I remember the slippery sweat feel of the controller held sometimes all night long in the darkened dormitory of the eighties.

There were endless bags of chips, sugar in every form.

A feeling of community—cart chases and princesses to be rescued.

"It's all coming down to the video game reflexes," Tom Cruise said in The Color Of Money.

Who can tell the difference anymore when the red founts spray and the crimson mouths gurgle?

I'm wired head-to-toe with neural transceivers broadcasting each pothole jolt to a cerebral cortex hyped up to the Nth degree by sports power drinks.

The athlete's foot itch in my four hundred dollar combat boots might be real or planted there by corporate greed.

I'm mowing down faceless enemies even in my sleep.

The game is playing itself, and I am just a blip blinking my way toward oblivion on someone else's screen.