His pale skin looked almost translucent, the light of his monitor bathing him in a ghostly blue tinge. Empty Hot Pocket wrappers and half-eaten Pop Tarts littered the surface of his desk. The click-clack of keys was ceaseless.
Gordon Hayward, mouth agape, stubble reaching critical levels, fervently upgraded his units. “Must…construct…additional…pylons…” he murmured. His eyes flicked over to his secondary monitor: he had forty viewers. Good. They would soon taste his mastery.
There was a knock on the door. “Gordon, time for bed!”
“Mommmmmmmmm, it’s only 12:30! And I’m livestreaming, I can’t just stop now!”
Gordon’s mother entered the room. “The draft is tomorrow, and no son of mine is going to go on national TV with bags under his eyes!”
Gordon didn’t turn around to look at her. “Mom, keep it down! My mic is picking you up. I’ll just sleep until noon. NBA players do it all the time. And I’m not even tired.” Suddenly the screen went dark, his marines obliterated in the middle of their movement. Gordon whipped around in his chair to see his mother standing in her nightdress with an unplugged power cord in her hand.
“Mom! You probably corrupted my save! Never, EVER do a hard shutdown on a computer unless it’s the last course of action!” Hopping to his feet, he wrenched the cord out of his mother’s hands and replaced in the socket. “Ohh, if you bricked the power supply, ohhhh, I’ll be so mad. It’ll take Newegg at least a week to ship a new one.”
His mother looked on sadly. “Gordon, you really need to get some sleep. No more games tonight.”
“Fine!” He flung himself, fully clothed and face down, upon his bed. “See? I’m sleeping now.” After a moment, he added in a softer voice, “I hope Indiana doesn’t draft me. Because then I’ll be able to get away from you and Dad and play all the Starcraft I want.”
A tear, unseen to Gordon, ran down his mother’s face as she left the room.