Player Diary: The Red Experience
Day 1: The First Day
Day 2: Spirits and Fish
Day 3: ?
There will come a day when you feel crushed by the burden of modern life…
Growing up, I was far closer to my grandpa than I had ever been with my parents. With the long, late shifts they pulled at Joja it was no surprise. There had been no one else to watch after me, no matter how much younger Darcy had proclaimed that she was old enough to look after herself, and babysitters were expensive in the city.
Grandpa had always been an active man who believed in hard work, so every time I stayed with him, he set me off with my own chores to do. I learnt how to drive a tractor far before I had learnt how to ride a bike. Amateria Farm was massive, after all, both inside and out, the largest farm in Pelican Town, perhaps even the entire southern shores of Stardew Valley, and it took many long, hard hours to finish all the work that had been needed to be done in a day.
Eventually, however, the heavy work toll hammered at Grandpa’s health, and he suffered a stroke. We moved him from the farm and into a retirement home in Sundrop City soon after. He had hated leaving the land that had been in our families for generations, but as always, he had made the best of things, chatting the ears of the workers, and enthralling young visitors with his tales of monsters made of shadow, as he once had enthralled me sat in front of the fireplace, listening to tales of the golden days of magic and wizards.
He suffered his second stroke a few months into his stay and his motor functions withered. It had been hard watching him be reduced to a fragile skeleton of himself but I continued on with my visitors even after dad, Grandpa's son, couldn't anymore. I had always relied on Grandpa and now it was time I did the same for him.
He died a few days later.
For years, I clung to the envelope he had given me, unable to open it and read his last words. It had sat at my desk at home, at college, and then at work. Inputting data for Joja had not been what I had dreamed of doing with my life, but jobs were far and in between for someone with ‘diluted’ human blood such as myself.
A half-elf couldn’t be picky when they had no money.
No matter my qualification or work experience, I was always put at the bottom of the list. The last to be picked like a child at school waiting for their dodgeball team. Joja took advantage of that and many of my co-workers were others like me. Children of the new world and the old.
It had been easy to fall into a zombie-like state. My day to day never changed, after all, a poorly oiled machine of monotony and futility; eat, work, sleep, repeat. Time not spent behind my wobbly legged desk were spent asleep on the bus, cursing the heat, or wolfing down a sandwich in the courtyard in the same break time I had. It was a boring, lonely life with every day the same.
Then, one day, I came into work and found Dewey, my manager, rummaging through my desk. I had stood motionless for a moment or too, not really caring one way or the other why he was doing what he was doing... until a familiar envelope had been dropped to the floor and Dewey's large feet had trampled across the paper. Elves were nimble while humans, especially one of Dewey's statue, were not much so. Dewey had flipped through the air and slammed his back against the wall of my cubicle as I rushed to received my grandpa's last words, not caring one way or the other if he was hurt. I finally opened it then, too worried that it would become lost to me...
Grandpa had left Amateria Farm to me.
I immediately quit my job at Joja, cursing my younger, foolish self for not having opened it sooner. My bags were packed that afternoon, and I caught the next bus out of Downtown Zuzu before one could say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Arrival
It has been so long since I last visited Pelican Town that I had forgotten just how long it took to get there from Downtown Zuzu. Passengers stepped on and off the bus for what felt like hours, as I watched the city buildings slowly fade into countryside. Thankfully I had enough thought before I had left everything behind to charge my phone, the music a much needed comfort during the trip. I had just up and rooted my life without a word to anyone. What would mum and dad say?
Doubt bubbled up inside, my stomach twisting and turning as the bus headed down a steep and winding road, the country roads nothing like that those in the city. When the bus finally came to a stop, I was the only one left on the bus. As soon as I stepped out, the bus took off again, disappearing down through a tunnel.
This was it, no turning back now.
A familiar old man and a red-headed woman awaited me at the bus stop--which was a small little sign and a few trees, nothing more. Robin, the carpenter and Mayor Lewis. I had phoned them after sitting down on the bus, feeling it important to inform them that I would be moving into Grandpa's old house... Funny how I had thought to mention it to people I had not seen since I was barely taller than my own knees, but not my own family.
More sweeping, twisting pathways followed as I headed down the overgrown path that led me through Rosy Grove and towards Amateria Farm...
It was not how I remembered it.
Amateria Farm had been teeming with life, coops and barns with Grandpa's goats and chickens visible from the long road that led to the house. Grandmother's fruit tree orchard where I would tiptoe on a stool to steal apples when her back was turned no longer existed. The vineyard where I used to sneak grapes was gone, the wood snapped and broken. The once beautifully tended fields were covered in a mess of weeds and rocks. Wild trees had sprouted up everywhere, ripping up fences and gates. The house interior wasn't all that much better than the overgrown exterior. The fireplace we used to gather around as Grandpa told me about fairies and goblins, wizards and monsters, was full of dust and covered in cobwebs.
I slipped into my comfy, oversized pyjamas and cocooned myself under the duvet, wondering where I would even begin to start in the morning.