Weekends with E

The doorbell rings four times,
not three, not a polite ding,
but four.
A herald of elbows and joy.
That’s E.

“You’re weird,” she announces,
flinging off her backpack like it mouthed off.
“So are you,” I reply,
how love sounds when it's casual but true.

“What are you doing?”
She asks, already converting the living room
into a command centre of chaos.

“Roblox, Dad.”
And just like that, I’m enlisted,
in a war I don’t grasp,
with weapons I can’t find,
in a supermarket full of undead specials.

“You’re so slow. Join me.”
So, I do,
fumbling my avatar
like an old man in a nightclub,
bouncing off walls, pressing wrong buttons.

“What are we playing?”
“Vampire Zombie Supermarket,”
she says, like everyone knows this one.
Of course.
Of bloody course.

“Dad, you’re crap.”
“Stop dying, Dad!”
Turns out, death is neither noble nor poetic
when it’s digital
and you’re being eaten by pixelated lettuce.

“Didn’t you play games
on your iPad as a kid?”
I explain gently
that my childhood was more
Etch-A-Sketch and existential weather
than anything touch-screened.

We do almost nothing.
No lessons, no outings.
Just snacks,
screen glare,
and the sweet humiliation
of being bad at something
she excels at.

But somehow,
this…being called useless
while she revives me from digital doom,
feels like
a perfectly spent Saturday.

And somewhere,
I imagine a man at a keyboard
smiling at the absurdity,
thinking:
Let her drive. She's got this round.
 
FSF