Hero

People want stability in their lives, either from family, friends, a TV show or movie, or even a video game; something that will not change even when everything else will. For me that stability came from my cousin and the games we played. I had no siblings, and my extended family was pretty close. Thinking back I enjoyed their company, although I think I hated them at the time.

I was the oldest of four, but the oldest of them, only a few months my sophomore,was our ringleader. He reminds me of a protagonist in a TV-Y7 anime; strong-willed, stubborn, charismatic, quirky, kind, a natural-born leader, a friend. When my mother would ground me at my grandmother’s house he would pretend to watch TV so I could watch it. When I was disgruntled, we would play with his Pokémon cards, and his beyblades, and his hot wheels cars, and on the swings in my grandmother’s backyard, and with my army of stuffed animals as his attempts to cheer me up.

When we joined our other two cousins-who I think didn’t like me very much-we had video game tournaments on his consoles at my grandmother’s house, mostly Smash Brothers and Mario Kart; and we would play Guitar Hero and all its versions when I finally got a Wii. I remember he would always carry his Gameboy Advanced, a cobalt blue piece of electronic wonder. 

I started seeing them less and less. Sometimes he and his mom would come to our house, and yeah, he would bring his Gameboy and I had a Nintendo DS, and we would trade games and just play together while our moms bickered. Like an alternate universe where we would go and be something else, do something else. Somewhere we could be heroes and feel loved, not just by each other.

He is the reason I like the things I like. Everything about my personality I derived from his. I miss him. He isn’t dead but it feels like it to me. And sometimes, I wonder if he still distracts himself like I do, if he still plays everything that I do.

Last I heard, he wants to join the military as soon as he graduates.