down the hall and into the bedroom. Virginia’s huddled under a pile of covers. She’s shaking so much that you can see her shivers even in the dim light from the hallway door.

“Hey, Nipper,” you say, “You should’ve rung the bell. You know how engrossed I get when I read.”

“F-f-f-forg-g-g-got it in the l-l-l-living r-r-r-r-room.” She gestures towards the empty nightstand.

“Fever’s back, huh?

‘These burning fits but meteors be,
Whose matter in thee is soon spent.’”

“R-r-r-really?” Virginia says. “Quoting D-d-d-donne at m-m-m-m-me?”

“Seemed appropriate.” There’s more to that stanza, but you can’t bring it to mind right now. You pull back the covers she’s clutched around her. When you rest the back of your hand against her forehead, the heat makes you jerk away. She’s worse than this afternoon. “Let’s get some Advil in you.”

“N-n-n-no, Tylenol this t-t-t-time.” She’s alternating pain relievers, sandbags against her fever’s rising tide.

“There’s some in the nightstand.” But there isn’t.

Seems we were way more solid back then.

“There’s some in the nightstand.” But there isn’t.

“K-k-k-kitchen,” she says, teeth clacking. Right. You’d moved the medicine in there when Virginia moved to the sofa.

“Hang tight,” you say. “I’ll go get it.”

The living room lamps are off this evening except for one that spills light onto your overstuffed chair and the TV tray next to it. Earlier, Virginia slept fitfully out here on the sofa, and the lights hurt her eyes. The opening to the kitchen is on one side of the room, and the hallway to your bedroom is on the other.

An exact mirror of our eyeglasses search from earlier.

I’ll follow orders and go to the kitchen.

Moonlight slants from the window over the sink, lighting the kitchen table where the Tylenol sits next to a glass. The wall opposite is taken up by a refrigerator and some cabinets. An opening leads back to the living room.

Taking the Tylenol:

The Tylenol rattles in the plastic bottle when you pick it up.

It disappears from the room description. This game does have a lot of physicality.

Moonlight slants from the window over the sink, lighting the kitchen table. The wall opposite is taken up by a refrigerator and some cabinets. An opening leads back to the living room.

It takes us back to living room. I’ll check the sofa while I’m here.

Virginia left a bunch of discarded tissues and empty cough drop wrappers on the sofa, along with the bell.

along with the bell.

You grab the bell to take to Virginia.

Only place left is the bedroom again.

In the bedroom, you put the bell on the nightstand next to Virginia and rattle the pill bottle at her. She’s dozing, small huffs of breath coming from between her lips, and the sound doesn’t wake her up.

You shake her gently. “Ginny. I’ve got the Tylenol.”

“W-w-w-water too?”

Crap. “I’ll get a glass.”

Back to the living room and kitchen:

Moonlight slants from the window over the sink, lighting the kitchen table and the glass sitting on it. The wall opposite is taken up by a refrigerator and some cabinets. An opening leads back to the living room.

This isn’t as frantic or confusing as before. These are simple fetch quests, with purpose, very different than the fog were in before.

You fill the glass halfway at the sink. Virginia’s hands shake so much when she has chills, she might soak the bed.

Moonlight slants from the window over the sink, lighting the kitchen table. The wall opposite is taken up by a refrigerator and some cabinets. An opening leads back to the living room.

Back to the bedroom:

You tiptoe into the bedroom, which is silly since you’ve got to wake her up anyway. “Virginia.” You shake her, making sure not to slop water onto her. “Here, drink.”

She takes a greedy gulp of the cool water and holds her hands out for the pills. You reach for the nightstand but there’s only the bell there. The Tylenol’s gone.

“I—hang on.”

That’s not good.

Back to the living room. The sofa is no longer linked.

Moonlight slants from the window over the sink, lighting the kitchen table. The wall opposite is taken up by a refrigerator and some cabinets. An opening leads back to the living room.

The Tylenol sits next to the sink. You must’ve accidentally carried it back in here when you came for the glass.

This version of us isn’t used to these kinds of problems.

The Tylenol rattles in the plastic bottle when you pick it up.

We go back to the living room and to the bedroom.

You double-check as you enter the bedroom. The glass of water’s still there.

You wake Ginny up a third time. “I’ve got it this time, promise.” Her throat works as she swallows two round white pills and chases them with another mouthful of water.

“Need anything else?”

“N-n-not to be s-s-s-sick.” The clack of her teeth makes you wince.

Once you’re convinced there’s nothing else she needs, you let her rest.

The living room lamps are off this evening except for one that spills light onto your overstuffed chair and the TV tray next to it.

You settle back into your chair with a sigh and pick up the paperback where you left it on the TV tray.

“The Sum of All Fears” is a comfort read. It’s a book you turn to when you want to be entertained but not work too hard. Clancy’s a bigger fan of military tech than you are—in your experience, hardware broke all too easily when you needed it—but his books have a momentum to them that’s too often kept you up way too late, reading just one more chapter.

We were reading that earlier in the blurry glasses scene.

But it’s a harder read this time around. You’re getting lost in paragraphs that you know aren’t difficult.

A violently-ringing bell yanks you out of the book.

The living room lamps are off this evening except for one that spills light onto your overstuffed chair and the TV tray next to it.

The bell rings again and again.

You enter the bedroom at a near-run. “What? What’s wrong?”

Virginia’s sitting up in bed, bell clutched in one hand. “Where’ve you been?” Her shivers are gone, burned away by fear.

“Reading in the living room. I just got caught up in my book, that’s all.”

“You said you’d bring me the tissues. I waited and waited, and then I got scared when you didn’t answer.”

We just have major gaps in our brain now. I wonder if that’s what’ll happen to me in my old age, like it did to my great grandma. It hasn’t happened to anyone since her, though; both my grandparents died with full knowledge of the world.

You blink. “Wait, I asked you if you needed anything, and you just said you didn’t want to be sick.”

“But after that, I asked you to get the tissues and you said you would.”

You don’t remember that part of the conversation. It’s vanished, swallowed up by some pit. It’s happening to you more and more lately. You figured age was catching up with you, but this…

but this…this is becoming dangerous.

“I’m really sorry I forgot. Too eager to get back to my book, I guess.” Virginia looks calmer, her breathing as normal as it’s going to be while she’s ill. “Let me get the tissues for you. And tell you what, I’ll call Rebecca and ask her to stay with us. Help us out while you’re sick.”

You’ll also get with Dr. Johns and have him tweak your meds. Fix whatever’s going on.

Virginia takes your hand and squeezes it. “Thanks,” she says, “that’d be good.”

Looks like at this point we could notice our decline and try to take action against it.

Another progress bar, remaining white (in the far past).

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

The doctor’s private office is as plush as you figured it might be. He’s got a solid desk and some comfy wingback chairs arranged in front of it. He must’ve bought nice furniture so at least you’re not uncomfortable while he’s giving you bad news.

“But Alzheimer’s doesn’t run in Fred’s family!” Virginia’s in a chair alongside you. She’s been your constant companion through the battery of tests you’ve taken and gauntlet of specialists you’ve run these last few months.

The doctor spreads his hands wide. “There’s a lot we don’t know about Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. I can’t tell you why sometimes it runs in families and other times doesn’t. I can’t tell you what causes Alzheimer’s.

“What I can tell you is how we’ll help you manage the disease.”

“Couldn’t it be a problem with his medication?” Virginia asks.

“We’ve adjusted his medications, and given your log, we’ve got a good handle on that aspect of Fred’s medical care.” Virginia’s been tracking what drugs and supplements you’ve taken in a journal, building a detailed history.

You jump in. “Aren’t you being a bit

You jump in. “Aren’t you being a bit—” You pick at the chair’s fabric while you hunt for the word you want. “I mean, this seems sudden.”

“Fred, we’ve given you a physical, a full neuro workup, a psych eval, and a battery of lab tests. Your score on the MMSE is below where it should be—”

“Jargon, young man,” Virginia snaps, sounding like the teacher she once was.

Seems like Virginia was pretty cool and an advocate for us. Shame we lost her.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the doctor says, reminding you of Rebecca when she’d get called on the carpet. “The point is, we’re confident in the dementia diagnosis.”

“I’m not confident, because I know I don’t have Alzheimer’s.” You look pointedly at the doctor. “I don’t. I’m sixty-three years old. This kind of forgetting’s to be expected.”

“Fred, could you name the last four presidents for me?”

You laugh. “What’ll that prove? That I don’t pay attention to current events?”

“You’re the only person I know who subscribes to The Wall Street Journal alongside the Morning News .” The doctor leans forward. “C’mon, Fred, who are the last four presidents?”

Hmm, that fear of exposing yourself/defensiveness.

“Fine.

“Fine. Reagan…

“Fine. Reagan…Nixon…

“Fine. Reagan…Nixon…Johnson…

“Fine. Reagan…Nixon…Johnson—” You fish around in your memory, but the fish aren’t biting.

I have to google this.

Huh, he missed Ford and Carter (is Carter the one with the hair and teeth?)

“Fine. Reagan…Nixon…Johnson—” You fish around in your memory, but the fish aren’t biting. “—and the one with the hair and teeth.”

From the look on Virginia’s face, you missed one or two. “I didn’t realize he’d gotten this bad,” she says. “I should have caught it earlier.” Her voice rises like a bird taking flight. “Why didn’t I catch it earlier?”

“He covers.” The doctor leans back and sighs. “He’s a personable man with a sharp mind. He knows how to pretend he’s following the conversation, or how to play off a lapse with a joke at his own expense.”

“Now, hang on a minute.” They’re talking about you like you’re not there, like you’ve faded away.

“What’s my name, Fred?”

How could he tell?

Dang.

Was it obvious?

You could bluff your way through it, though you’re tempted not to say anything.

I’m not fooling anyone, I’ll not say anything. But I do like how instead of saying ‘Will you do A, or B’ or ‘You could do A or B’, it phrases things in a more natural way while still providing choices through the links.

You cross your arms and stare at the doctor. If he’s going to be a jerk to you, well, you’ll be a jerk right back. After an uncomfortable pause, the doctor says, “It’s ‘Reggie Johns’. You can even read it off of the diploma.” He points his thumb over his shoulder at the framed piece of paper behind him. “Though I’d’ve known you read it instead of remembering it when you called me Reginald. You’ve been my patient for near on five years.”

“So I forgot your name!” You make a violent gesture, as if shooing away a fly. “I’ve never been great at names anyway! It’s not like—”

Dr. Johns doesn’t let you finish. “I’ve seen this go one of two ways in my patients, Fred.” He leans forward, steepling his fingers. “One, they deny it. Decide to pretend they don’t have dementia. They do all right for a while, but their lapses get more frequent and more severe, and they can’t cope with those lapses because they’re in denial. They hurt themselves, and worse, they hurt their spouse who has to do all the caretaking because they’ve chosen not to cooperate.

“Two, they accept it. They work with me and their spouse to mitigate the symptoms and to live a full life. ‘Cause they’re not dead, and they’ve still got good years ahead of them.

“I can’t tell you which way you’ll go. It’s up to you to make the choice.”

“We make the choice,” Virginia says, and there’s steel in her voice once more. She puts a hand atop yours and you know: there’s no choice.

And that’s true here; in the game, there’s no choice, just going forward.

“What comes next?” you say, and as soon as the words leave your lips, Virginia relaxes. You hadn’t realized how taut she was.

“You’ll have good days and bad,” the doctor says. “It’s like clouds drifting across the sun. You’ll have moments when you fall into shadow.” He slides a brochure across his desk as if he’s selling a timeshare to you and Virginia. “Give this a read. It’ll tell you what to expect.”

You take the brochure. It’s folded in thirds longways like a church program, only glossy and in color. “So this is ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting the Worst’?”

“Fred,” Virginia begins, but the doctor interrupts her. “No, jokes are good. You need to keep your sense of humor.”

“Do they have to be good jokes?” Virginia asks. Her smile is faint, and wavers like a mirage.

“That’s the spirit,” you tell her. She won’t look at you, though.

Is that the sundowning thing? Or is that an actual phenomenon about dementia getting worse at night?

All that’s left is to shake the doctor’s hand and schedule your next appointment with the receptionist.

You and Virginia walk hand in hand to the car. She’s quiet the whole way. Finally you can’t stand it any longer. “You know, that doctor was right mean.”

“I think he did well to lay things out so plainly for us.”

“That’s not what I meant.” You turn her to face you. “He never did tell me who the last four presidents are.”

And then Virginia is sobbing. You gather her up in a bear hug. Her body is so slight against yours that you fear she might blow away.

Another image change, and we move at least somewhat to the future, if the grey background is any hint.

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Man, this is well-written, but it really hurts to read. That’s the kind of joke my grandfather would have made about these things.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

You move your feet in time with the music, your heels occasionally banging into the legs of your chair. “Remember, while we march, keep that posture straight! You’re looking good, Ethel!” The inspector

The instructor is desperately cheerful. She force-feeds enthusiasm to all of you like you’re cows being fattened up for slaughter.

“You’re looking good, dad!” Michael sings out softly from behind you, mimicking the instructor. “Keep your heart rate and your spirits up, up, up!” He brings you to this day program and stays with you, which means he has to suffer through armchair aerobics as well.

“Let’s do some knee squeezes! Squeeze together; now relax! Squeeze together; now relax!” The exercises make you feel better, but that doesn’t make you like them. The day program doesn’t cost money, but you pay for it with your dignity. “Don’t forget to squeeze your…you know…your ‘cheeks’ as well.” She makes little quote marks with her fingers. You sigh.

“You’re slacking on those knee squeezes,” Michael says.

“Want to show me how they’re done?”

“Fred!” the instructor calls out. “Keep going! Don’t get distracted!” She glares at Michael. He lifts his hands and makes his “sorry” face. The instructor doesn’s buy it any more than Virginia did when Michael was a kid and tried to convince her he was sorry for misbehaving. “You’re not sorry you did it, you’re sorry you got caught!” Virginia would tell him. Michael would duck his head so you wouldn’t see his grin.

Michael scoots his chair closer. “Just watching you tires me out. I don’t know how you do it.”

“First, you get old and senile. Second, you get your no-account son to take you to a program where they strap you to a chair and torture you.”

“Fred!” The instructor’s cheerfulness is slipping. Behind every aerobics instructor’s smiling mask is the scowl of a born drill sergeant.

“Sorry, miss!” you reply. You realize you’re ducking your head and grinning like Michael used to do.

“Now let’s do some jumping jacks!” It’s like being back in Basic, except you have to sit the whole time. You didn’t enjoy Basic then, and you don’t enjoy this pale imitation of it now. You consider rebelling instead of following orders.

Why not rebel? I don’t think I did it last time.

You relax back into the chair, arms draped over the armrests. Truth be told, your breath’s a mite heavy from the marching.

“Dad.” Michael’s playful tone is gone. “You don’t have to like the exercises, but you do have to do them.”

The instructor’s noticed your minor rebellion. “Nice, Harry!” she says. “Fred, look at Harry. See what great jumping jacks he’s doing?” Harry barely moves his arms. He’s in too much constant pain to be energetic thanks to a bad fall he took when he was a lineman for Ma Bell.

“Now the other are showing you up,” Michael says.

“Don’t treat me like I’m your fucking kid,” you snap.

“Then act like an adult,” Michael says.

Oh, dang. Reversing the power dynamic must be crazy. I wonder how often parents regret the way they taught their kids to obey when it gets turned on them.

You dutifully spread your arms and legs, then pull them back in, then spread them out again. “When I was twenty I did hundreds of these,” you grumble. “And I was standing up while I did them.”

“What do you always tell me?” Michael pretends to think. “Oh, right: comparisons like that do nobody any good.”

“The benefit of being senile is that I can forget my own bad advice.” You sound like a…

You sound like a peevish old man.

“I found your advice to be pretty good,” Michael says, one eyebrow cocked. You’ve given him too many chances to practice being calm and polite.

You shake your head to throw off your bad mood. “You know the other benefit of being senile?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.” He smiles as he says it.

“This routine’s new to me every time.”

You stop talking for a bit to concentrate on the jumping jacks. Dr. Johns warned you that, if you didn’t exercise more, you’d graduate from your cane to a walker in short time. You’ll get there eventually, but you want to push that date as far forward as you can.

“Out! And in! And out! And in!” says the instructor. You should ask Michael what her name is, so you can better focus your annoyance on her. “And now it’s time for resistance band work! We’ll take a short break while our helpers put them on your legs.”

Michael drags a wad of the long, stretchy lengths of rubber from under his chair. “You want the light bands today? Or are you going to be a real man and use the medium ones?”

This section seems more optimistic than the others. In any case, I’ll go with the light.

“Light,” you tell Michael, who pulls the yellow ones out of the pile, teasing apart tangled bands. As he ties your legs to the chair’s, you say, “You know an exercise program is a good one when they strap you in place.”

“Excuse me, young man?” The woman in the chair in front of you has turned around, her eyes owlish behind huge glasses. “Could you tie my bands to me when you’re done with him?”

“I’ll never be done with him, ma’am, but I can help you out all the same.”

You stretch your legs against the yellow bands. Maybe this will work out the soreness you’ve been feeling since…

Maybe this will work out the soreness you’ve been feeling since—well, something happened and now your legs hurt and that’s the end of that.

Once everyone’s strapped in, the instructor smiles a smile with more teeth than any human should have. “Okay? Here we go! And streeeeeetch! And relax. And streeeeeetch! And relax!” She must buy the word “and” in 55 gallon drums. You hope she gets a steep discount on them.

There’s resistance, but not too much. You’re able to keep up with the instructor, kicking in time to her chirpy instructions. The soreness leaves your legs after a time. You know it’ll come back—it’s only slunk outside for a quick smoke—but the break from it is nice.

“You’re all doing so well!” the instructor says. She’s lying, of course. Some folks here can hardly move, age weighs them down so heavily. “Your heart rate and your spirits should be up, up, up!”

You and Michael look at each other and bust out laughing. “Fred!” the instructor says. “You’re disturbing everyone!” You should stop. You know you should. But the thought just makes you laugh all the more, until tears are streaming down your face. You’ve not laughed this hard since Virginia died.

It feels pretty damn great.

We even remember Virginia’s death, that’s pretty wild.

The color changes, but progress bar doesn’t move. This is a pre-Virginia dying flashback:

You take a deep breath and blow at the two candles on your cake. The huge candle in the shape of a “6” goes out, but you don’t manage to put out the “0” candle.

“Ooh, so close,” Michael says.

Rebecca swats him on the arm. “He did just fine for someone of his advanced age.”

“You two,” Virginia says. She licks her fingers and pinches out the flame on the “0” candle.

“Be good or I’ll write you two out of my will,” you say. “Also, you won’t get any cake.”

“We’ll be good,” Michael says.

“I’ll be good, at least,” Rebecca chimes in.

“In that case, you each get a candle.” Virginia removes the two candles and passes one to each kid. Rebecca and Michael promptly suck the icing off of them.

Man, I thought we were like 80 or something. I probably missed something earlier. My grandmother who had dementia was in her 90s. Sixties is wild. You could live decades with dementia.

“I feel bad we’re not making your birthday a bigger deal,” Virginia says.

“It’s okay,” you say. “We’ve got the party this weekend to have spouses and grandkids and friends and all of the hullabaloo.”

“I should keep your present until then,” the old woman across the table says, slicing into the cake and distributing the slices onto small paper plates.

“That’d be cruel and unusual punishment. You know he always wants his presents right away.” It’s

“That’d be cruel and unusual punishment. You know he always wants his presents right away.” It’s…who is that young man next to Virginia?

“Birthday boy gets the first piece,” the old woman says, sliding a piece to you.

“Mo-om!” the young man sing-songs. “Why does he always get the first piece?”

“Yeah,” Virginia chimes in. “I should get the first piece.”

“No, me,” the young man says.

“No, me!”

“Children,” the old woman mock-scolds.

Man, what a reversal. We had one of the most cheerful present-time scenes followed by one of the worst flashbacks.

You realize: the young woman isn’t Virginia, it’s Rebecca. That’s Michael next to her, and the old woman is Virginia.

“Dad?” Michael says. “Are you going to eat your cake?”

“Give me a second, please, Michael.” You sink your fork into the cake slice uneasily. “Sometimes an old man’s mind wanders. Just you wait until you get old.”

Now it updates again to the present, and the progress bar moves.

[EJoyce (Emery Joyce)]

Re the mention of “Jewell”, it’s this guy: Richard Jewell - Wikipedia

Which means we can date that scene to 1996, though it’s (intentionally, I imagine) unclear how a lot of the scenes are spaced out relative to each other.

(I admit I had only heard of the guy because of the 2019 movie, but in my defense I was a small child in '96.)

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense!

Hmm, this shade is in between the lightest and darkest we’ve had.

What little you have left is in a cardboard box by the front desk. It’s not much: a few books, some loose papers, the stress ball you would squeeze hard when Paul was being his usual self. Most of your office’s contents either belong to the company or have already been taken home.

“The party’s at three?” you ask Ruby, the receptionist.

“Yes, Mister Strickland.”

You stare at the clock over Ruby’s shoulder. It takes you a while to puzzle out where the hands are and what they mean. You’ve got five minutes or so. You wonder if you should go to the bathroom before the party. It’s not urgent; you could wait here with Ruby and go to the bathroom after the party’s over.

Ah, makes sense. After diagnosis, probably, and before the funeral.

I think I’ll wait here, don’t want to get lost.

“You mind if I kill some time here until it’s time for the party?”

“Not at all, Mister Strickland.” She pushes away from her computer, her chair rolling her back. “Not really anything going to happen for the next few minutes, anyway.” She pauses. “Say, you remember the time I got so sick and you and Virginia brought me her chicken soup?” She watches for your response.

You’re so deeply, deeply tired of these mind games. She means well, but Ruby’s throwing little land mines in front of you. If you get any detail wrong, she’ll look at you with such pity that it makes you want to hit things.

You’re just so tired and angry, it makes it hard to be easy on Ruby.

I might as well be angry, this is pretty mean.

“Ruby,” you snap, “I wish you wouldn’t keep giving me those little memory tests. It doesn’t help and it’s just

It doesn’t help and it’s just—it just makes me angry. Okay?”

From the tight set of her lips, it’s not okay. That’s fine. You don’t have to deal with her but for one hour more.

“I’ll meet you in the break room,” you say and pivot sharply on your cane and away from her desk.

They got you a sheet cake for your retirement party, one of those vanilla jobs from Piggly Wiggly, and laid it out on a table in the break room. You told them not to make a fuss, but they didn’t listen. The baker drew these…

Mmm, that sounds good.

baker drew these two squares touching each other and filled with squiggly lines. You’re not sure what it’s supposed to be, and you don’t know if that’s your fault or the baker’s.

Sounds like baker’s fault.

“I appreciate the gesture,” you tell the people crowded into the break room, “but I’ll be dipped if I can tell what’s on the cake. That there was drawn by a baker, not an artist.”

Patricia laughs and squeezes your arm. “It’s your general ledger!”

Greg says, “Oh, that’s what it is. Huh.” He frowns at you. “I couldn’t tell either.” Greg’s a newer sales rep. He replaced Jimmy, who had replaced Robin, who had replaced Wes, who had replaced Harold-not-Harry-thank-you, who had replaced

You know, I still have trouble remembering stuff like that myself.

Harry-thank-you, who had replaced…the person who took Tom’s place. The guy with the handshake that came at you sideways and high, like a fighter plane.

Listed like that, it could be a Biblical genealogy, only for sales people.

You point at the squares. “If that’s my old ledger, the baker should’ve made it bigger,” you say.

Patricia says, “That baker didn’t have a steady hand. I’d have had to get the extra-large sheet cake, and my accountant taught me to be frugal.”

Nice. Although this self-sufficient macho attitude of ‘don’t give me gifts, don’t give me parties’ is something I’ve seen turn toxic a lot in my life and something I struggled with. Going through divorce and poverty helped me come to grips with letting people do nice things for me. I heard a saying like ‘If you don’t accept a gift, you deny yourself and the giver of a blessing’ and that’s shapes my actions. I’m looking forward to the cake my own employer will be giving me on Friday!

“Maybe my replacement won’t be such a skinflint.” You look over to the man who’s taking your place. He came on board two weeks ago so you could get him up to speed. You’d feel bad about not remembering his name after working with him, but you’ve only got so much memory. No need to spend it on a fellow you won’t see again after today.

“Maybe you need to cut the cake! Some of us still have work to do!” someone calls from the crowd, which gets a polite laugh out of folks. You transfer your cane to your other hand and pick up the knife. You slice the cake’s short end and everyone applauds. Ruby, the receptionist, takes over from there, carving up the cake and knifing it onto plates. She tells you, “Retiree’s choice,” and points the cake knife at the collection of edge pieces, inner pieces and two corner pieces.

I like corner pieces but I suspect Fred doesn’t like that much too frosting. Too bad, though, Fred.

(this appears on the same screen, unlike most links that aren’t mid-sentence):

You pick up one of the two corner pieces. It’s absolutely covered in frosting, the best part of the cake. You can stand or sit at one of the break room’s tall diner-like tables.

I judged you too harshly, Fred, although I’m not sure how much I like you in general (I do feel bad about the dementia).

I’ll sit. Don’t want to fall.

(Also stays on the same page):

You put the cake on a table, scoot out a tall stool, and, using the cane for leverage, slide onto the stool. This’s gonna be a fun one to get down off of.

You take a bite of cake. The frosting is as sweet as you expected. But something’s missing.

The frosting is as sweet as you expected. But something’s missing. Water. You meant to get a drink, but you forgot.

As if reading your mind, Patricia puts a glass of water next to your plate. “Can I join you?” she asks, but sits down without waiting for an answer. She knew you’d say yes.

“Feel free, but you’ll have to climb back down when you’re done. You break your neck, don’t come crying to me.”

“If I break my neck, not crying to you’ll be the least of my worries.”

“Told you we should’ve gotten real-people-sized tables and chairs in here.”

“What Paul wants, Paul gets.” Her shrug comes from years of arguments with the company’s owner.

When Patricia joined the company as the new business manager, you weren’t sure how she’d do. She’s a tiny thing, and has this air of

this air of…what’s the word.

what’s the word. Anyway, she seemed so nice and sweet and charming. She replaced a jerk of a business manager who’d gotten canned for fighting too much with Paul. Paul’s not one for putting up with people contradicting him, not for long.

Then she whipped the company in shape. Her politeness hides an iron will. She used how people underestimated her to get things done, and left people thinking it was their idea all along when she did so. She may say that what Paul wants, Paul gets. What she’s not saying is how a lot of times, what Paul wants is what Patricia wants Paul to want.

Patricia must’ve noticed your woolgathering, because she asks, “You okay?”

“I’m going to miss this,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

There’s a bubble around you and Patricia. People’re so used to the two of you hiding in the break room to discuss work that they’ve skirted your table out of habit. Only Patricia heard you. You’re close to crying, like you often are these days.

“You’re going to miss cake and tall stools?” Her words break the moment. The urge to cry recedes.

“And new employee policies. Don’t forget those.”

I haven’t been commenting because I’m engrossed in the story.

You couldn’t hide your memory lapses from Patricia, since you work so closely together. But she made allowances, and you and she figured out how to keep you working for as long as possible. If it weren’t for her, you’d’ve been done months ago.

Clicking ‘work’ goes to ‘worked’. Clicking ‘done’ gives us (also, this is poignant to me as I’m saying goodbye soon to students I’ve known for almost 7 years):

“I’d better mosey on.” You push your half-eaten cake away from you and grab your cane. “Virginia wants me home before dark.” You swing your feet away from the table, lean on your cane, and stand gingerly. You’d rather not have people’s last memory of you at work involving you falling on your butt.

“You’re going to leave that cake?” She’s pensive all of a sudden. “Besides, it’s summer. There’s plenty of time before sunset.”

“Ask me what the secret of comedy is.” Patricia opens her mouth and you jump in. “Knowing when to bow out.”

“I thought it was timing.”

“That, too.”

She surprises you with a fierce hug then, her arms flung round your midsection. You pat her back, awkwardly. “Don’t be a stranger,” she whispers.

“I won’t,” you say, even though you can’t promise that at all.

Seeing you make a move for the door, Paul cups his hands around his mouth and calls out, “Speech! Speech!” The crowd takes it up, chanting, “Speech! Speech!” You look at him and have the urge to see if the hairsprayed helmet he calls hair would move if you mussed it. Maybe it would break into shards. You should do it. What could he do, fire you?

Politeness wins out. You walk to the back wall, the one with the giant windows looking out on the back parking lot. People give you space. “I’m not sure what to say, tell you the truth.”

“How about the time you and Tom raced wheelchairs down the hall!” a man says.

“Oh, now, Tom tells that way better than I do. Where’s he? Come on up here, Tom.”

Oh, this sounds bad.

That silence. Those looks. You’ve gotten better at recognizing when you’ve said something wrong, even if you don’t know why it’s wrong. “Well, never mind. Who wants to listen to an old story, really. I just want to say what a

to say what a pleasure it’s been working with all y’all. And Paul?” Paul starts. He’d been looking at his watch. “Thanks for years of steady employment that’s let me buy food for my family.”

You’re in your car and headed home before you remember Tom hasn’t worked with you for years.

There’s no way to hide that from his coworkers.

Time for a new segment. This one is the same color, and features Virginia.

[lpsmith (Lucian Smith)]

@mathbrush

“Ask me what the secret of comedy is.” Patricia opens her mouth and you jump in. “Knowing when to bow out.”

“I thought it was timing.”

“That, too.”

So, a small anecdote…

The old joke this references (“Ask me what the secret of comedy is.” “What’s the–” “[interrupting] Timing!”) is a joke I happened to hear somewhere around the birth of ifMUD. I told the joke there, partly because it is literally impossible to interrupt anyone in an async lines-of-text forum like the MUD, so the very idea of trying to tell the joke in that place amused me. But something else did happen as I told the joke, so the upshot was that someone said something unrelated, and then I exclaimed “Timing!” And the whole thing was just silly and amusing.

And very shortly thereafter, we started exclaiming “Timing!” any time two people would say the same thing at the same time, like both answering the same question or the like. And to this day, saying “Timing!” when someone beats you to the punch is the ifMUD Way Of Acknowledging That.

And of course, both Sarge and I were long-time members of ifMUD when this game came out. And the feeling of this scene, of two people sharing memories and old jokes, had an added layer for me, of Stephen sharing an old joke with people like me who were on the MUD.

I don’t know if it was a deliberate reference! It’s certainly an old and well-used joke in many contexts. But that was the context it had for me.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

“Isaid, I really want us to get that new stove.”

When you look up from your chicken-fried steak, Virginia’s watching you, waiting for your answer. “New stove?” you say.

Virginia sighs, though it’s a tiny sigh, so tiny you barely heard it over the sound of other people eating lunch in the restaurant. “I’m thinking we should swap out the gas stove for a new electric one. Get one with a timer.”

“Our old one’s not broken, though.” You squint, trying to pull a memory free from the swamp of your mind. “Is it?”

Virginia shakes her head. “No, it’s not. But I thought—”

“Don’t see the sense in spending money when we don’t need to,” you grumble.

“We do need to, though.” Virginia takes your hand and locks eyes with you. “You don’t have to shut the new stove off. It turns off automatically.”

Hmm, sounds like it’s a ‘me’ problem.

She’s babying you. Like you can’t take care of yourself. You jerk your hand away from her, accidentally hitting your water. The glass wobbles and almost tumps over. “I know enough to turn off the stove. Don’t need to flush money away because you’re nervous.”

Virginia takes back your hand and holds it tight. She glances around at the other tables in the restaurant, then says, “You’re right. I am nervous. But with reason.” Her thumb massages the back of your hand, tracing small circles over your skin. “We wouldn’t be wasting the money, and it’s not too expensive anyway.”

She knows how tight money is right now. And when they have to place you in a home, you’ll burn through money like it was gas-soaked hay. It makes it hard to give in.

I chose ‘how tight money is’.

You don’t respond, and after a minute, Virginia stops rubbing your hand. You tell her, “We’ve got to live on what I socked away before I

I socked away before I retired. That money’s not growing. I don’t want it to shrink any faster than it has to.”

“Fred, I’ve been tracking our expenses, and we’ve got plenty of cushion, even with—”

“I was the accountant, so I think I know our money situation. We’re not spending more on…

not spending more on…we’re not spending more money, and that’s final.” You cross your arms. “I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

Virginia has a look on her face that means that she’s going to do what she damn well pleases, and never mind what you want. “You said that the last two times, too.”

You don’t remember those earlier discussions. Stung, you snap, “Well, I’ll write it down so I won’t forget.” You pull out your folded stack of index cards and a pen. When you unfold the cards you’re brought up short. The top card reads, “IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT”.

Oh man. Also, I wonder if I wrote that, or if she did.

You’d written the card back when

Ah.

You’d written the card back when—well, hell, you don’t really remember when you wrote it, but it’s a reminder to be easy on yourself.

“Fred?”

You shake your head, your thoughts flying off. Someone’s cleared Virginia’s plates away. A waitress, you guess.

“Fred? Where’d you go just now?”

“Nowhere.”

You take a deep breath. Apologizing hasn’t gotten any easier as you’ve gotten worse. “Virginia, listen, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, no, it’s not. I’m just not myself today.”

“No, no, it’s not. I’m just out of sorts today.”

“So we can get the stove?”

You nod, glad she reminded you what you’d argued over. “I really am sorry.”

“It’s already forgotten,” she says, with a tilt of her mouth that tells you she knows the joke she just made. It’s how you two deal with your condition, these sideways acknowledgements.

You reply in kind: “Easier done than said,” and you’re rewarded with the brief flicker of Virginia’s smile, like a bird darting fast across your sight.

Virginia’s plate may be gone, but you’ve still got more lunch to work on. You’re not hungry, but you don’t feel right letting it go to waste. You carve off a corner of the chicken-fried steak. It’s a little bland. “Pass me the…

“Pass me the…it’s like sand.

“Pass me the…it’s like sand. Black.

“Pass me the…it’s like sand. Black.” You’re reduced to gesturing at the two shakers over by Virginia. “Black sand.”

Virginia slides a shaker to you, the light over the table catching the grooved parts of the glass and making it sparkle. “Pepper.”

“I know,” you say, and immediately feel bad all over again, but you don’t say anything more for fear of making things worse. You just shake the sand over your lunch. You fork another bite into your mouth, careful to scoop up some gravy from the steak. Much better.

You work on the steak, you and Virginia quiet while you eat. As you get into the steak you realize you’re hungry after all. Probably helps explain why you’ve been so mean.

You’ve near finished your steak when the waitress delivers the check. You hold up a hand and she pauses while you pull out your wallet. But it’s not your wallet. It’s your index cards. You pat your back pockets, but your wallet’s not there.

To buy time to think, you fan out the index cards. “Miss, do you take plain paper?”

“Here,” Virginia says, handing the waitress a $20. “Keep the change.”

As the waitress walks away, you whisper to Virginia, “My wallet. I can’t find it.” You check under your napkin, then on the table before glancing at the floor. No sign of it.

“You didn’t bring your wallet,” Virginia reminds you. “After the last time you lost it, we agreed I’d bring the money when we went out.”

Your anger’s back. It’s the one thing your mind reliably serves up, like a chef’s favorite dish he can’t help but make. The cards are still in your hand. You run one finger along the edge of the topmost card and breathe deep. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.

“Thanks,” you say. Your tone’s almost civil, hard as it is to be polite instead of mad.

Virginia lifts her napkin from her lap, folds it neatly and places it beside her plate. “You ready to go?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Again, not commenting on this as much because it’s engrossing. And that’s interesting about the anger again (as was linked above).

It’s warm outside, though a gusting breeze makes you glad you brought your windbreaker. Now where did y’all park? The thought reminds you to pull out your keys, which reminds you that you don’t have any keys, which reminds you not to worry because Virginia drives now.

“Where’d we park—” you start to ask, but you’re interrupted by a black woman calling, “Ginny!” from the parking lot. She dodges around a car creeping past the café and waves one arm as if she’s cleaning a window. “Ginny!”

Virginia adjusts her glasses. “Alma? Alma James, as I live and breathe! How you do?”

“Right fine, Ginny.” She’s no one you recognize, which doesn’t mean much these days.

As if reading your mind, Virginia tells you, “Fred, this is Alma James. We used to teach English together.” She’s gotten real good at spoon-feeding you information like how you’d feed a baby bird.

“Still teaching it, in fact,” Alma says.

“Good for you! I miss teaching sometimes, but it was for the best that I retire.” She deliberately doesn’t look over at you. “How’s Kevin?”

“Fair to middlin’,” she says.

“And your boys? What’s Cordell up to these days?”

“He majored in English down at Texas Tech.”

“Oh?” She tilts her head. You used to claim she looked like

“Oh?” She tilts her head. You used to claim she looked like the RCA dog when she did that. “He was a right hellion in my class, you remember.”

The woman sighs, half exasperated, half amused. “Don’t I know it. But he righted his ship. He’s a technical writer now.”

“Well. As I live and breathe.”

“What about his…brother?” Virginia says.

Alma nods. “Lamar. He’s at UT Austin. Graduates this year, God willing.”

Virginia laughs. “Must be interesting for you, having two sons at two different UT schools.”

“I couldn’t convince him to go to Arlington. He wanted to be a lot further away from home.”

You shift around a bit, leaning more heavily on your cane as you half-listen to Virginia and Alma. Small talk never interested you much even when you were whole. There’s no place to sit out here, and it’s going to be murder on your feet if you keep standing for a while. You might could hint that it’s time to go, or interrupt outright.

Virginia doesn’t really seem to have any memory issues at all, though she had the other ailments earlier. Seems we all get something as we age.

I’ll interrupt outright.

“Virginia, time to go,” you say, a lot more snappish than you meant to be.

“Sorry, Alma, Fred and I’d better…” Virginia says. Regret fills her voice.

“No problem,” Alma says. She looks sad for Virginia, or maybe you. Or maybe you’re imagining it. “It was real good to catch up with you, Ginny.”

“You, too,” Virginia says. “Fred, are you okay to wait here while I get the car?” When you nod, she takes off in one direction and the woman in another. “Nice to see you, Fred,” the woman says as she goes.

You shift your weight some more, trying to get comfortable, or at least as near to it as you can while standing. Your mind drifts off. Left on its own it likes to float further and further away these days. It makes waiting a lot easier than when you were younger. Back then you always carried a book to pass the time while you waited.

A touch on your shoulder brings you back to the here-and-now. A woman’s snuck up next to you. The waitress. Didn’t Virginia pay? Maybe she forgot, or you told her you’d take care of it and then you forgot. That seems more likely. But you don’t have any cash on you. A while back you stopped carrying it when eating out with Virginia.

“Hold on a moment, please, miss. My wife will be right back with the car.”

“Fred?” the waitress says. She sounds as confused as you feel.

“With the money. She’s got our cash. She can pay for our lunch.”

“Fred, it’s me. It’s Nipper.”

Memory sparks. That was the RCA dog’s name! “Did you know, that’s my wife’s nickname! Gave it to her…

Uggh.

Memory sparks. That was the RCA dog’s name! “Did you know, that’s my wife’s nickname! Gave it to her…oh, ages ago.” Funny to think someone actually named their daughter “Nipper.” It takes all kinds.

“How about I take you to your wife,” the waitress says, pointing to a car idling by the curb. It’s an old powder-blue Buick, a lot like the one you used to drive back when you drove.

You’re not sure. Shouldn’t you wait for Virginia instead of going off with this stranger? Then again, more and more people are strangers to you lately.

Really reminds me of the fiction podcast ‘The Truth’, the episode ‘Can You Help Me Find My Mom?’

I’ll go with the nice lady.

“You’ll take me to Virginia?” you ask the waitress. “You’ll have to help me in the car since my legs don’t quite work right. Virginia normally does that.” Virginia always lets you lean on her a bit as you get in, though you try not to put too much weight on her. She’s a slight thing. Can’t hold you up forever.

“I’ll help.” And she does, making sure you get in the passenger seat okay and buckling your seatbelt for you before she gets in the driver’s seat.

“Is she far? Virginia, I mean?”

“She’s close, Fred. It’s all fine.”

“She’s close, Fred. It’s all fine.”

Her voice is what brings you out of your episode. “I’m so sorry, Virginia, I just…went away for a minute.”

She just sits there, staring out the windshield, before she slaps the steering wheel once with her hands, hard, and then again, and again and again. She bows her head and clutches the wheel so tight her knuckles turn white. Her chest rises and falls as she breathes deeply. “It’s all good,” she whispers. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” you say. “Believe me, I know neither of us is fine.”

“I’m just so angry now. Bone-deep angry.” She won’t turn her face to you. Her voice is level and she doesn’t look mad, which is how you know she’s truly angry. “It’s never-ending. It’s never-ending and there’s nothing I can do and it won’t get better. It just won’t.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” She faces you now. “Every day there’s less of you to take care of yourself, and more of you for me to take care of. There’s no break and no way out. We’re in a dark tunnel and the tunnel keeps getting narrower as we go through it. I try not to dump this on you, I do, I swear I do, but there’s only so much bitterness I can swallow before I have to spit some back up.

“If you do know, here in a while you won’t any more. You’ll be gone, even while you’re still here.”

The silence fills the car, thick and oppressive, a fog of misery you’re both lost in. You pull out your index cards again and riffle through them as if to blow the fog away. You peel the top one off the stack and wordlessly hand it to Virginia.

“I thought this message was for you,” Virginia says.

“It’s for us both. Listen, why don’t you call Rebecca? See if she can take a few days off and watch me while you take a break. What use are kids if you don’t make them do stuff for you every now and again?”

She holds the card in her lap and chews on her bottom lip the way she does when she’s worrying at a problem. “That might be nice.”

“Call Leigh and the others. Been a ■■■■’s age since you played bridge with them.”

The silence returns for a minute, though it’s less heavy than before. “I can do that,” she finally says. “Let’s get home and maybe take a nap.”

“Then put it in drive. It’s like I always say: If you’re not moving forward, you’re backing up.”

She laughs a short, sad laugh, hands you your card, and drops the car into gear. You put the card back on top. The words “IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT” have run just a bit, now sprinkled with drops of water.

This section has been very heavy on dialogue and material between choices. I feel like the author has chosen this as the climax section, putting the hardest-hitting stuff.

The screen pauses for a moment, but I don’t believe the progress bar has shifted. Is the color a tinge darker? hard to tell.

Tom drums on the passenger-side car dash. It’s just arrythmic enough to annoy you. The man never could sit still. “I don’t understand why Tuberville’s team is flaming out like it’s been doing,” he says.

“Too much passing,” you say, squinting at the road. You should reach the street to Waffle House soon. “Can’t get anything going on offense.”

“Bet you’re glad not to be there watching them lose all the time,” Tom says.

You shrug. “I’m an Ole Miss fan even when they’re terrible.”

“That’s good, I guess, because this year they’re really terrible,” Tom says. “By the way, you’ll want to take a left at the next cross-street.”

I know so many older men who get really mad at people giving them directions while driving.

“I know how to get there,” you snap.

“Sure, but like you told me, you don’t always know what you know. We missed Spring Creek, so we’ve got to double back around.”

You start to say something mean, but pull up short at the last second. He’s right, of course. Thankfully, since you made up with Tom, you’ve been better at catching your words before they escape. “Sorry,” you say.

“No problem, Fred,” Tom says.

“You know, this reminds me of when I got us lost in the wilds of downtown Houston on that sales call. I’ll never forget

I’ll never get over how you looked when you realized I’d made us late for the meeting.”

You glance over at Tom. He’s frowning. “What?” you say. You realize what’s wrong. “That was Dick who made you late, not me, wasn’t it?” You sigh. “That’s the problem with having a patchwork brain. Sometimes you patch it with other people’s memories.”

Huh, didn’t know that was part of it.

“Don’t get all fussed,” Tom says, “it was you on that sales call, not Dick.”

You feel a mix of relief and annoyance. “Well, hell, Tom, then why the frown?”

“That was a potential million-dollar client.” He makes a thoughtful sound. “Tell you what, keep going straight. We’ll take a road trip back to Houston, win the guy over.”

“It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think,” you say.

“It’ll be great. Think of how excited Paul will be when we show up, contract in hand.” Tom would try it, too, just on the off-hand chance it worked.

God, it’s great to be back in a car with Tom.

The cross street’s coming up. You slow down and make the left turn. “Direct me from here?”

“Like always,” Tom says.

The screen has gotten very dark now, and it looks like we’re going to be in the final segment.