Atari Trapped
by Nichole Nicholson

It's black all around me. Like a never-ending night. A night without stars or moon. There is no sky, no clouds. Nothing. Just black all around. Black and black and black. It never changes. No variation. Nothing. No break from the mediocre black. Just the darkness. That's all there's ever been. I know there has to be something more, but I've never seen it.

And everything feels so two-dimensional. There is no way to see things from another angle. It's all flat, emotionless. Like all that I am is a drawing on a piece of paper. No other perspective. It never changes. No variation; nothing. No break from the mediocre. Always flat and flat and flat in the eternal black. But I feel that there must be another dimension.

There are walls. White blockades directing my path. Regardless of how many times I turn there are walls and walls and more white walls. It seems I can't find a way out of them. They are as eternal as the black and there is no variation. Nothing. No break from the mediocre. Just the walls and the turning and the feeling of being lost. The labyrinth of Icarus--but where are my wings? There just must be something more than this.

My basic needs are met. There is food all around me. It is scattered everywhere I turn. I could eat and eat and eat and it would never end. It is so much the same. Like the white walls around me, I can't find anything new. There is no variation; nothing; no break from the mediocre. But something in me hungers for something different.

I have to keep moving. All the time. I can never stop. I just have to keep going. Moving and turning and moving. If I stop, I might be hurt. There are things moving around with me. Ghosts, memories. They are all different colours of experience, of memory, of hurt. But they all sting. I don't like being stung. It hurts and hurts and hurts and I can't get away from it. So I have to keep moving. Just keep moving. There is no variation. There is nothing. There is no escaping the mediocre.

I turn left and chomp the waiting food. One of the things turns a corner near me and I can feel the sting already. I move. Run. Move. Can't go any faster than I'm already going and the thing is coming. And there is food in my way. Chomp chomp chomp; have to get away. White wall in my path. Anxious. I don't want to be stung. Move, move, move. Another thing turns the corner in front of me and the food, chomp chomp, is starting to make me ill with its sameness.

In desperation, I turn. A wall. The outside wall. I'm stuck. Trapped. Trapped, oh, trapped, and the things the are coming with their sting and hurt. And I'm sick, so sick. The black seems to well up around me, the walls feel like they are getting closer.

I must be more than this. I am more than eating and moving and white walls and blackness and no perspective. I am not two-dimensional. There are dreams to be had, there are emotions and angles to view things. There is more than these white bits of food and the pain of the things, the ghosts, chasing me and the walls and the black. There is more to me than this.

I chomp. The white wall. It crumps in my mouth. It crumbles! Pieces of the wall are gone and I'm still chomping. I'm still chomping and now there is a hole in one of the white walls. I've never tried this before but I'm getting somewhere! Finally! Finally I am--

I reach up and flip the Atari off, because, whoa, that is creepy, man. Pac-man is just not supposed to do that. No wonder this thing has been sitting in the closet for so long; it doesn't work.

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