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The Batter is released onto the yellow-painted metal of Zone Zero, staring straight ahead. He blinks, and waits for direction. Hmm. Perhaps this player doesn't know how to make him go. “To move my body,” The Batter provides, “use the arrow keys. Use the space bar to interact.” The Batter closes his mouth, and continues to wait for The Player's instructions, their control. It washes over him like a sudden cold rain, and he moves forward at The Player's demand.
The Judge, purring against The Batter's legs, engages in the usual existentialist discussion regarding whether or not The Batter is a corporeal being. The Batter agrees, and the two move along with the game's puzzling narrative. At the end of the truly underwhelming tutorial, The Player decides to save the game, leaving The Batter on the cusp of his responsibility.
It is early on a Sunday morning and he is awake in bed. He blinks up, up into the ceiling, not remembering if he dreamed last night. The undershirt he wore to bed is tangling with the sheets, and his boxers are twisted around his legs. His eyes focus on the still ceiling fan when he hears a gentle puff of air next to him. Adrenaline rushes through him for a split-second fight-or-flight response and he looks to the right as his left hand makes grabbing motions for a bat that isn't where he remembers leaving it. Recognition dampens the reaction, and he realizes he doesn't need to worry.
His wife, his queen, is asleep next to him, face blank in the restoration of deep slumber. His body and mind relax, and affection overhauls adrenaline. A brief smile takes to his face and he sighs soundlessly. Looking past her shoulder, he listens to the sounds of the house, trying to hear for one sound in particular.
He is relieved when there is the absence of the sound of their child's tell-tale waking. Still... He eases out of bed, keeping as quiet as he can, and leaves the bedroom. He walks without noise to the hall, and across it in order to listen at their child's bedroom door. He has a hand around the doorknob before he can think about it. Is the risk worth it? The answer arrives immediately: of course. He opens the door.
Inside the room, their child sleeps, sprawling out in the toddler bed; a stuffed teddy bear is valiantly losing the fight against the child's fierce embrace. He's almost not a toddler any more, the man considers, realization and love drawing through him like the warmth from a set of pajamas after a hot shower.
Again, he smiles, and closes the door to let their child sleep. Instead, he turns, and heads down the hall to the kitchen to start the day. He assembles coffee, making enough for both adults to have ample caffeine for the upcoming day. Glancing out the kitchen window, he notes the overcast weather. Perfect. He pours himself a cup of coffee without sugar or milk, and walks out onto the deck in the backyard to watch the storm roll in. A secret part of the day, just for himself.
The Batter wakes, gasping to catch his breath. The images in his mind fade, the cadence of others' voices fade, and all he remembers is—
He is moving, now, and has to focus on what is happening at this very moment.
Zone 1 broaches new topics. The Batter accepts, as an inevitable part of the narrative, and The Player follows suit.
Dedan's anger, as justified as it is, rasps against both The Batter's and The Player's sensibilities like an infant's too-long nails down a parent's face. You can't place a person in an unwinnable situation like that.
It isn't fair.
It has to stop.
Now.
—And it does; and it—
—See, if you're patient, it goes better, he thinks, and keeps to himself, as his wife says the same thing in kinder words to their child. The poor boy had worked so hard on his art, but a particularly strong press of the gray crayon against the paper had caused a tear in the paper; likewise, tiny hands had held on too tightly around the crayon, and it had snapped in half in his grip.
There is a hiccup in time, and the young boy squeezes into his mother's embrace as he starts to cry. She picks him up, making gentle shushing sounds. The man walks over to his wife and his child, and eases the crayon out of the small boy's fingers. Their son is still young, and releases the crayon with little resistance, despite his distress at said crayon breaking. Softly, the man wipes away the boy's tears with his thumb. The boy reaches out for the man, or perhaps more likely, the return of the crayon. The man smiles wryly yet lovingly at the boy. The man shakes his head.
“It's okay to be angry,” the man hears his wife murmur to their child. “Sometimes, crayons break. It happens.”
“You can still use them, though.” The man says, and holds the crayon out to his son to take. “You can try again.” By now, the child has calmed down, comforted by the cradle of his mother's arms and his father's words. The boy nods and accepts the crayon into his grasp with gentle hands.
“Wanna try 'gain, please.”
Will this time be different?
The idle consideration provides a moment of negligible pause before The Batter's cleats grip into the immaculate road, propelling him toward each distraction, each barrier to entry, each—absolutely ridiculous statue of Zacharie here, what is he thinking—piece of the puzzle that adds up to Japhet's downfall. As benevolent leader, of course one must take into account entertainment and education, both... but—
No communication, and none needed when The Batter's and The Player's actions have spoken for themselves, as has Japhet's. Arrogance, assuming that only his own actions ought to speak for him, to convey his physical presence—
The boy carries a book to his father, toddling with all the determination and dignity his little legs can afford him. He stops at the side of the couch the man has taken a seat at, sipping his water in the early afternoon. The man jumps when his son speaks, asking his father to “read please!” in the loud voice of excited communicating toddlers.
“Sure,” the man says, his voice quiet and pinched. At that moment, the man's phone buzzes in his pocket.
“Papa's phone makin' noise,” the boy observes, and there's a sad tinge to his voice.
“Yeah, Papa's phone's making noise,” agrees the man.
“Papa gonna talk?”
“Maybe.”
The man stares at his phone for a half-second more, and then answers it. “Hello?” The voice on the other end of the line is dreadfully familiar: it's his former agent—and, truth be told, worst enabler—who always had room to talk about himself. The man's former agent offers many interesting things, all from when the man was a decade younger and had two non-existant decades' worth of arrogance and self-importance.
The man's throat hurts from the few seconds' worth of how much he sincerely considers his former agent's words.
The man cuts his former agent off with a polite “No, thank you” and a less-polite “Don't call me again.” He ends the call and puts his phone in his pocket. He takes a breath; lets it out.
“Papa done with the phone call?” His son's voice cuts through the emotional hangover of his past.
“...Yeah,” the man says, his own voice alien to himself in its hoarseness. “Yeah. I'm done.”
“Missed Papa,” the boy says softly.
“Missed you too,” the man says, nodding. He waits a breath, and thinks. “Hey,” the man says to the boy. “You wanna go to the library again?”
The boy's eyes light up, and he drops the book on the floor to grab his father's broad hand in two of his small ones. “Library!” The boy tugs on the hand in his fingers hard enough to almost pull the man off the couch.
“Okay, okay,” says the man, standing up. “Lemme get my shoes.”
“Library! Library!” The boy sing-songs as he pulls his father to the front door of the house, where his father's shoes are.
“We are a little like gods,” Enoch remarks, “drawing on the infinite power of the sun to sculpt our worlds into the nothingness.” He laughs. “I do love that metaphor. Yes, like gods...” Enoch has a far-away look in his eyes. It's as if his focus has fled, like his compassion for his subjects.
We are not gods.
Contempt floods The Batter like an upturned bottle of liquid plastic in a too-small glass. Like the tower of Babel, so too must Enoch fall. And fall he does, for he is nothing—
Like god. Key word being “like”. Not god. Fallible. The man runs a hand through his short hair, squeezing his eyes closed even as he looks up to the darkening sky. Rain is coming, and the afternoon is fading into evening. A thousand versions of the same scenario play out in his mind, riddled with microcosmic choices and choices and yet still more choices. He could be mean about it, a decision that makes him flinch as much as it tempts him; pleading or bargaining as the desperate, exhausted parent he is would be cathartic and unethical both; picking his son up bodily without either word or warning to leave, and pretending everything is fine and feigning ignorance is... All his mind can respond with is a reeling, disgusted 'No thank you'.
None are appealing or fair.
All of them seem to end, inevitably, with the inexorable tears of his son having to say good-bye to the playground equipment and the outdoors. He checks his phone for the time. It's time to go; it's pizza night and they have to go and get the food. The man scrubs a palm over his face as he brings his gaze back to the playground where his son more or less resides right now.
What was it that his wife had said earlier, about getting their son out of the playground? He tries, desperately, to remember. Forcing the issue will just make it worse, and—
A small drop of water lands on the man's nose. The boy, his son, doesn't notice the water falling from the sky. The man blinks, and breathes. Tension eases away with each breath. Another drop of water falls on the man's arm. Distracted, the man glances at his arm, and—ah. That's what she'd said.
“Hey,” the man says, leaning down to his son, “we have to go, now. Mama's waiting for us at home. And we have to get the pizza. Can you say 'bye-bye playground, see you later'?”
His son looks up at him, blinking once. “Okay.” The boy holds his arms out and up, in supplication for that selfsame direction. The man acquiesces gratefully. “Buh-bye playground. See you later,” the boy calls out to the now-empty play equipment.
“Good job, you're doing great,” the man says as he carries his son back to the safety and warmth of the family's car. His son doesn't respond. The man focuses on the sound of his feet crossing the ground and keeping hold on his son.
“Papa,” the boy says, and the man almost jumps out of his shoes, he's so surprised. He regains his composure fast enough to hear his son's next words. “It's raining.”
“That's right, it is,” says the man.
“Wanna get pizza and go home,” says the boy.
“Will do,” says the man.
“Papa, it's getting dark out here,” the boy says. The man hears the trembling in the boy's voice, and the small shiver in the boy's equally tiny body as he holds his father closer. The man tries not to laugh at his son's feelings, even as his heart breaks for his son over the fear of the dark.
“It is getting dark, isn't it?” The man says, in what he tries to make sound like a breezy tone. “Good observation, there,” he continues, in that same breezy, care-free cadence. “Oh. There's the car.” The boy squirms around, looking for the familiar vehicle. As they reach the car, the man feels his son's relief in how his body relaxes.
“Want down,” the boy says, and the man allows the boy out of his arms. The man opens the backdoor to let his son get into the car seat to get buckled in.
“Home safe?” asks the man, referring to the comfort and safety of the car seat straps.
“Home safe,” agrees his son. The man smiles, and closes the backdoor so he can get into the driver's seat. He starts the car, and father and son drive to get their pizza, and then go home.
The palatial throne room without a throne is quiet, save for the heartbeat sound of a thousand fluttering wings and whispers. The Queen begins their conversation; The Batter continues their conversation. Each present their view, their arguments and counterarguments. Both on equal footing, both on equal blame. Their conversation becomes heated and—
We have choices to make.
He embraces his wife, and she holds him, for she is no ball and chain, no, nor weight tied 'round his neck; she is a rock—his rock—and he clings to her, stable, and he hopes, he prays that he can be her rock, too.
“I'm sorry—” they both say, and they both smile; it's a wry, rueful expression, full of words they both have a difficult time saying and hearing. The man and woman look over at their son, sleeping on the blue-grey couch, head cushioned by one of the many throw pillows and body covered by his favorite red-and-grey checkered blanket. A truly ridiculous party favor—some sort of plastic toy ham, perhaps?—is easing out of his hand, while the small family's two cats are settling down around him.
“We were both so busy planning the party—”
(Choices have to be made)
“—that we forgot who it was for.”
Disappointment floods his heart, and his jaw clenches. His hands wrap around the bat—
The Queen's dialogue eradicates The Batter's patience. The fight begins.
If you keep talking to me like that, I'll go sleep on the couch, he thinks, and does a mental double take. 'I'll go sleep on the couch'? Where'd that come from? He shakes his head briefly, getting rid of the stray thought, and returns to the fray. The Batter isn't even sure he knows what a couch is.
It's over.
The battleground fades away to that clean, quiet solitude. The Batter and The Player vacate, moving forward, ever forward, and enter the room. The Batter swears he can hear a gasp that is neither his, nor Hugo's slowly failing breath.
“...I'm scared... of the dark.”
“From now on, there will be no darkness.”
A switch is pulled. Or perhaps it isn't. Perhaps neither choice is made. But still...
It is the end of the day. The man collapses into the couch, his wife following suit by his side, and their son cramming between them, all knees and elbows making room for himself. The boy settles down, and snuggles into the man's side, while his feet rest in the woman's lap. The man looks to the woman beside him, and they smile at each other over their son's head. It reminds the man of when they brought their son home, years ago.
They bring him home to the quiet, clean residence they have spent years making. He holds their son in the car seat with one hand; in the other, he helps his wife across the threshold. She asks to sit down on the couch. He obliges, sitting down with her, and sets their son in the car seat in front of them. The absence of the casual swaying motion awakens their son, who blinks up with eyes so much like his father's that both adults, still, are taken aback.
She puts on some music from the radio at the end table next to her. He eases their son out of the car seat—gentle, gentle—and leans forward to brace the infant against his shoulder before standing up to bring their son to her. He fears dropping their son, just as much as he fears his wife dropping their son, for several seconds as the transfer happens. Neither allow harm to come to their son.
He brings her pre-mixed formula; their son eats, and pushes away the bottle when full. He takes their son in his arms once more, callused hands holding precious cargo. He pats their son's back, between the shoulder blades, to encourage burping.
After burping, their son snuggles against his shoulder, yawning. His wife smiles at him, and he returns the expression as he rocks from side to side, in time with the radio's music: a ukelele cover of a song from a musical.
“I love you, Hugo,” he murmurs into the boy's ear, swaying gently all the while.