Pac Man

My real-life take on the Pac Man videogame

My name is Manfred Cooper and I used to be a pharmaceutical assistant at Med-Mart, you know that chain of drug stores. I was fired after it was discovered that I had stolen five cases of Pactocillian, the sleeping drug. You see, I’m an addict. I have been ever since I was fifteen. Now, instead of going to work every day I sit in my slummy apartment, in the same, dirty clothes, listening to the clock tick-tick-tick away, counting off the seconds, minutes, and hours of my so-called life. I sit and watch as the sun goes down in the sky, praying that I won’t see the ghosts that haunt me. But, of course, they come with the night. They always come.

 

When I was a kid, I used to run with a gang of my friends. There was Danny, Todd, Cheryl, and Clyde. Of course, we didn’t call each other by our given names. We all had nicknames. Danny was Inky, because he always had a pen in his mouth, behind his ear, or in his hand. He was an avid writer and wanted nothing more than to be an accomplished author when he grew up. Todd was Blinky, named after the way he would always nervously blink his eyes when he had to stand up in the middle of class to give a report or whatever. Cheryl was Pinky, because she was the only girl in the gang. She was a tomboy, but a girl nonetheless. Clyde was, well, Clyde was the outlier of our little gang moniker-wise. We called him Clyde because he had a strict family upbringing who taught him to cherish his given name and not bastardize himself with nicknames. I was Man, as in ‘hey, Man, whanna go grab some pizza?’

We were great friends, us five, and always spent the afternoons together after class. We’d go down to the park and play football or go down to the lake and fish or skip rocks. Anywhere we’d go we’d talk about the future, what we’d do when we were grown up. Like I said, Inky wanted to be a writer. Blinky, despite his fear of public speaking, wanted to be a politician and help pass laws to clean up parks and that sort of thing. Pinky, she wanted an action movie star; a tomboy to the end, I tell you. Clyde wanted to follow in his pop’s footsteps and become a preacher. Me, I wanted to be a doctor and help people. None of us ever became what we wanted. My friends never got the chance and now I can’t even help myself.

It was December of our freshman year of high school and we were all about fifteen years old. School had gotten out for Christmas vacation and we were excited to have the break. It was me who suggested we go to the lake and shoe-skate around.  We got there and saw that someone had put a sign at the edge of the frozen water reading NO ADMITTANCE "THIN ICE, but it was either Cheryl or I (and I’ll always think it was me) who scoffed at the sign and led the rest of the gang out onto the water. There didn’t seem to be any problem at first, but then the ice began to crack and then Clyde fell through a hole. We all tried to help, but only succeeded in breaking through more ice and falling in. I remember we were all crying from the cold and then I remember passing out.

Hours later I had woken up in the hospital with my family. I asked them where my friends were and they gave me a look of regret and sorrow. From that moment on the faces of my dead friends haunted my dreams and I was put on Pactocillian just so I could stay asleep through the night. That’s when I became an addict.

 

                Thinking about that cold day, I pop a Pactocillian and swallow it dry. They don’t help me get to sleep; not unless I swallow about four or five at once, what I call a Super Pill. I go to NA, Narcotics Anonymous, but it doesn’t do me any good. They don’t call me Manfred Cooper or Man there, they call me, like everyone else, by my drug of choice. They call me Pac Man. I guess it’s some kind of therapy or some s**t like that, but it doesn’t make me stop popping those Pactocillians at night. Nothing does because nothing else will stop the ghosts.

                They’re right on time tonight. As soon as the sky goes twilight and the stars come out I can hear the footsteps, wet slaps against the wood floor. I look at the pack of Pactocillian on my lap and realize I don’t have enough there for a Super Pill. I don’t have enough to make the ghosts go away. I begin to sweat as the soggy shoes squelch closer and closer, coming from the kitchen. I get up walk slowly down the hall, trying to walk faster, but the pills taking enough effect as to slow me down.

                I’m almost to the bedroom door when Pinky comes out of the bathroom. Her skin is green and bloated and wet, and her hair drips ice cold water as she starts towards me, her fingers outstretched., trying to take hold of me, her sunken and rotted eyes staring accusingly. Why, Pac Man, why did you let us die? Her voice is a gurgle that comes from inside my brain. She uses my NA alias, using it as a punishment.
                I turn around, heading towards the living room closet and there is Blinky, blinking his own set of sunken and decaying eyes. His wet sneakers squeak on the floor as he shambles towards me. You didn’t save us, Pac Man. His voice adds to Pinky’s. I scarf down another Pactocillian, and another, but still the ghosts come towards me.

                I race around the pillar in the living room and sidestep into the kitchen, praying there is some more drugs in there. All that awaits me are a few cherries and a banana. I eat the cherries, trying to close out the stench of the rotting, bloated flesh of my childhood friends as they shuffle closer and closer. I turn around and see Clyde has joined the group, his mouth open, baring black teeth and a putrid tongue. We’re here for you, Pac Man. You must join us. Three voices bang around in my head.

                “Leave me alone! Please, God, leave me alone!” I cry out, but the Pactocillian has slurred my speech and my dead friends laugh wetly.

                I rush past them, making one last try for the bedroom. As I do, Blinky swipes at me and I feel the cold, dead, wet flesh slip against my skin. The feeling makes me vomit the mush of red cherries and the Pactocillian that I had dry-swallowed.

                I finally make it to the bedroom and slam the door against the ghosts. Breathing hard, I race to my nightstand, throw it open and cry in relief as I spy six yellow Pactocillian pills. I eat them all at once and lower myself to the bed, weeping, pleading with God to make the horrible voices in my head stop. Finally, they do and I let out a ragged breath.

                I turn over and scream in pure hellish fright at the sight of Inky, grinning with his horribly dead lips, his dark eyes gleaming in the ceiling light. He reaches behind his dripping wet ear, and takes his pen in his left hand, while he holds my right wrist in his damp, ice-cold one. He thrusts the pen into my hand and jabs the hand towards my throat.

Game Over.