Depending on who you ask, my son was supposed to have
been born yesterday, or is supposed to be born tomorrow. My wife Sarah is tired
of lugging around the equivalent of a bowling ball in her tummy and I’ve got a
limited paternity leave that I’m burning through, so I’d rather he pop out
soon, too.
But Zigmo – our nickname for the baby – ain’t movin’. So
neither are Mom and Dad, I guess.
How does a dad-to-be kill time? Far Cry 4, obviously. But
that’s not just because I’m the kind of guy who knows more about Gameboy than
Game of Thrones, and prefers NBA Jam to March Madness. Far Cry 2 was the last
game I played before getting married, and the first game I finished upon
getting back from the honeymoon. When I found out my wife was pregnant, it was
with an Xbox 360 controller in my hand and Far Cry 3 paused in the living room.
So on the day my son was supposed to be born, playing Far Cry 4 just made sense
to me.
On April 22 at around 11 a.m., I began waiting for Zigmo
the only way that would keep me sane. After an interesting-but-flimsy set up
involving a Joker-like villain and an urn full of Mom’s ashes, I found myself drinking
in the lush, dangerous scenery of Far Cry 4’s Kyrat. I had but a peashooter and
sack of blood drenched venison to protect my fragile, fragile hiney.
At 12:30 p.m., Sarah headed to lunch with my aunt and
grab a few things from Babies ‘R’ Us, in hopes of walking ‘till the baby fell
out, I guess. Meanwhile, in Kyrat, I had already spent $500,000 rupees on
various upgrades. But even with my new, shiny weaponry, I still get my ass
handed to be by the odd tiger or lucky potshot.
Games like the Far Cry series are a little bit like life.
You start out naked and afraid, and after some hard work, you think you’re hot
stuff. Then you get your spirt broken. Maybe you fail a test or you get dumped.
Or maybe you get ruthlessly gunned down by a despot’s hired goons in a
forgotten, war-torn country located someplace between Mount Everest and Hell.
Forget changing diapers – the thought of going through
school again, of discovering that sometimes you have to let your dreams die –
that’s what’s really horrifying. Who wants to find out that they have a degree in
something they can’t stand? Who wants to worry about their parents having
enough money to keep their house? Zigmo’s gonna have to do all of that and
more. If he’s going to go through all this garbage, why did we want to have a
kid anyway?
It was 3 p.m. and I got a trophy for painting my handgun
to look like an NES Zapper. My wife came home about an hour later, no closer to
giving birth than when she left. At that point, I was a full-fledged member of
the Golden Path, the group of counter terrorists looking to wrest the control of
Kyrat from the fabulously dressed dictator, Pagan Min.
I can’t remember when I started playing again, but by 9
p.m., I discovered that I could ride elephants. I picked one I was particularly
fond of and named him Stampy, like the episode of The Simpsons where Bart gets an
elephant. I think it’s called “Bart Gets an Elephant.” Stampy and I got a
trophy for running over 30 bad guys. Stampy is a good little ele.
The next day around 1 p.m., Sarah headed out again, this
time to eat spicy wings at Chilli’s, presumably to smoke Zigmo out. There I
was, alone with my thoughts and about 2,000 bad guys (and just as many bugs).
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| I'd say he's walking on sunshine, but it's midnight. |
Over the next few hours, I went swimming in clear blue
lake on the back of an elephant, climbed the snowcapped mountains, and flew a
tiny, one-man helicopter to the top of a rickety tower, where I hijacked the
region’s radio signal for my loser friend, DJ Rabi Ray Rana. I defended the
innocent, rummaged around underwater caves for treasure, and earned a trophy
for stopping the corrupt king’s men from taking over our bases.
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| I also exploded four baddies at once. They gave me a trophy for that, too. |
At the top of one of those radio towers, I stopped for a
minute and listened to the wind, just like I used to do on summer nights at my
parents’ house. I used to play video games until 3 a.m. with the windows open
and the wind whistling, and then take a walk around my neighborhood. One of the
things I liked most about Nowhere, N.Y. was the stillness and the stars in the
sky right before the sun came up. If I waited another hour or two, there was a
good chance a hot air balloon would appear in the distance, a far cry from my
neighborhood, and it would be floating over my house 20 minutes later. Sometimes
I would chase them down on foot and take pictures with my little camera. Once
in a while, they would land in my neighborhood and I’ll step outside and meet
the pilot, all before Mom and Dad were even awake.
The first time I got to ride in a hot air balloon was
when I asked my wife to marry me. By the end of the ride we could almost see my
parents’ house.
What makes the Far Cry series worth playing, and life
worth living, are the small things. The world can be cruel and there’s a ton of
garbage I never, ever want to do again, like student teaching, lending
thousands I’ll never get back to a deadbeat ex, or sitting though anything
starring Adam Sandler. But I’m still looking forward to those little things yet
to come, like making Zigmo laugh, dressing him in stupid outfits when Mommy’s
not looking, and teaching him to appreciate the gaming classics before the new
stuff turns him into a crybaby.
And I hope that for Ziggy, memories of the little things,
like playing Super Mario with Daddy, will help get him through the breakups,
the disappointments, and the nights where the room just won’t stop spinning.
It was around 8 p.m. that Sarah and I realized that we
didn’t have anything for dinner, so I switched off Far Cry 4 and headed to
Shoprite with her, but not before snapping this photo of a villager hanging out
somewhere in Kyrat. Despite living in a world where she could be eaten by dogs
or accidently blown up by a player with a poor grasp of the game’s controls, she
couldn’t care less. It was a nice day and she was out for a walk. Anything that
might come her way, she would just deal with it.
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| DEAL WITH IT. |
Whatever comes our way with our son, we’ll just deal with
it. And we’ll give him the tools to grow up strong so he can deal with it too.
We just have to get him out first.
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