All day, Jim was surrounded by loud machines. They expelled gas and hissed as they moved heavy loads on a construction site. The machines ran over materials, crunching them and splitting some wood in half. When the much vaunted machines broke, which happened often, he had to finish moving the materials himself before 5 p.m. His head hurt, and he did not want to move at the day’s end, but at least it was home time.
After work, rather than clear his head, Jim filled it with words. He opened the window in his apartment, plopped himself down at his desk to flip through the pages of book after book. He didn’t notice the outside world as his pencil vigorously scratched the books and his margins overflowed with notes. Soon, there was an unbearable noise he could no longer ignore: the never-ending traffic on the street. There was honking, yelling, speeding, angry arguments, rumbling and screeching tires. Listening to these sounds while reading became a tiring chore. “Enough!” Jim thought.
He left his desk, grabbed something to eat and sat down to play video games. His character walked through a verdant world and stared at an unblemished blue sky. Just then, a massive steel beast rumbled in to view on the screen. It flattened grass, knocked over trees, left a giant footprint and belched smoke. It was a tank.
“Ah,” Jim thought as he stretched his toes and legs, “this is so relaxing.”
Video Games Nebula 
Well, it’s virtual smoke! =P
Nice short story.
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Thanks 🙂
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Isn’t it funny how the hard-mental work of focusing on a game is relaxing while hard mental work isn’t relaxing when its… work?
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Totally. For me, I think it often has to do with the fact that I can choose what to sit down and play, read, watch, whereas work is often others dictating to me what they want and need. Entertainment, is such a stress relieving escape.
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Agreed. Definitely has to do with voluntarily doing something as opposed to *having* to do it. In a sense, exercise has a similar effect, hard voluntary work makes good stress relief too. Of course, I don’t exercise enough though. Haha
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Ugh… exercise. Going to gym is like torture for me but I’d have no problem going to the hockey rink for 6 hours and playing all night (unfortunately life hasn’t allowed that to happen in too long).
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Yeah, I love being out hiking in the outdoors but can’t stand the gym. Hockey seems like a lot of fun! I have a buddy who plays amateur league and he loves it.
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The irony! I wonder if all the people who plant vegetables in games enjoy doing that outdoors. Or is there something about doing the activity in a digital world that appeals to them more? I was thinking of games like Animal Crossing.
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It is something I wonder about too. I recently played Stardew Valley (and never finished it). That also has farming, but you can also choose a pet for your farm too. I chose a dog because well, I have a dog. Anyway, every time I saw the virtual dog, I would try to interact with it, and then I looked over at my real dog and I thought, how silly of me to be playing interacting with a fake dog when I got an awesome dog already! My wife quipped about how much of a hard worker I am when she saw me doing “farm work”. I’ve never played Animal Crossing, but it sounds like it has a lot of the same ironies for sure!
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Haha and did she ask why you don’t work that hard around the house?
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