Overgrown Hedges

On my walk to work today I passed an elderly couple pottering in their front garden. They were both hacking away at an overgrown hedge. They looked frail and tired and clumsy.

I caught the eye of the old man as he struggled with his heavy shears. And what I saw in those world-weary peepers upset me.

I saw sadness.

Vigour, vitality and youth had deserted this man a long time ago. Even the simple task of trimming the hedge served as a painful reminder of his ailing strength.

And yes, I know.

I realise how out-of-place this post must appear on a blog dedicated to videogames, but hear me out. My wanky existential intro has a point.

Kind of.

After registering the old man’s look of weary resignation, my thoughts turned to videogames. I felt deeply comforted by the fact that when I'm old and brittle and unable to travel I'll still have virtual worlds to explore and conquer.

When my legs give out and my bladder betrays me I’ll still be able to run on the rooftops in Renaissance Italy before nose-diving into a bed of hay on the cobbled streets below.

And fuck the hedges; they can grow until they blot out the sun.