You can steal anything you want from desks, drawers, rubbish bins…etc with no consequences in this game’s police station. But as soon as you want to do something normal, like checking emails, that’s when it goes pear-shaped.
What are your favourite smells? Is it freshly cut grass in the summer? Blossoms in the spring? Fresh bread in winter? Or petrol all year ’round?
“Gonna go for a run, yeah. Gonna ace this no sweat.”
“OH WHY? *huff puff* WHYYYYY??”
“I DID IT! I’m so fit.”
These are the three stages of running one tends to go through. Arrogance plunging into despair, and euphoria when it’s all done. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.
Our protagonist, Adam Jensen, is a creature of habits. So when he moved from Detroit to Prague he made sure his apartment was just as home-y as it was before. Unpacking? Why unpack when everything is already neatly organised:
Where’s the remote? In a box.
Where’s the underwear? In a box.
Where’s the breakfast cereal? In a box.
Simple.
The word ‘cake’ comes from Scandinavia: in Swedish, ‘kaka’; in Danish, ‘kage’.
Back in the old days, cake used to mean a small round roll^. It was nothing like the delicious sugary treat we gobble down today. When refined sugar became mainstream, and icing was invented (in the 17th century), the modern-day cake was born.
Accused of uttering this callous exclamation, Marie Antoinette did not, in fact, say “Let them eat cake.” This quote first appeared in Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s ‘Confessions’, attributed to a ‘Great Princess’ who was actually fictional^. His book was written in 1762 when Marie Antoinette was 9 years old at the time.
Ridiculous. Of course you can. This oft-misquoted line should read: “A man cannot have his cake and eat his cake.” first written in a letter from Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, to Thomas Cromwell in 1538^.
Don’t suck the joy out of eating marvelous dessert. Eat the damn doughnut.
The best recovery is to lie on the couch all day and groan in a tough way. If you’re at work, then wheel yourself around in your office chair and rub your thighs with a grimace, so people know you’ve worked hard. And don’t forget to talk about it over lunch.
Rubbing it in is half the fun, anyway.
It’s a bond of understanding. A bond of mutual recognition. Two people who resisted the siren call of the Comfy Chair and Netflix. Two people wheezing their way through the streets. Both enduring the uncomfortable jiggle of excess.
While some acknowledge it with a ‘Hi’, some with a nod, there are others who make no sign at all. This is probably because they’re so close to death that any interruption will make them stop running. NEVERTHELESS. The unspoken bond remains.
What was once exciting is now terribly depressing. Old age looms; the weight of your years bear down on you with the force of a thousand elephants. Wrinkly, saggy, old elephants. You can’t even enjoy the cake because it will go straight to your thighs.
Old age isn’t all bad, though. Sure you have lost your youth, lost many opportunities, but you’ve gained more wine, and a better perspective on life. None of those crazy hormonal thoughts rocketing around, making you look stupid and do stupid things.
Plus with age comes privilege: learn dampen those pretentious young whips who think they’re all that. Speak your mind at the most awkward of times. And have breakfast for dinner because you’re an adult, dammit.
