That Dragon, Cancer is a Game about Mortality.
A long time ago I was a kid very used to hospitals. Any kid who's parent works in a hospital is a kid that gets used to hospitals. There is always a pager beep in the middle of the night, and there are never enough babysitters.
So a kid get's used to the smell of pine-sol, gets used to vending machine hot pockets, and gets used to sitting in uncomfortable chairs waiting for someone to take you home, understanding it's probably not going to be the person that brought you there. It was cool with me because I didn't have any friends and I could bring my Nintendo and hook it up in any vacant room and play, which is what I would have been doing anyway.
The only other recurring children in the building were the cancer kids. When they found out I had a system available the would search me out. I felt comfortable around them because I knew the deal, they would be around for a while, and if they were gone, they were gone. It was a very low risk investment for me, which allowed me to open up more than I usually would.
One thing I know is that cancer kids love to curse. When their parents weren't in the room it was a constant stream of "fucks," "shit's," and "suck a butts" coming out of them. When the parents were in the room the all inadvertently clammed up, the parents were always in mourning, and the kids were too nice to tell them to chill the fuck out because they were alive right now and only had so much time. All except the girl that turned out to be my first crush.
I had zero chance against her, she carried herself almost exactly like Wednesday. None of my tricks worked on her. She looked upon all of the other kids like patrons of the Titty Twister bar before the vampires were revealed. I felt this unmistakable need for her to like me, and she gave no indication that I was anything but a rude entitled little snot and let me know as much.
Her dad was some kind of cop. The guy hated me, he hated me because of the way I looked at her, he hated the way she looked at me, he hated that I saw him in his car crying that one time and asked him what is wrong. It was apparent he sat her down one day and explained life to her in a rush.
He brought her home to pass, there was nothing else the hospital could do for her. I wrote her until she left, she wrote and said she liked me, I invited her to the skating rink, I didn't even like skating at the time, just wanted an excuse to hold her hand.
I didn't run into another cancer kid until much later, only to find them as annoying as ever. I have yet to finish That Dragon, Cancer. I have tried twice, once during PAX, I had to walk away, and once during test at my day job where I had to stop once again at the same place. The same impossible, painful, place. I hope information finishes. Also JERBZ.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : Games : Stardust
