A Maze of Murderscapes: Metroid II

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2021-10-20 23:30:07

“I was passing through a wasteland when suddenly my mind drifted … my spirit lifted, my location shifted [...]”

I first played Metroid II: Return of Samus in the women’s wing of a homeless shelter in Providence, Rhode Island. There I endured five months of homelessness; the rest of the time was spent on streets or in psychiatric wards. I screamed a lot and frequently lost my mind. It wasn’t the first time I’d been homeless or nearly died, and it won’t be the last.

Nestled in my palms like a religious text is the videogame machine. If it were a console and not a handheld, it would be the idol of the shrine that is an entertainment center. Should someone blaspheme my idol or denomination of favorite games, I am conditioned to swell with indignation. But nevertheless I play and play. I insert the monolithic gray cart into the slot. I slide the switch up on the side of the handheld device. A veneer of light and sound materializes before me, like the face of god in a machine.

This ritual is performed daily as I try to make sense of the way it makes me think and feel about myself and the world around me. I can dismantle the software and the hardware, analyze them, write about the technical aspects of them after great study, but that way of summing them up doesn’t quite actualize how they affected me—what it all meant that first time, in the moment. Our experiences are ineffable, even when we seem to be simply pressing buttons to move light on a cave wall. As feelings atrophy with time’s passage, we try to resuscitate or exorcise them by telling others so they might understand, so that they may try out this thing we’re excited about. To talk about our experiences is to talk about the ghosts of feelings, because sometimes it’s worth keeping the spirit alive.