When reading books, I drift into a concentrated “position” wherein my brain holds onto the image of a prior location while visualizing people and places. It’s as if I am holding a ball in one hand as I mold another in the other. What makes the exercise so particular is how often the places in question no longer exist. A frequent example is the front half of a now-demolished, after-school daycare I attended in third grade. Snuffer’s is a burger and cheese fries bar and restaurant that has been a frequent presence in my life and was remodeled over ten years ago. While reading the works of Philip K. Dick, (currently going through The Penultimate Truth but this happened in the past with Dr. Bloodmoney and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldtrich), two images of the old building’s design appear. Could this be a form of Hyperphantasia, the condition where someone can recall vivid levels of details during mental imaging? Does this have something to do with liminal spaces, the relaxing but easily unsettling vibes conveyed in the form of internet images? Who knows? What I do know is that this location recollection also includes frequently revisited video games. 

As a kid I would replay the same parts of a video game repeatedly because childhood me had time but not income and each game had to last. Skipping already-completed difficult sections, frequently driving-related, was a reason to start these three games in the middle. Resident Evil (a drum this website is allowed to beat at most once a year), specifically Resident Evil 5, is the first example. Co-op first or third-person shooters are a respectful weakness,  with RE 5 entailing seeing how many times Gun-Show Chris Redfield could shotput RE’s secret best character, Sheva Alomar, across gorges. Some areas were revisited countless times, such as the underground ruins. The running water from a ceiling hole , the old lit torches, the plant life; the underground ruins were colorful for a game that would soon become, like all other RE games, almost entirely gun-metal grey. 

Pages: 1 2