6.17.2025

There's this show you only watch in batches, three or four at at time. It's about a game where you roll some dice, sometimes three and sometimes six, and whatever the outcome you're assigned a weapon from a list with the corresponding number. Whichever weapon you get, say a dagger for argument's sake, that's what you use the rest of the game. Now you're in a hallway of infinite length. Doors, identical, on either side, the glow of an exit sign at the end but never close enough to read it. Pick a door, any door, and now you're in a focus group, or maybe it's a support group, either way you're seated quietly in a circle with the other participants whose names are unknown to you even if their faces are familiar. Everyone trades stories and sips coffee from styrofoam. Turns out you're all addicted to television shows about complicated games with no apparent objective. When the session is ended everyone pulls a name from a hat. Let's say it's a fedora, an old one with a hard bump in it from exposure to the sun. Whatever name you draw that's who you're supposed to stalk for the rest of the game. Whether you decide to attack your person is up to you, and your person can decide if they want to attack you as well. Back to the hallway and the doors only this time some of the doors are locked and some aren't. Doors open and close at random. Sometimes another player emerges, looks around, tries another door or proceeds down the hallway toward the orange glow from the exit sign. You search for a while. You have not found your assigned person. What would you like to do next?