Once we flip this switch, you'll begin to see your life’s High Scores table. It will scroll across the sky on nights of the new moon, as well as along the insides of your eyelids during the interludes between dreams and wakefulness. Here, you’ll see the initials of everyone who has ever been you, as well as how well they performed over the course of your lifespan.
Indeed, you are not the first person to occupy your identity. All players begin with the same birth, though styles of play begin to deviate just a few years afterwards. During some sessions, you've been a world traveler, searching in vain for dragons to slay; other times, you've been a vagabond, foraging for love and sustenance among the urban shadows. Very rarely have you ever been you; that is, in a way that you would recognize as being you.
The means by which points are earned are a proprietary secret, but their allocation is not algorithmic. Just know that as you participate in reality, you can learn to feel them accumulating. They flow through the spaces between your fingers, channeled by currents which lead from your palms to your shoulders; then, they plummet, and pool within you as though water within a well. This reservoir begins at the base of the pelvis and rises ever upward, yet never seems to be full.
As you’ll soon come to notice, the initials at the top of the High Scores table are not your own. Admittedly, you've never been the best at being yourself, as many times as you've tried (and you have tried more than once, which may explain a few things). The honor belongs to someone who could not be bothered to enter his own name, and simply left it as the default: "AAA." You may, at first, find this discovery to be troubling, but know this: we’ve observed them over the course of all of their sessions, and now, we know them rather well. The reason that they’ve never bothered to give their name is that they no longer feel that it has any meaning, so long as they are not you.
It can, in fact, be quite moving to be you.
In the traditions of the ancient Greeks, it was customary to place coins in the mouths of the dead. Though this ritual is traditionally attributed to a need to pay the ferryman Charon to cross the River Styx, the truth of this matter can only be known from beyond. Your life is just one cabinet in an endless arcade, resting at the center of a blacklit infinity, and it only takes two quarters to play. In death, the virtual calls you back to your life: won’t you please play again?
You can, of course, use your coins to try your hand at any game that you like- but until your name is in the High Scores table, no one will ever know that you’ve played. That being said, we’re willing to let you in on one little secret: this time around, you still stand a chance at making the list.
Mastering this wisdom is the first step to becoming a pacmancer.
Arcade games can also know death.
Whenever you play, there is also something that isn't given back.