Yes, the sports aspect is what categorically deters me. What formally disgusts me though? The TV.
I promote fandom towards the majority of the boys’ activities. The drinking, the smoking, the ‘looseness’. It is college, after all. But when it comes to certain behavior, routine, I can become something of an unofficial adversary.
Maybe it’s because I know too much. But maybe these habits just really are disgusting. Between the four apartments, the Game is in motion at all hours. The same Game, every hour, every day.
The Game’s fluorescent open sign always flickering across the screen, beckoning any off-hour hungry nomads. Stragglers are just suckers for the Game.
Sitting in class, where the open sign is only lit in their daydreams, the boys’ hands rest at a subtle, baseline air grip atop their spread eagle [4] . This is likely a sign of premature arthritis, but who gives a fuck about the long term. A more apt explanation offers an entirely different reason for alarm -- a phantom, black hand-held controller has permanently attached itself to the boys’ anatomical motion. While it may go undetected by your average classmate, the framed silhouette in their lap is undeniable -- thumbs bent and angled inward to a neutral hover, the remaining eight fingers cradling the shadow of the ghost’s underbelly. An artificial gravitational pull now shepherds an undivided nascent gaze at a screen. Any screen. There is no such thing as freedom from the controller. The Game never stops.
The single-song soundtrack loops and creeps deeper into the posture of your back.
[4] The opposite of sitting like a proper lady— knees spread out with an easy crotch shot.