On the Production of Compact Discs
Information is stored in CD format as a series of microscopic burns. The unblemished disc, useless in its current state, is irreversibly charred with millions of tiny wounds until it is assigned order, meaning and utility based on the organization of its injuries. Hundreds of millions of identically-scorched discs are mass-produced in factories devoted to this purpose, and then they go out into the world to be used until they are forgotten, obsolete and soon unreadable.
But CDs are fragile things, and they can be damaged beyond that damage which defines them and thus have their identity erased even before they are outpaced by the march of progress. CDs can break. What becomes of these scratched and shattered discs? What becomes of the information within, of the libraries locked away behind the cracks and scuffs? What is the fate of objects with no use?
Chapter I: You Can Climb That Mountain
Changing the world is a conceit of children. We enter this world bereft of understanding, vulnerable little things ready at any moment to impale themselves upon their towering hopes. Exhausted and seeking renewal, our parents foster those dangerous hopes even as they nurse their own injuries. Indulging vicariously in our youthful indiscretion, they salve the gashes where once their own aspirations, those iridescent parasites, lurked in their breast—and so we are cursed to make the same mistakes, and to repeat the same cycle.
As foolish an adult as I was a child, I once raged against the injustice which had thrust me, tattered and bleeding, out into the cold. At the time I felt that, hardly having had any say in the circumstances of my arrival, I was at the very least owed a warm, fair world like the one sold to me in my youth. It wasn’t until later that I realized the scars on my body perfectly matched the grooves of the machine into which I would either be slotted or thrown away without a second thought—that was my curse; that was the gift which my parents gave to me.
Jettisoning my aspirations among the bloodslick of early adulthood, I fought as hard and as cruelly as was necessary to secure my own lowly position. I had made it. I had become the shape and hardness required of me, and had limited the bounds of my imagination to the realities of my existence—I had become a cohesive part.
And yet. Even with my own hands stained by my initiation, even knowing that I could never again claim to deserve anything more, my mind at times wanders from its padded cage. Wasn’t I promised something more than these long days and tearstained nights? Wasn’t there supposed to be something else, somewhere?
This, I believe, is referred to as the death drive.
November 11, 2011. Veterans Day. Already tasting vodka-flavored oblivion on my lips, I clutch my meager earnings in my hand as I walk to my local GameStop. As I enter I am immediately assaulted by three screens blasting three different advertisements for video games. It would seem that If I am to return to nothingness, I must first embrace hell.
“J-just this, please,” I stammer, holding out the empty box and a worn plastic card as if they were an offering to let me pass through the store unmolested.
In this, as in all things, I am disappointed.
“Oh, you’re a fan of Elder Scrolls, huh? You want that for PC? You know, PC is really the best, since you get all the mods…”
I nod along stupidly, a lamb to the slaughter. I can’t tell if I’m being lamely hit on or limply sold a useless product, but it ultimately makes little difference. After a thirty-second monologue I am permitted to leave the store with my game, if not my pride. Driving home, I wonder when I stopped liking video games, and why I keep buying them. Well, what else would I waste my money on? I enjoy little, and have time to enjoy even less. Better to run headlong into whatever means of burning through my empty days is most expedient, knowing that to raise my eyes to the horizon would only invite deeper injuries. It’s a strange kind of responsibility I practice, but then responsibility is always painful.
The game disc feels light and cheap in my hand as I place it into my computer’s CD tray. It would only stand to reason that this action, which would come to amount to throwing away the rest of my life, would be mundane and weightless.
The game installs, and I am plunged into a world bespattered by grime and filth. Searching desperately for the magic I was so sure I found as a child, I am left with nothing but burning eyes and a mouse slick with sweat. My character holds seven iron swords, a mace, three sets of armor and miscellaneous fruits, vegetables and tableware—but my own hands remain empty. A sickness overtakes me, a deeper sickness which lies atop and entwines with the one already provoked by cheap alcohol. I just want to stop playing and—maybe take a walk outside, and see if I can’t find something to like about this world. For one brief, excruciatingly bright moment, I am filled with fresh purpose—and then a sword intersects with a table, begins to twist rapidly around, and shoots off with an indescribable thud.
It may be difficult to fully describe the enjoyment I derive from this nonsense. It’s as if, having just cleared of clouds, the sky were suddenly set ablaze with a brilliant sunset. I begin to chuckle, a strangled, raspy sound, and soon break into full laughter. This, surely, is why I purchased this game. This is why I spent the money I earned with my long hours of work. This is the fruit of my years of labor, the unforeseen end of the journey on which I embarked as a child: unadulterated, cloying meme.
There is a kind of love so pure that it can only be understood as among the gravest perversions. A love which ignites the body with passion, such that through it even the most meaningless of things toss aside empty human logic, overflowing the cardboard cells of the mind and consuming all reason in a bright conflagration. A love which rewires the mind with no consideration of the demands of the outside world. A transcendent, fatal, repulsive sort of love. This is the love that I, an absolutely miserable human being unworthy even of contempt, hold for meme in its raw, unattenuated form. The only love which a creature like me can muster.
Meme is the hope at the bottom of the modern Pandora’s box. A single redemptive force amid the chaos and control—capture the effervescent radiation at the borders of the crushing arbitrariness of everyday life, look into those spots where the clamps malfunction and crush into bone, find where the canopy of steel grows so thick that you remember sunlight—that is meme. The last, bitter laugh of a bloodied martyr, screencapped and attached to a shitpost.
The following day I discover console commands, and the fire of my passion burns so hot that it chars my ribcage, so hot that it melts the chains which I had fashioned from the iron of my own blood to bind me to survival’s sharp edges.
I am not set free. A being like myself is incapable of understanding freedom, even if I were to somehow deserve it. No, I am more of a slave than I ever was—a slave to that neon, excruciating joy which has in a single instant melted me down and shaped me anew.
Less than human, I have become a gamer.
Chapter IIa: Put What You Want in Your Hands
Having broken free of those chains which I chafed against for most of my life, I began to tumble painfully through my new cage. The next six years progressed uneventfully despite the constant stream of new adventures and alterations in my beloved game—I had nothing to lose, and I lost it.
Though my face had become tired, my eyes burned with the reflected light of a purpose still blazing within me, and I was radiant. I truly believe that I could have progressed in this manner forever, but my past existence would not be escaped so easily; the costs of living piled up, as did the price of new consoles (that I may experience Skyrim again, anew, plunging into its most secret depths and exploring those unique flaws which were native to each platform). Finally, reality bared its jaws fully.
Having just purchased a PlayStation VR, I was too broke even to acquire new debt—and then Skyrim was released for the Nintendo Switch, and I desperately needed the funds to buy it. There was nothing left to sell, nothing but my piles of Skyrim games and the consoles to play them with. I had even given up alcohol, having found a more efficacious means of self-destruction. At wit’s end, I contacted Todd Howard himself, hoping against hope that the man might take some mercy upon his most loyal fan.
Nothing in my life could have prepared me for the consequences of this action. Whatever sort of creature I might have been, I held only a human understanding of this reality at best; I was incapable of comprehending the level at which a being like Todd operates.
And so it came to be, though even now I’m not really sure how, that I was in Maryland face to face with the man himself. He said nothing, his cold silence a marked contrast to the meek personality he presented in interviews. There were no words to be said, no words but those listed on the contract before me.
I saw my whole life laid out there, neatly bound in threads of black ink. And then I signed with grim resolve, as if I were spilling my own blood across the page.
I earnestly believe that each of us desire, at our core, to be bound by something greater than ourselves. Floating freely through the horrible nothingness, unavoidably harming others as we tumble about, we have no hard form, no justification for the parasitism of existence. And so we cage our infinitely dispersed conscious, that the cage may become our body and its borders our self. Having changed my cage was tantamount to rebirth. But was I entering a cycle of enlightenment, or one of atonement?
Perhaps if I knew either way, I would have refused to sign the document. But the danger reacted with my passion deep within my mind, shaking my heart to the core and shattering the thin facade of reason. The ink I signed with was nothing other than the very hot blood which flowed from the depths of my bruised heart up through those cracks, flushing my body with warmth.
Todd picked up the contract, wordlessly looked over my signature, nodded. I suppose the taste of my blood was to his liking.
Chapter IIb: Make Yourself Proud
A car soon arrived to pick me up. As it wound its way along the highway, I stared out into the sky—today it was a deep, brilliant blue, and, perhaps because I knew this would be my last sight of it, I couldn’t drink in enough. My thoughts drifted back, as soft and free as the clouds in that sky—not in regret, but from the satisfaction of having my affairs settled, really settled.
The feeling was itself nostalgic. How long had it been since I could complete everything I hoped to in a single day and enjoy the rest of it with a clear mind? Even since I had devoted myself completely to Skyrim, I never found the time, or more accurately the mental discipline, to feel satisfied with my progress when it was time to sleep. There was always some other barrow, another Draugr to sneak attack, ten more frost trolls to spawn in. But, sometime before that, surely...
In truth even as I reminisced about simpler times I knew they were probably an invention of the current me projected onto a past self which could no longer speak for itself, but being that I was in a rare whimsical mood I chased the thoughts as they rolled around.
Where exactly had my life diverged from the paths of human society, and when had the gap between the two become too wide to cross? Though I no longer felt any pain when considering that sort of thing, it was still a hazy question. Even as I tried to turn my memories over I found myself refashioning them, reshooting events and adjusting details until they supported convenient interpretations. By this point the original memory, if such a thing could be said to exist, had long since been lost.
In the back of that car, in that tiny world populated by only me, I invented a past self to bid farewell to.
What sense of obligation drove me? I was sure it must have been something like going to a distant relative’s funeral—unable to feel the emotion I had been awaiting, unsure of even what that emotion was, I made a stiff attempt at propriety in its stead. As could be expected it was an awkward affair, a lot like meeting an old friend one has long ago fallen out of touch with. Actually, it was exactly that—the sense of trying to invent an already-vanished identity, working backwards to justify a bundle of artificial, too-neatly-wrapped feelings.
A funny thought struck me: what if I had never been anyone at all? Having clung to those few things which granted me some momentary sense of enjoyment, having diligently guarded myself against anything which might render me vulnerable, had I allowed my pain to consume me while I hid behind a screen of flimsy plastic?
But that would have been too convenient.
I, whose parts had never quite fit together properly, couldn’t be satisfied with an answer that tied a neat bow on my life. In other words, I refused to accept an explanation that “just works”—surely I must myself be as full of meaningless switchbacks, unintended paths and displaced objects as the game I had chosen to devote myself to.
A sharp turn pulled me out of my half-dreaming state, trailing loose thoughts in air still thick with sleep. We had arrived, and it was time to leave the beautiful sky behind.
Chapter III: You Can Play Forever
My thoughts hardened again as I approached the Bethesda offices, and my blood, which had cooled during the long car ride, pounded hot in my ears once more. There I stood, at the edge of eternity, awaiting consummation of my obsession. My driver came too, standing patiently behind me in a smart suit and sunglasses that gave him a cartoonishly coherent image. I wondered if he wasn’t a beginner at this, momentarily crossing paths with me as he strode out to the fringes of his own world.
All of my earlier contentment evaporated in the heat of that moment, a heat that seemed to exude from the manila walls of the office as surely as if they were the sands of a far-off desert. Perhaps they were heated by the golden sunlight which lapped against the outer walls of the building but went no farther. It was strange to think that they and I would soon exist on opposite sides of that light which had been shining down on me for all of my life. The glass door, when I pushed it, seemed impossibly heavy despite the smoothness with which it opened.
As the door came to a close behind me with a puff of air, I was bemused to find anxiety and regret welling up within me. It must have just been the cliche of a final door playing tricks on me—what was I leaving behind? A life worth less than nothing. Having entered the (figurative) dungeon with no (figurative) healing items and suffering deep wounds, I had been (figuratively) tip-toeing around trying futilely to avoid further damage even as I knew deep in my heart that I would be broken the moment I tried to do anything.
I had been wrong my whole life. There may be a place for the injured in society, in the same way that I often basked in sad songs. There is a place for those things which break and then go on, that are marked with that rainbow promise of human resilience, of the faded glory of that distant day when scars will have become old friends.
There is no place in this entire world for those who have broken irreparably. For those who cannot go on, for those who have no future, whose lives are forever sent spinning off the trajectory of consensus human existence. There is no promise of the infinite and indefinite palliative care needed simply for that kind of person to survive on a day-to-day basis. And, instinctively feeling that shortcoming, fearful that understanding the curse would be to invite it, those fortunate, blind souls for whom tomorrow will surely come are enraged by the existence of those like me.
But Todd was different. Ever since our meeting I believed, I had to believe, that he alone among this pathetic species had an uninjured heart. Or rather, I had to believe that his heart pulsed with such a vulgar, careless muscularity that those injuries which would tear a sensitive person to shreds could not stop its beating, but only wreathe it in a rosy mist of hot, rich blood as it pumped.
I would be crushed carelessly by the weight of that existence, a bug upon a windshield. The thought excited me beyond comparison. If I met that sort of end, lower than a stray dog, I was certain a pillar of incandescent meme would split the heavens in that spot. A life so carefully brought to nothing... It was a peculiar sort of alchemy, but it was my last hope.
I was led deep within the bowels of the Bethesda facility, through winding halls and past unmarked doors. I knew that I was underground because I had been descending from the first floor, but I soon lost track of anything more than that. As I passed each silent chamber, I wondered if some other contractee was within, and for the first time in years I felt a twinge of true jealousy deep in my heart. I was motioned through another door, shut inside, and then with the click of a lock I was left in a blackness thick as death.
How much time did I spend drifting among that abyss? As soon as I realized that I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face, I started to fret about my appearance. I had come first to Todd on my knees; now that I had incurred a debt of gratitude too heavy to ever repay, I could at least have kept myself presentable for his sake. But there was nothing to be done about it, and so, adjusting my hair by feel with one hand, I set about groping around the limits of my chamber with the other.
It seemed I had been granted a bed with a cold steel frame like those in a hospital, a large, rectangular chest of some sort and a standard toilet awkwardly shoved in a corner. Beyond that, there could have been anything or nothing at all. Even my thoughts seemed to dissolve into the endless night, and soon I was unsure if I was asleep or awake.
It was in this state that he came to me, emerging from a thin slit of light and into the darkness of my dream like the mirror image of an infant poking its head into the world. He clapped twice, waited. Clapped again.
The darkness erupted into light.
“You, uh, you could have… They were supposed to…”
So this was the real Todd after all. The weight of a universe in the body of this strange, overgrown child. Drawing some strange comfort from that thought, I walked toward him with a sly smile, my confidence restored.
Todd continued stammering out an introduction. He seemed profoundly uncomfortable with the words people use, out of his element outside of the incestuous twin worlds of gaming and press events. His nervousness grew as I approached, and I took a cruel delight in embracing him mid-sentence. His monologue, hardly a viable birth from the start, died in his throat as he hesitantly placed his hands around me.
No matter how quickly I tried to dispel the thought, his unsure hands reminded me of a child grasping out for its mother as they searched my body. Perversely, this stumbling touch sent tremors through my entire being as I patiently guided him. Only when he had found what he sought did he move with a feverish brute force, channeling the sudden strength awkwardly through his lanky frame. Carelessly, roughly, like blind puppies pulling at the breast of a sleeping dam, those hands tugged at me with such raw, artless desire that I thought my entire body would surely be pulled apart.
I gasped, Todd gasped. We were one in the stagnant, torrid air of the chamber, entwined and unequal (though who was what, how power flowed through our forms like live wires, it all blurred into the sickening haze of the moment). Thought became plastic, molten, flowed out until I was sure that I was entirely gone, lost in the raw sensation, his breath hot upon my ear, the agony and magnetism, apart from the boundaries of life and death, too far from myself to ever return.
And then, in an instant, it was over. We tumbled over and apart from other, spent and filled.
The copy of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for Xbox 360 Todd had shoved into my waistband sat cold against my stomach, stretching the fabric. Todd clutched the sixty dollars he had extracted from my back pocket in front of his face as he lay on his back staring blankly up into the concrete ceiling. It was a look I might have expected from the dead of war, a vacant gaze turned accusingly to the heavens.
We lay like corpses, like beings reverted to clay, in that chamber where time did not pass.
Even before the moment withered, I knew the silence must break, and I was filled with a bitter sadness in anticipation of that inevitable point at which the rotation of the earth and caprices of biology would reassert their tyranny over the cold and statuesque world in which we alone had found some fleeting shelter. Tears fell wet and hot on my cheeks, streaming from my motionless head onto the hard floor. Todd, I realized in some periphery of my mind, was crying too.
Gently, apologetically, Todd slaughtered the moment before it could be taken by decay.
“I’ll back tomorrow the same time,” he said with a sad smile. “I—I always operate on the same schedule”.
And then he was gone, and I was alone with myself, the disc and a cabinet filled with consoles and a small television. All according to contract, all belonging to Todd—and yet I could hardly bear even this momentary custodianship of those things I had dragged around for so long. Not any more. They had become so, so awfully heavy.
Long after he had disappeared, three more twenty dollar bills appeared from the crack beneath my door.
Returning uncertainly to life as if awakening from a heartbreakingly beautiful dream, I breathed three words to the emptiness:
"I'll be waiting."
