Marcel Winatschek

Still Inside It, Twelve Years Later

More than a decade ago I sat up for three days and three nights playing Chrono Trigger on the Super Nintendo because I couldn’t figure out how to save and was too stubborn to quit. Three days of Crono and his crew bouncing through time, and by the end the characters, the music, every minor detail had burned into my brain like a brand. That kind of thing doesn’t fade. You don’t remember playing it so much as remember living inside it.

Today I spent hours trudging around Berlin in the rain looking for the DS remake. Got properly soaked. Finally found a copy, came home dripping, switched it on—and was immediately back inside. Not a feeling of return. More like I’d set the controller down to take a piss and picked it up again twelve years later. The gap simply didn’t register.

I’ve named the characters after people I know. I’m Marcel. Becca, my arts-and-crafts friend, gets a slot. Hannah is the spoiled princess, which is both accurate and the kind of description that will provoke a reaction. The frog I still haven’t decided. Frosch, probably. It would be the obvious choice, and sometimes the obvious choice is just right.