Your thumb hovers. It doesn’t press, it doesn’t tap, it simply floats a few millimeters above the glass screen, casting a tiny, insignificant shadow over the bright green leaf icon. The Nintendo Switch feels cool in your hands, inert. It’s been 547 days. You know this because your phone, that cruel archivist, reminded you with a photo from a different lifetime. A lifetime where you were meticulously arranging virtual furniture and celebrating the birthday of a blue goat named Kidd.
Now, the thought of launching the game feels like dialing a number you know you shouldn’t. What will they say? Your digital neighbors, programmed with a finite set of chipper, slightly passive-aggressive greetings. “We’ve missed you!” they’ll chirp, their vacant pixel eyes betraying nothing. But you know what they mean. They mean, “Where were you when the weeds took over?” They mean, “Your house is probably full of stickroaches.” They mean, “We kept your memory alive, but it’s fading.”
The pressure is too much. You swipe away, your thumb finally making contact with the screen to open something else, something without history. A new game. A clean slate. A world without ghosts.
The Guilt: A Core Feature
It’s a patently absurd feeling. To feel genuine, gut-twisting guilt over a piece of software. It’s a collection of code, a series of algorithms designed to simulate