Welcome to my Paradigm

For as long as James could remember life had been about the quest, striving for the seemingly unattainable goal, reaching for the elusive grail. That’s how it had started anyway. To a kid growing up in a broken home where you kept your mouth shut (if you knew what was good for you), escaping into Middle earth with Bilbo Baggins or questing for the Grail alongside Galahad had hooked him as surely as any drug addict.

It had been a simple transition from the printed page into reality, facilitated by a child’s imagination. Suddenly he was creeping past a sleeping Ogre, careful not to awake the beast instead of skirting around his step father, passed out on the lounge room floor after another whisky binge. The bullying kids at school became a tribe of goblins, jealously guarding their cafeteria homelands, his battered old bike a sturdy steed that allowed him to roam distant lands. These little fantasies offered him a way to take control of his life and gradually begin to make it better. Who could forget the long war waged against the goblin tribes, in which he had enlisted the aid of several other heroes, eventually driving them from the lands of Cafeteria, making it safe for all once more, or the final battle against the Ogre that had imprisoned him, in which he finally won freedom and left to build his own castle.

The only problem was that the quests had become a kind of compulsive obsession, as his fantasies grew to dominate every aspect of his life. Playing online games had only exacerbated the problem as he found himself rewarding himself for even menial tasks.

Coffee made! Kaching! Five Hundred Experience points.
Quest into the cave of the fearsome Dentist. Five Thousand Experience points!
Completing his arcane training and being accepted into the ancient order of Chartered Accountants! One Million Experience points!
Level up! Time to reward himself with that new plasma TV.

On some level James knew his view of reality was skewed, but after twenty years all his coping mechanisms were so hopelessly bound up in his fantasies that he fount it increasingly difficult to interact normally with people. It was a daily struggle to keep his internal world a secret, separate from the outside world other people lived in.

Relationships were a particular problem, the easy familiarity that came with letting someone close to you made it hard to keep the worlds separate and on occasion his girlfriends caught glimpses into his other reality, always with disastrous results.

Katie: Left after he had cried out LEVEL! LEVEL! LEVEL! The first time they had done it.
Jill: Left after he had woken up shouting ‘To Arms’ once too often.
Stacey: Fled in tears after Cerberus, the mystical guardian of his Castle, had eaten her pet Chihuahua, not his fault really.

By the age of 25 James had finally decided that, in fact, relationships were just too dangerous, representing a quest far too difficult for even an adventurer as experienced as himself. That was until he met Meggan. He had been attending a presentation from the revered Accountants College across town and had gone into a strange Café on an impromptu quest for coffee on his morning break. The girl behind the register was small and plain looking, with mousy brown hair, round glasses and a plastic name tag that proclaimed ‘Hi, my name is Meggan!’.

‘Coffee please, black two sugars.’ He mumbled.
‘Two fifty.’ The girl mumbled back, awkwardly dropping the coins in the register drawer before moving over to the espresso machine. James watched, fascinated as always by the arcane workings of the machine as it burbled, squealed and spit steam. The mousy girls hands moved smoothly now, without a trace of her earlier awkwardness, turning dials, pushing levers and pressing buttons. James was so entranced that he was caught by complete surprise when she turned to him, holding out his coffee in an insulated cup. As his hand reached out automatically he felt his lips moving before he realised he was speaking.
‘One hundred Experience Points’ James and the girl said simultaneously.
Behind the lenses of her glasses her eyes opened wide, no doubt mirroring the expression of stunned surprise plastered across his own features. The four words ricocheted around his head as if a freight train had somehow just mistaken his ear for a tunnel, rocking his world. The girl opened her mouth to speak, but James fled the shop, hot coffee spilling and scalding his fingers unnoticed.

Over next week James completed over fifty quests, all involving going past the Café and trying to get a glimpse of Meggan in one form or another. He thought he saw her a few times, but could never muster the courage to actually pass the fearsome portal of her domain.

It was a rainy night a week later when his doorbell rang, looking at the clock he saw it was one thirty in the morning. Throwing back the covers he stumbled down the stairs in his pyjamas, stopping to get a firm hold on Cerberus’ collar, fully intending to let his pet give the unwelcome invader a noisy send off. Throwing open the door the command died in James’ mouth, instead emerging as a surprised squawk. Standing outside his door, drenched through from the pouring rain, her brown hair plastered to her skull was Meggan. She started as the door burst open, then looked directly into his eyes, looking terrified. They stood there for several moments in silence, staring into each others eyes, until she seemed to reach a decision.
Taking a deep breath she said ‘Found the Prince. Five million Experience Points.’
‘Level up.’ James found himself saying.
A tiny smile tugged at her mouth, growing and growing until she stood there in the rain beaming like the Sun. James reached out, took her hand and led her into his world.