The Game Boy

Kyle stared down at his DS, his thumbs clicking away as he concentrated on winning his game. His small room was littered with games, of any and all kinds. Kyle was a gamer, king of many worlds and warrior of the masses. 

He was young and mostly happy. His older sister Callie didn't make too much fun of him, and his parents didn't make him eat too many vegetables. He thought about things on his bus rides to and from school, and stared up at the homeless men living in the city. He had a cat named Scruff, and he liked watching her play with paper-clips and dead bugs and dust. He watched the Scifi channel religiously and wanted to be like a character named Mal in a space show. 

Kyle did play his games far too often, but nobody ever really told him to stop, and so he never did. 

He never really followed trends among his peers. His teachers knew he was smart, but most did not like him very much because he was always playing games, or thinking about games. There was one teacher, a Ms. Slotson, who always smiled at him because she never cared much about the popular, talkative children. He liked her best out of all his teachers. 

Not that Kyle ever really cared much about school. He mostly liked being alone, and he was never much of a learner. He went on walks, quite often when his parents weren't home, and sometimes he even left his games at home. He would just walk and sit under trees, on swings. 

On one of his walks, Kyle watched as the sun began setting and thought he would stay out longer than he was allowed. His parents would be annoyed, but he never stayed out often, so he knew they would not mind too much. He just wanted to stay. 

There weren't many bugs out that night, though it was the beginning of bug season. Kyle watched as people walked by with their kids and their dogs, both seemingly treated in the same way, as far as he could tell. A car passed, a lady in casual business attire inside, and Kyle finally decided he was getting bored. He hadn't brought his games out with him that night and was coming up with a whole lot of nothing to do. 

On his way home, he stopped to pick up a newspaper and move it closer to its' house. There was a moment when he realized something deep, and he would never remember it until years later because the second after he realized it, he heard a gunshot. 

Kyle knew it was a gunshot because his father had taken him to a shooting range once, a few months ago, for bonding time. They had used an old rifle that belonged to his grandfather. They had paper targets that had a person's head printed on them, and he saw that outlined human as he heard the gunshot echoing through the neighborhood. 

He stood still as he heard people coming out their houses, listening to their 9-1-1 calls and their questions. His parents showed up eventually, and he just stood there, holding the newspaper and trying to remember that deep thought he'd discovered. The police came, and they kept people back, and Kyle's parents took him home. 

For months afterwards, Kyle wouldn't touch a game that had guns in it. It wasn't that he was profoundly or psychologically moved by the experience, he just didn't really understand. He thought about things like why people shot guns, what the exact purpose of a gun was, and he really didn't get it. He didn't get why they had been created in the first place. He saw what they did to people, ending their lives and their thoughts, even the deep thoughts that could change the way of things, and he didn't understand why anybody would want to end something like that. He never forgot that night, but he started playing games again anyway.