Thoughts from A Neuro-divergent Gamer

by M. A. Dubbs

Image credit: Dasha Yukhymyuk on Unsplash

I can’t help but notice

            that the bad guys

            in many video games

            have just escaped from an asylum.

Muttering to themselves,

            tied up in white straitjackets

            covered with buckles or shackles

            and maybe a muzzle

            fitted for a human head

            instead of a rogue dog at a shelter.

I control the player

            as we walk through padded cells

            I can read their ramblings

            written in blood or feces on soft foam walls

            and bare beds below flickering lights.

The soundtrack is always high strings,

            building suspension and dread

            to a climax of jump scares.

The moans and shouts of NPCS

            add to the existential dread

            a familiar theme of the criminally insane

            or at least the one painted in media.

Common sights for the horror game genre.

I just wonder what parts

            are most supposed to scare me?

The horror of old-school psychology,

            that time of lobotomies and weaponized medicine?

The awful treatment of the mentally ill

            who lost their voice and autonomy?

            or those who were sane

            but were silenced for their difference

            and others’ comfort?

Or am I supposed to be terrified of the patients?

Terrified to lose what makes me cognizant,

            to be labeled insane from an outside world?

When my avatar is running toward enemies,

            smacking, hitting, breaking, shooting them

            with an arsenal of weapons,

            who am I supposed to fear?

Which character is supposed to be me?

***

M. A. Dubbs

M. A. Dubbs is an award-winning Mexican American and LGBT+ writer who hails from Indiana. For more than a decade her writing has been published in literary magazines and anthologies across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, India, Austria, Australia, Nigeria, and Germany. Dubbs is the author of three poetry collections with her fourth, A Walk to Americana, releasing with Dancing Girl Press in 2025.