I am currently scrubbing the phantom grease of a 4:08 AM shift off my forearms, my skin smelling of fermented yeast and the copper tang of a nosebleed that hasn’t quite decided to quit. The glass door at the corner of 8th and Main didn’t move. I did. I walked straight into it because I was looking at a digital receipt for a game that I will probably never play, a sprawling 108-hour epic that promises a secondary life more vibrant than the one where I knead sourdough until my knuckles click like a Geiger counter. My nose throbs in rhythm with the neon ‘Open’ sign flickering outside, and I find myself staring at the shelf where that game sits, still encased in plastic, a tiny monument to a version of me that doesn’t exist yet.

Gluten, Gravity, and Gigabytes

Miles C.M. is a man who deals in gluten and gravity. That’s how I introduce myself to the mirror when the flour dust settles in my lungs. As a third-shift baker, my reality is measured in grams and Celsius, but my aspirations are measured in gigabytes. I have 18 games currently sitting in my library with zero minutes of playtime. Each one was purchased during a sale, usually at a 48 percent discount, under the intoxicating delusion that next Tuesday-or perhaps the Tuesday after that-time would suddenly expand. We treat time like a retractable leash, assuming that if we just pull hard enough, it will give us another 88 feet of run-room. It never does. The leash is fixed. The glass door is always there, waiting for you to stop paying attention to the pavement.

The Archive of a Ghost

There is a specific kind of violence in a ‘someday’ library. It is the archive of a ghost. I buy these games-complex simulations of space travel, intricate political dramas set in high-fantasy kingdoms, punishingly difficult platformers-because they represent the man I think I would be if I didn’t have to wake up at 10:08 PM to start the ovens. That version of Miles has leisure. That version of Miles has the cognitive bandwidth to learn the 58 different button combinations required to parry a dragon’s tail. But the Miles who actually exists is usually too tired to even decide what to have for dinner, let alone manage a virtual kingdom. I am saving these experiences for a retirement that feels like a fairy tale, or for a period of convalescence I hope never arrives.

The Violence of Waiting

I’ve realized that the act of saving a game for the ‘perfect moment’ is actually an act of cowardice. We are afraid that if we play it now, in the cracks and crevices of our messy, exhausted lives, we will ruin it. We want the experience to be pristine. We want to be fully present, fully rested, fully capable. But human beings are rarely any of those things simultaneously. By waiting for the ideal conditions, we ensure the game remains a sterile object rather than a lived experience. It’s like the high-end stand mixer I bought for $408 that I refuse to use for basic white bread because it feels ‘too important’ for everyday work. So it sits there, collecting a fine patina of flour, while I use a wooden spoon and a chipped plastic bowl.

Yesterday, while I was waiting for the rye to proof, I spent 28 minutes just looking at the back of the box. The art depicts a sunset over a digital ocean. It’s beautiful. It’s also a lie. The ocean in the game doesn’t smell like salt; it doesn’t make your skin itch. My bakery, however, smells like everything. It smells like life and decay and heat. I find myself caught in this loop where I criticize the digital for being hollow, yet I spend my hard-earned 88 dollars on it anyway, hoping the hollowness will somehow fill the gap in my own schedule. It’s a contradiction I don’t feel like resolving today. Maybe I like the weight of the potential more than the reality of the play.

I remember reading a thread on a forum, one of those deep-dive places like ems89, where people talk about the ‘Backlog Anxiety.’ It’s a real thing, a weight that sits on the chest of the modern consumer. We aren’t just hoarding games; we are hoarding the potential of our own joy. We treat our hobbies like a chore list that we’re failing to complete. If I don’t play ‘Galactic Conquest 8,’ am I failing my internal child? Am I wasting the 188 hours of overtime I pulled last winter? The logic is circular and exhausting. I walked into that glass door because I was checking if the sequel was on sale. I haven’t even touched the first one, but the urge to possess the future is stronger than the urge to inhabit the present.

Let’s talk about the glass door for a second. It was exceptionally clean. The manager of the pharmacy must use a specific kind of industrial solvent. When I hit it, the sound was like a low-frequency bell. A few people turned. I just stood there, my phone vibrating in my hand with a notification about a ‘Limited Time Offer.’ The irony was so thick you could have sliced it and served it with butter. There I was, bleeding from the bridge of my nose, staring at a screen telling me I was missing out on a digital sword while I was actively missing out on the physical reality of a solid object in front of my face. My nose is still swollen. It’ll probably stay that way for 8 days.

Shadow Stories

Digression is the only way I know how to process this. When I was 18, I thought I’d be a novelist. I wrote 38 pages of a book about a man who could talk to shadows, and then I realized I didn’t actually have anything to say. I just liked the idea of being the kind of person who had something to say. Now, I’m a baker. I have plenty to say, but my hands are too busy to write it down, and my brain is too clouded by the 408-degree heat of the deck ovens. The games are my shadows now. They are the stories I haven’t told, the adventures I haven’t taken, and the rest I haven’t earned.

I think we save things because we are terrified of the finish line. If I play the game, and I finish the game, then that possibility is gone. It moves from the category of ‘Hope’ to the category of ‘Memory.’ And memory is a heavy thing to carry. Hope, however, is light. The unplayed game is a portal that hasn’t been closed yet. It represents a future where I am not tired, where my back doesn’t ache from lifting 58-pound bags of grain, and where I can be a hero for a few hours before the sun comes up. As long as I don’t start it, that future remains possible. The moment I press ‘Start,’ the reality of my own limitations-my slow reflexes, my wandering mind-will come crashing in.

“I’ve been saving some of those bottles for 38 years… The occasion hasn’t arrived yet.”

There’s a guy who comes into the bakery every morning at 6:08 AM. He’s about 78, wears a suit that’s seen better decades, and always buys a single almond croissant. He told me once that he has a cellar full of wine he’s saving for ‘the right occasion.’ He’s been saving some of those bottles for 38 years. I asked him what he’s waiting for, and he just smiled and said, ‘The occasion hasn’t arrived yet.’ I looked at his hands-shaky, spotted with age-and I realized he’s never going to drink that wine. He doesn’t want the wine; he wants the feeling of having something worth celebrating. We are the same, he and I. He has his fermented grapes, and I have my 128-bit fantasies. We are both standing in front of glass doors, wondering why we can’t reach what’s on the other side.

Is it possible to be nostalgic for a future you’re intentionally avoiding? I think so. I feel a pang of loss every time I see the icon for that RPG on my dashboard. It’s the loss of the time I’m currently spending doing other things. It’s a reminder that I am choosing bread over dragons, every single day. And that’s a valid choice. Bread feeds people. Dragons just burn things down. But the heart wants to be scorched occasionally. The heart wants to spend 8 hours in a dark room losing itself in a world where the physics are predictable and the rewards are tangible.

I’m going to go home today, and I’m going to look at that game. I might even pick it up. I’ll feel the weight of the case, listen to the slight rattle of the disc inside. I’ll look at the 108-page manual that I’ll never read. And then I’ll probably put it back on the shelf, right next to the 18 other titles that are waiting for the ‘Someday Miles’ to arrive. I’ll go to sleep, dream of falling through glass, and wake up at 10:08 PM to start the whole process over again. The yeast won’t wait. The oven won’t wait. The only thing that waits is the fiction we buy to keep ourselves from noticing how fast the real clock is ticking.

Maybe the game isn’t meant to be played. Maybe it’s just meant to be held. A tactile reminder that there is more to life than the 8-hour shift, even if we never actually get around to seeing it. Or maybe I’m just making excuses for the fact that I spent $58 on a piece of plastic I’m too scared to engage with. Either way, the flour is under my fingernails and the blood on my nose has dried into a dark crust. I am here. The game is there. And the glass between us is thicker than I thought.