Quinn Quimby

I’m sitting in my office at an empty high school, swaddled in a heated blanket like a toddler, staring at a screen in the dark. Figures swirl up and down, the familiar dreadful screen of my email, and, as I try to focus on my work, that irritable, ever-present sound chimes in from my inbox with a fresh demand. I have pneumonia. I am sitting here, full of cough syrup, eyes blurring at my laptop, because I have no other choice. I’ve told myself I have no other choice.

The first time you play Coming Out Simulator 2014 you are twelve years old and deeply closeted and it’s so late at night that you aren’t even sure if the game is real or if you’ve made it up, some strange amalgamation of hallucination at 4:01 in the morning.

The first time I played Wii Sports was not Christmas morning, lovingly tearing away layers of wrapping, or even a class party in elementary school surrounded by friends. It was no birthday, or reward for good grades, or even the result of weeks of saved allowance. It was just another bleak summer afternoon at my grandma’s house.