Inspiration Words: Running and Building
A small takeout container of rice and another small box with some chicken and vegetables sat on the table near Yao Bo’s (yow bwoh) computer. He had started eating, but then he forgot about the food he had ordered when a zombie suddenly attacked him. Once he had killed the creature, he continued farming.
Most of Yao Bo’s friends had stopped playing Minecraft and had moved on to other shooting games. He used headphones while playing now so he couldn’t hear the gun shots and shouts from League of Legends, the newest hit game. Yao Bo knew he would never stop playing Minecraft, even if everyone else quit playing. Actually, he didn’t care what they did. He was only mildly interested in what his roommates and classmates cared about.
His older cousin had first introduced him to the game when he was in middle school. At first, Yao Bo wasn’t very interested in Minecraft. It looked fun, but he was too busy with other things to pay much attention to the game. Really, he was just too busy playing with his dog. Well, it wasn’t actually his dog. He had found it one day when he was walking to school. He stopped to pet the dog, which was dirty and pretty pitiful. The next day, he had saved a piece of you tiao (yoh tee-aw; fried bread) from his breakfast and given it to the dog.
Soon, the dog was following him home and walking to school with him every day. As Yao Bo walked down the hill from home, the dog would meet him by the small convenience store where he bought a little bread. They would eat it together, walk down the street, up another side street, through some small alleys, and finally through the school gate.
Yao Bo didn’t really care if the dog had a family, but he didn’t seem to have anyone. Once school ended for the summer, Yao Bo and his dog would climb around the mountain park behind his house. Yao Bo tried to avoid other people, and his dog didn’t seem interested in anyone besides his little boy. Fall came, and when Yao Bo returned to school, his dog waited for him at the gate every day.
During school, Yao Bo daydreamed about the dog, planning adventures for them to go on each afternoon. They would hike through the trees on the mountain or splash through the small stream, his dog faithfully following behind wherever he led.
But one day, the dog was gone. Yao Bo never found out exactly what happened to him, even though he searched everywhere. He would stay out each day, searching until the sun sank behind the mountain, and his parents grew worried about him staying out so late after sunset. He couldn’t find the dog anywhere.
For weeks, Yao Bo walked aimlessly to school, stared out the window through class, wandered home, picked at his food for dinner, and went to bed. His teachers didn’t seem to notice since he spent most of the class time staring out the window or doodling on some paper anyway, but Yao Bo felt the gaping hole in his life and his heart ached.
One day, when his cousin was visiting for a couple of days, Yao Bo again watched him playing Minecraft. The idea of building new things soon caught hold of his mind.
He started creating a world, and for the next ten years, he built and designed anything he wanted. Some of the people in his class liked to build things they heard about or saw in pictures or movies, but Yao Bo only enjoyed crafting completely new things. He loved the satisfaction of placing one block on top of another and creating something magnificent. He didn’t usually talk much to his classmates, but he listened intently when they described their houses. He thought to himself that their constructions didn’t sound very impressive—not compared to his.
Yao Bo spent every possible minute in front of the computer, building his houses, running from strange creatures, and discovering new places. He loved the limitlessness of the game. He explored the lakes; he built tall buildings into the sky. He built buildings made entirely of glass. Every time there were new upgrades, he saved up his money and bought them. His world was magnificent.
Once he had died from a sudden zombie attack, and he sat paralyzed. Is everything gone? His mind immediately remembered the emptiness he had felt when his dog disappeared. This can’t be happening again. When he respawned, he opened up his virtual pocket. Everything was gone. After making sure his house was protected from the zombies, he went online to research a solution. Okay, in the future, I’ll store all my valuables safely in my house instead of carrying them around in my pockets. He would make sure he would never lose the world he had created.
Yao Bo started shoveling rice into his mouth as he stared at the screen. Maybe I should walk around and make sure everything is okay. He moved the avatar around the screen, enjoying the beauty of the buildings he had created. Everything was perfect. The game was his home and his world. His animals were his friends, and he enjoyed walking around a world with no other people.
Yao Bo turned up the sound on his headphones once again to drown out the sound of shooting coming from his roommate’s computer behind him. He climbed to the top of a mountain that lay roughly in the center of the world he had created. At the top, he turned his avatar to look at everything around him. He could see the magnificent boats on the ocean to the north. He could see his tree house village off to the east.
“Wow, looks like an impressive construction.” Yao Bo turned to see his roommate staring at the screen.
“Oh, yeah.” Yao Bo wished his roommate would go away. This was his world, and he didn’t like to share it.
“Can I look around a little bit?”
“No. I have to do my homework now.” Yao Bo exited the game and picked up a textbook.
“Ok.” His roommate left and Yao Bo tried to study, but he was really thinking about what he was going to build next. Maybe he could make a new observatory.