WHAT REMAINS OF ME

                                      ”What Remains of Edith Finch” spoilers

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What Remains of Edith Finch is in my top 10 favourite games of all time. It is about a 17 year-old girl who returns to her childhood home after the death of her mother. She has not been near the house since she was young, after her mother ran away with her. She explores this massive house, with each room containing the story of a different family member and their untimely deaths. It is not a long game, maybe an hour-and-a-half to two hours long, but the emotional impact it had on me is ever-lasting. I will forever remember the deaths of some of the Finches as if they were my own family.

That’s how it all started, with my family – my mother, my father and my sister – catching Covid for the second time. Immediately the house dynamic had to change; my dad was banished to his room, my mother and my sister slept on the couch as their symptoms were milder than my dad’s and I was left to clean, cook, make tea, answer the door, help open the door – because after so many storms and cold weather the door hinges were beyond fucked – and make sure the dogs were sufficiently entertained. Apparently, Covid decided that I was not worth its time and its sights were set on someone else. I’m not complaining about helping the family, far from it, I enjoy being a stay-at-home son. But the change was so sudden that I could barely comprehend what was happening, I just did it. The first lockdown evidently prepared me for such a task.

Barbara Finch was a child actor star. She acted in many horror movies because of her iconic scream. But, as she grew older and her body developed she lost her iconic scream. She lost acting work, eventually being lost to all movie-goers. Several years later, she is contacted by a representative of a retro-horror convention who asked her to be a guest of honour. Excited beyond belief, she starts practicing her iconic scream, but cannot seem to get it right. Late Halloween night she is up practicing while her boyfriend keeps her company. Frustrated that she cannot recreate her iconic scream, she sits down next to her boyfriend defeated. Her boyfriend suggests that maybe fear is key to recreating the scream. Suddenly, a loud noise from upstairs makes the two of them jump. Her boyfriend walks up to investigate, but does not return. She follows him up, worried about him and her brother Walter. She walks into Walter’s room, where he is nowhere to be found. Now completely worried about Walter, she turns to leave her room when her boyfriend, wearing a mask, jumps out from around the corner and scares her. Angry, scared and frustrated, she kicks her boyfriend out and continues to look for Walter. It was only after kicking her boyfriend out that she realises that there is someone else in the house. She begins to run around, avoiding the intruder and trying to look for her brother. Unfortunately, she does not find Walter and instead finds the intruder.

Barbara Finch died in 1960.

The first lockdown was awful; having to be sent home so early in the year and facing the idea that the lockdown could extend for so long that I might not get to see my girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend, again until next year. Classic Murphy’s Law; finally kissed the girl, excited for the days ahead and BAM, now I have to sit at home 24/7 trying to do online work 1635,2 km away from the girl I just started dating. The idea of “lockdown” was so alien to me, and working from home? Unheard of. Until March of 2020 I had no idea that Zoom existed. I struggled with work more than I ever have; the complete lack of a routine, the uncharted territory of online learning, hearing the news of more and more people succumbing to this disease that so suddenly popped into our lives. I became so lost, so depressed and so agitated that I started to fail my assessments one by one, which only made me more anxious and agitated that I started to fail more and more and it was all downhill from there. My first semester of 2020 was the worst semester that I have ever had and the first one that I failed. Bless the university’s cotton socks for being so lenient, because repeating third year was not an option. Thankfully, I was more comfortable with the situation and my marks improved.

Lewis Finch was Edith’s older brother. He was a smart boy and a gifted student, who loved his family more than anything. After the disappearance of his younger brother Milton, he blamed himself, began a drug addiction and was diagnosed with depression. After visiting a psychiatrist to help fight his mental illness and addiction, his mother found him a job at the local cannery. All seemed well, he enjoyed his job. As time went on, he began to notice how monotonous his life was, and he developed this fictional version of himself that would explore an entire new world, marry a princess and become king. He became apathetic and even more depressed, realizing that he could never be what he imagined himself to be. Eventually, this fact became too much to bear and one night he did not return from the cannery.

Lewis Finch died in 2010.

I watched my dad limp out of his room like a wounded puppy. It had been a week since my dad tested positive and this was the first time I had seen him since. He was skinnier, paler and his once enormous appetite appeared to be unnaturally satiated. I made him some coffee and proceeded to chew his ear off about this new game that I had finished moments before. He sat their patiently, listening to me explain how this game told the story of a woman who was dealing with the death of her mother by returning to her childhood home. Bless him, he probably just wanted a cup of coffee and a short walk-about the house, but I was drunk on his presence that I couldn’t let him go. This was not the normal relationship I had with my father; not speaking to him for so long when he was so close was heart-breaking. He slept most of the time too, so I couldn’t really send him a taunting message to goad him into a nice conversation. I watched my dad excuse himself, limp back to his room and close the door behind him. Not too long after, I watched him disappear behind the doors of an ambulance. I stared at the sealed door, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, and wondered how such a relationship can be turned on its head so quickly.

Walter Finch was eight-years-old when he witnessed the murder of his sister while hiding under his bed. The man in the mask with a hook for a hand, who Walter was convinced was some kind of monster, was someone that would haunt his dreams forever. The poor boy developed agoraphobia and thanatophobia at the age of ten and had to be moved to an underground bunker in the basement of the house, to keep him and everyone around him safe. He lived in that bunker for 50 years. During all those years, the bunker would shake violently and he thought that it was the monster trying to find him. Eventually, he could take it no more. He broke out of his bunker through a weak point in the wall and walked out into the sunlight for the first time in fifty years. Unfortunately, he did not notice the train tracks beneath his feat, or the source of the violent shaking.

Walter Finch died in 2005.

I woke up to the sound of screaming. I bolted upright and charged straight out of my parent’s room. Ever since dad had been taken to hospital I had been sleeping in their bed because mom refused to sleep in it without dad, so I moved in while mother dearest relocated to the couch. And to the couch is where I ran, where I found my sister in hysterics and my mother looking more dazed than I had ever seen her. She looked at me, silent while my sister raved and balled and beat the couch, like the pounding of war drums. At once, before my mom even told me, I knew that dad had died.

It wasn’t right.

It wasn’t fair.

How could one instance, one little meeting between two people, completely turn life on its head? I don’t remember most of morning that followed, or the days for that matter. I just knew that in the span of two weeks, my father was taken from me completely and utterly and there was nothing I could do to undo such a terrible change. Nor will there be anything I can do. It’s been three months since he passed, and I will never be the same again.

Rudi Visser died 15th July 2021.

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