I still can’t quite believe I’m here. From my flat I can go along the Thames to the park. From my bedroom I have a stunning view of the railway. Yes, it is a very industrial area with lots of main roads, and the train station next to where I live is not accessible, but it will be in a few years. There are lots of not-ideal things, but overall, it’s very good!

—

I feel a bit like I’m playing the Sims, looking down on all the little people below me. For those that haven’t played, the Sims is a computer game where you design your own house and and people and have to look after them. In fact, I don’t really know what is the game has a point, other than to be creative. Building a house and choosing the furniture might be someone’s favourite part. For other people it might be trying to look after your sims. I used to play the game when I was a child and I don’t anymore, but a lot of people do as adults. I remember learning very quickly that it’s fun to build a big house, but it’s not fun when your sim wets themself because the walk across the house to the toilet is so long. Small houses are smarter.

Like many children, once I had built the house I didn’t really see the point of the game besides testing the limits of my sims. For example, you can kill a sim by making them swim in the swimming pool when they are tired and then deleting the pool steps so that when they fall asleep they drown. Or you can make them have ‘woohoo’ with each other in bed, but they have to be good friends, so you need to make them talk to each other a lot first. Or you can make them go to work, which is frankly boring because they go off screen and leave you, but they usually have aspirations you need to fulfil. Maybe you need them to earn money so that you can improve your house, but the first time I played my friend told me the cheat code to make enough money to buy whatever I wanted. I wish I had a cheat code now, to furnish my own flat.

I think the aim of this is to build a successful life, which is nonsense, because what is a successful life? I think this is why only children really play with their sims as opposed to home design.

Wait, this is not true! Lots of adults love the fantasy of simulated life. There are heaps of video games that provide this sort of escapism, and there is much sense in escapism if it provides respite from the stressful real world. Arguably, adults need more ways to take a break from their lives than children. I apologise adults! Tolkien said to not mistake the escape of the prisoner from the flight of the deserter. Escapism is admirable if it involves rest, recovery and freedom, but not when it involves hiding from responsibility and spills over into reality. Fantasy can be satisfying, but it’s not real.

—

This is the theme of Alice in Wheelchairland, which I think I’ve completed the first draft of! It’s very short, full of plot errors, and needs a thorough edit, as all first drafts do. I think I’ll come back to it in the new year with fresh eyes and streamline the themes I want. I was not expecting the ending; I felt like I was reading it as I wrote it. Basically, the ending is open ended and unfinished on purpose, and I feel like a lot of readers won’t like it. But then, it’s my job as an author to make the reader understand why Alice gets to that point and is making the decisions she makes.

Wheelchairland would be a great video game. When I played the Sims, in the 00s, there was no option to make a wheelchair-user sim. I feel like building a wheelchair-accessible house would be a great game. I don’t know so much about current video games, but there must be some where you can play as a wheelchair-user? (I just looked it up, and apparently in the latest version of the Sims you can customise a wheelchair!) There are lots of hit and run games where you drive around in a car and commit crimes. I know the film Mr. No Legs (1979) exists. I think it would be a very successful video game concept. But as much as we can to imagine ourselves in cool situations, is that our reality?
.
.
.
(Featured Image is a still from the game Train Sim World)