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"We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an
imperfect person perfectly."
-- Anonymous

He scans the room, his gaze running over the computers and instruments crowding the room. Giant, holographic strands of DNA spin slowly over the heads of three terrified scientists who cower under his gaze. The far wall is given over to a huge window, which is criss-crossed by green energy bars. Filling the window's view is the giant, tentacled head of a creature that nature never produced. 

"Whoa," is all he says as he gazes out the window at the monstrosity outside. 

"And that's just it's head," I observe, peering over his shoulder at this freak of nature that these scientists have dared introduce into the world. "I don't even want to think about the rest of it."

He prods the nearest scientist, but the man only covers his head with his hands as if to protect himself and growls stubbornly "You won't get any help out of me!"

"Plug me into the computer terminal," demands a strident female voice from his pack: the hard drive of a rouge mainframe computer. A souvenir from the last scenic spot he visited. Only marginally sane, it agreed to help him in return for transporting it off-world only after it failed to destroy him with its death drones. 

A buzzer sounds in the background. He moves to the opposite wall, ignoring the sound.

He plugs Mainframe into the wall terminal, and almost instantly the energy bars across the window blink out. 

"Uh-oh."

The creature disappears from view, but as he races to the window, he catches one last glimpse of it making its way out the main door of its enclosure. The far off sounds of unleashed chaos come from the next level down: shouts, screams and inhuman roars of rage.

"Was that a good thing...or a bad thing?" I wonder aloud.

"I...I'm not sure." Is all he says in reply, still looking out the window at the empty enclosure.

The buzzer rings again, and I pat his shoulder this time. He looks pleadingly up at me. "Please don't go anywhere!"

"Just for a minute..." I begin.

"Please?" He looks at me imploringly.

"But babe, I've gotta get dinner out of the oven. I'll be right back. Aren't you hungry?"

He heaves a huge sigh, and then nods. "But come right back," he admonishes as I leave the room. 

*****

Such is the role of all women whose husbands are afflicted in the same manner as mine. You see, Bill has DDGIS (Dangerously Deep Game Immersion Syndrome). The result is that he cannot play any first-person-perspective game without becoming convinced that he is actually fighting Black Ops assassins or aliens, or dinosaur mutants or whatever.

So basically, whenever he finds some area of the game that he must conquer intimidating or frightening, it falls to me (and sometimes the Captain) to sit by his side, and hold his hand (sometimes literally)  until he has beaten it, and can move on to more healthy parts of the game.

It has become a ritual: He sits down and calls "Wanna come watch me play [insert game]?" which translates roughly as "Come help ground me while I play [insert game]." I then stand watching over his head, occasionally administering shoulder rubs when the tension is high, making snide comments and asking dumb questions at the appropriate moments. This continues until either he gets tired and stops, or I get bored and wander off, to be summoned back when the action is better.

We did it with Half-Life, we did it with Opposing Force, and now we're doing it with Gunman Chronicles.

Not that I'm terribly put out by this, mind you. Most of the time I like to watch him play anyway because, due to my lack of any talent whatsoever where computer games are concerned, I am unable to play for myself. And some of the games they're turning out these days are downright entertaining whether you're playing or not. But it's occasionally disturbing, when one is engrossed in creating some splendid new graphic, or reading a particularly good book, to hear one's spouse calling from the next room "Beeb! Come help! I hafta go through water again!" 

That is, by the way, one of the commonest reasons why I am called into action as moral support: Water. Bill hates it. He doesn't even care for it much in real life, particularly in large quantities. Even spas are sometimes enough to make him turn up his nose. But present him with a virtual puddle, one in which the slightest possibility of a malevolent and unfriendly creature is present, and he will be utterly miserable until he is safely across it.

*****

So I bought him Gunman Chronicles for Christmas, and he's been playing it on and off during lunch breaks and evenings. Tonight, since he was getting close to the end, he was naturally encountering all kinds of nasty problems and enemies. So I've been serving as official cheerleader for most of the evening. 

I really can't blame him for getting worked up over these games. The engines, graphics and AI are so advanced now that it's just like being inside a movie. It truly is amazing, and even I find myself jumping at the sudden appearance of genetically altered mutants every now and then. But Bill really does beat all when he gets so wound up that he jumps when the cats leap to the desk top. 

It's a good thing Gunman Chronicles did not involve nearly the volume of aquatic enemies as Half-Life and Opposing Force did. What water we did encounter was mostly shallow, and populated by nothing more harmful than a few piranha; peanuts when you're gunning down metal-chewing xenomes, or pitting your intelligence against clinically insane computers with PMS.

*****

I must run, now...the crazy computer has built itself a war drone, and is facing off against the equally crazy renegade Gunman general, who is the game's primary villain.  Bill's job to keep xenomes from attacking Mainframe while she takes out the General. My job to stand and watch. I will hopefully be rewarded with a spiffy final cut scene of the General's battle drone blowing up, or something.

He grins as he grips the controls of a forgotten battle tank and prepares to do battle.

"Life is good when you have a tank." he says.

"So good that I could go finish my novel?" I ask hopefully.

"Not that good." He says shaking his head "But I'm almost done, just stay here a little longer.