LIFE SKILLS III – REALITY

What are your hobbies, class?

When I was younger, there were no smartphones to keep me entertained. I couldn’t stream myself playing a video game to thousands of other people on the internet.

No.

When I was younger you had real world games like marbles, or Kerby. You’d go out after school and play until your heart was content, then you’d wolf your meal down so you could get back outside. You’d use the street lights as your guide. As soon as they were on, you’d have two minutes to get back home or there would be trouble.

Then, when I got a little older, the bullying started, and I withdrew into myself, I looked for something else. And I found it. I found something that wasn’t the REAL WORLD. I found something that was a different world.

I found Magic: The Gathering.

Now, class, you’re all very young so you might not know much about Magic: The Gathering. Before Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards, Magic was the first ever trading card game, where two players acting as wizards, or planeswalkers, strive to be the first to deplete their opponent’s 20 life points down to zero. It was a release. I wasn’t that black kid any more. I was a powerful wizard, able to beat anyone who crossed me.

Long after I stopped playing the game I still bought the odd packs, just to keep hold of that feeling of being free to be whoever I wanted to be. One of the things I enjoyed about the game was the little flavour text added to draw you into the world. I came across a card recently that made me stop and think.

“Hero’s Downfall”

Its flavour text is “Destiny exalts a chosen few, but even heroes break”.

When I looked again at this card it suggested Redwing instantly. There is no denying he is a force for good in this terrible world we live in, and that many would deem him worthy of the mantle ‘hero’, but as the card says, even heroes break.

And Redwing has been through so much lately. He has fought off threat after threat, rescued a man doomed to die, but now he faces his biggest challenge. The Vindicators are wounded, their lifeblood seeping into the ground, leaving them weaker by the minute. They need stitching back together before they are lost forever, but the stitches just won’t take.

When you have a limb damaged beyond recovery, you amputate. You choose to save the body over a part of it you can live without. And that is the difference between me and Redwing. I used to escape into my fantasy world to escape the troubles of my daily life, but I knew when that was no longer enough and I needed to face up to my problems. Redwing is still stuck in his own fantasy world, where he thinks Gameboy can be saved, not realising that Gameboy is the limb that needs amputating to save himself.

Redwing, forget Gameboy and concentrate on yourself. If not? Well, even heroes break…