Side-Questing in Suburbia

Flash Fiction – Contemporary Humor / Slice of Life

I wasn’t dying without it or anything. I mean, it wasn’t like I couldn’t survive a weekend without Zombie Coeds from Outer Space. But still, I wasn’t exactly thriving either. Forty-five years old, a decent job, a car that ran most of the time – but sometimes it felt like I was still just a kid chasing the next cool thing. And this game? This game was the cool thing. Everyone was talking about it. I had to have it.

So I drove all over town. Big box stores, tiny hole-in-the-wall shops that smelled like old carpet and desperation, even that shady guy on Marketplace who always says, “Meet me in the parking lot.” Every place I went, I got the same story: “Sold out,” “Try back next week,” “Should’ve preordered.” Each rejection landed heavier than the last, and by the time I made it back home, empty-handed, I was just ready to give up.

And there it was. Sitting on the coffee table like it had just spawned there, wrapped in its shrink wrap, the cover art glistening like some B-movie miracle. My wife popped her head in from the kitchen, grinning like she’d just unlocked the cheat code to my heart.

“You’ve been talking about it all week,” she said. “I figured you’d go nuts trying to find it, so I grabbed one online.”

I held the game in my hands, staring at it like it might disappear. I felt ridiculous. All that running around, the frustration, the self-pity, and here she was, solving the problem before I even knew how big it was. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to hug her or kick myself. In the end, I just laughed, plopped down on the couch, and said, “I owe you big time.”

She smiled back. “You can start by making dinner tomorrow.”

Fair trade. For a moment, I thought about how lucky I was. Then the zombies started invading, and I thought about nothing else for hours.

Author’s Note

This story started as a quick writing exercise, but it surprised me. I’ve spent a lot of my adult life chasing little pockets of joy—sometimes through games, sometimes through nostalgia, sometimes through the silly things that get us out of bed on a bad week. This piece reminded me that the best quests in life are often the ones someone else chooses to join us on.

Photo: PV Productions