#if someone knows of an anti-social farming sim please let me know

[aimzicr]

I'm coming to live a new town, tired by the life I've led behind but tethered by obligation to family I barely know. "Take care of this place," he told me, on his deathbed, "It's important to me." I've been thinking the whole bus ride over what might be important to me, and I come to the conclusion that there isn't anything. It used to be my health and happiness, but my dead-end job kind of robbed me of that. I don't really have anything else for myself, except a couple of suitcases and a long road ahead of me.

I'm met at the bus stop by the small town's mayor, and he takes me to a shack in an overgrown plot. The town carpenter tells me she's fixed the place up, making it livable. But they left the land to grow wild? Did my grandfather ever matter to these people? They offer me some seeds to get started, and call me 'farmer'. What a joke. I can barely keep a potted succulent alive.

But what else is there for me?

Unpacking is easy. I barely brought anything and the shack is tiny. What isn't easy is dealing with my future here. It takes hours for me to clear the weeds and rake away the topsoil and plant a neat row of packet-seeds. I'm exhausted, shaking, sweaty. It feels like a full day's work but it's barely lunch time. I have nothing in the kitchen. I wash up, and walk to town. The place feels stiff, still, empty.

The prettiest girl I've ever seen criticises my appearance as she walks by. The doctor wishes me a tentative welcome from the door of his clinic, but there's something about him that makes me so uncomfortable I walk by quickly after my hello-back. A cute guy tells me I can't play football with him because girls can't do that. There's a pub and a grocer's in town, but the prices are more than my strained wallet can handle, so I cross the river and buy from the convenience store. I take my instant noodles to the beach and it helps, for a little while, to sit and listen to the waves. As I go home, two small children and their babysitter stare at me, and two mothers gossip speculation after I pass by. It feels just like being at home: being alone, being tired, and being talked at or about, rather than to.

The night's a rough one. The bed's uncomfortable, the sheets are scratchy, the whole house groans and creaks in protest about my presence and the renovations done to it. I can hear creatures in the woods, bats and owls and possums and who knows what else. I'm just as exhausted waking up as when I went to sleep, but now my muscles ache from yesterday's attempt at living up to the name 'farmer'.

When I find the first early shoots have been decimated by crows and insects, I want to cry. I do, for a little bit, but then I take out my frustrations on the weeds and the rocks, and even a couple of the stubborn old trees. I eat more instant noodles, and look at the patch of bare earth in front of the house.

When I finally grow the parsnips, it feels like a blessing. I can sell them in town and get myself something to eat that doesn't come from a packet. The pub owner doesn't smile at me until I produce enough cash to make him realise I'm not just here for the free water. It's good to have a hot meal.

There's a sign in the grocer's the next day. "Fresh-grown local parsnips." I hear the grocer say he grew them himself. I buy more seeds, and I leave, and I won't be back until next month if I can help it. I won't be selling anything else from my land to him.

People come by to see me, now and then. But they never ask how I'm doing, if I'm struggling, can I help. It's always about what I can do for them: bring them something, grow them something, harvest something from the wild, give them lyrics for a song or an idea for a novel, pick up trash or mend a bridge. I don't know these people, or why they want nothing from me but my labour. Why they want what I can do and what I can make instead of who I am. It feels like I never left my dead end job.

The woman from the next property brings me a dog, scrawny and snarling. "He likes you!" He doesn't like me, I'm not a dog person, you just want him off your property so your chickens aren't in danger. I fill his water dish and leave him scraps, letting him stay fox-keen in the wilderness that should have been a farm. He stops snarling when he sees me, but we never grow close. I envy that about him: the people in this town keep coming to me with their problems and their demands. Perhaps I should start snarling, too.

I've cleared the ground, and built my own fences. I grow my own food and cook my own meals. This place was important to grandpa, but now it's all I have, and it's mine, and the work here feels right for me. Maybe one day the people in town will stop asking me to fill the various voids in their lives, but I doubt it. They let my grandfather's land fall into ruin as easily as they neglect their own lives, so. Not my problem. I have work to do.

Anyway. Stardew Valley.