all is fair in love & games

“Adek, kerjain tugasnya!” This is a fairly common saying in my household, most likely to be heard echoing in the walls of our home at random times of day whenever my mom was reminded of the schoolwork my brother was definitely not doing. Although it was an iron-clad command, to hope that he would follow through with it would be akin to waiting on the sun’s imminent explosion five billion years from now — it would eventually happen, naturally or otherwise, but you could only remain helpless until the time comes. (And helplessness is a state that my mother does not take well to.) Thus begins a night of borderline begging my brother to complete a task or two, which is already a losing game. (Really, you would be better off trying to play fetch with that three-headed dog from hell.) This usually culminates in dinner, or at least a pale imitation of it: a plate piled high with a slew of my brother’s excuses, me being forced to cut his meat for him, and the carefully tempered resolve of my mother manifesting itself as one big kitchen knife, slicing through it all. 

Hearing this phrase that has been repeated into oblivion, I could only internally roll my eyes, having known the outcome after everything is said and done. The ultimatum is always this: either he drops everything and plows through his to-do list, or she takes away his beloved laptop for the weekend. This, I know, is both a common threat and a lie — the one-edged sword of unwilling parental punishment. After all, it is only polite to return a sharp object with its edge pointed towards you — my mother always softened her blows by giving my brother the benefit of the doubt, the outstretched handle. An olive branch to make amends. All that he needs is to grasp it,

but even that is a feat too difficult these days. His eyes glued to the screen, incessant clicking of a mouse like a ghost outside of my door. I watch him and it irks me. I try to help him and it irks him. It’s a losing game.

Perhaps I should take that offered branch in his stead. After all, it is only polite to take what is given to you — and my mother has already gifted me too much. Trust, that is. I’ve always had too much of it.

Perhaps I’ve already lit that branch on fire.

My father has been into chess recently. All of his time that isn’t spent on work or his other hobbies is presumably funneled into the chess app on his phone, and I am a witness. Naturally, I am no stranger to my father’s whims, but even I have to be fascinated by how enamoured he seems to be with it, even if he loses half of the time — it’s easy to confirm with all the frustrated sounds he makes. Distantly, I wonder if he’s doing it just as a simple way to pass the time, or if he really is trying to get better at it. 

The motivation to get better. I wonder what it would feel like to have that again.

We all have our vices: my brother, his games, and my father, chess. And what of myself? I like games as much as the next person. I was never very interested in them in my childhood, always a bookish type, but as I grew older I discovered a love for fantasy games. The delicately-crafted lore of worlds beyond instilled in me not only a rather overbearing passion to talk about them in excessive detail, but also a thrilling taste for escapism — one that now leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

In another world of mine, all that exists are love and games.

Here’s the common denominator: you want to win. Roll the dice; pick a card. To show your hand or to conceal your emotions? In this world I have the perfect bluff up at all times — I never fold, and I aim for the heart. In this world the guilt of losing all sense of self to my own inner child does not follow me into my waking life, and I always win, just like I used to when I went to competitions as a younger student. I am pristine and I am perfect — I am the queen who can move across the board to wherever I wish. In this world of black and white, only I get to cast a shadow upon my enemy,

and that enemy is me.

Reality is such a bitter, cold gray. Sometimes I feel like I make myself lose on purpose — not out of courtesy for others, but self-hate. I shirk my duties and I sleep in. Texts from friends go unanswered most of the time. I refuse to win, but I also refuse to lose. I’m a bad sport and a far cry from the reliable daughter I used to be, and the truth about the fragility of my wellbeing is like a knife sticking out of my side: I feel so painfully visible and so visibly in pain, yet it is of my own doing. Responsibility is a double-edged sword — I try to hold it in both hands and still, I bleed. It’s a twist in the gut to realize that you’ve been trapping yourself inside the one thing you sought to escape. And I am so, so guilty.

Pathetically, I can’t even escape love. It is an unbearable thing, to be at your worst and still be loved unconditionally. Maybe I’ve built up so much hate in my heart that all I want is to be hated in turn, betting on promises I can’t keep and lie behind my teeth, waiting for the day someone knocks me off of my pedestal. Like a pawn on the chessboard who makes it far enough to replace a missing piece, only to be replaced by another pawn when they are cast out. “Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined” — I think about this too often.

Suddenly, the loss of the sun doesn’t seem so far away. Maybe tomorrow I will self-implode and wipe the rest of the universe clean with how feverishly I’ve been praying for my own downfall. Maybe tomorrow my mother will finally ground my brother for a month — I’d like to live to see that day. Maybe I will die in my sleep and live a quiet life on the moon, untethered and unbound, yet destined to keep circling back to my fears. Maybe I am sick of this self-hating cycle, this never ending race to outrun my own shadow.

Maybe I am the shadow — and when I look up from the ground, I see a hand extending itself to me.