For the past couple of weeks I've been elsewhere, in a state of survival, vengefulness, street level instincts, fuzzy ambitions, honour to myself and to others almost miraculously intact, an attribute of where I came from. Perhaps aside from vengefulness it's most likely what my parents, my dad specifically, experienced in their first few months being in a new country, a new universe, looking, feeling, sounding, tasting, and smelling challengingly and uncomfortably different the moment they emerged from the plane. Or in this case a transatlantic freighter.
I finally finished the main storyline of Grand Theft Auto IV. That is, I saw the present and the future of Niko Bellic, the east European man who had first stepped off that transatlantic freighter at a harbour in Liberty City (a startlingly realistic recreation of New York City). The beginning of Niko's story steps onto land from water, and the ending (a new beginning?), for all its glories and tragedies, lands the man at the foot of the Statue of Happiness (you can guess this monument's real world counterpart).
In between the freighter, the journey from a grey, war stricken home riddled with agonizing memories as well as bullet holes, and the statue that promises possibilities for rebirth and at least some kind of cleansing of the past, Niko undergoes a series of grueling and very violent gauntlets to finally get the truth about his past, thereby cracking open his future, no matter what shape it takes.
^ Liberty City offers the possibilities, for better or worse, for Niko to realize his dreams, however fuzzy they may be, and at whatever cost.
But as always, the truth is itself an agonizing ordeal, and getting to it takes a toll on him and on those around Niko. His past has shaped him to better deal with circumstances (for better or worse), as the present inches him closer to a violent and bloody catharsis.
But as intense and personal as it is, Niko's story could in some ways fit how many of us try to square our past with our future, especially those of us who had come from another world, whether geographically or metaphorically. "We're all looking for that special someone," Niko says. Or that special something. It's always on the horizon for us. And how we strive for it characterizes who we are and how the people and the world around us respond.
I can only wish Niko the very best for the next leg of his journey that begins at the Statue Of Happiness. And I hope that next leg of his journey will be far less painful for him and his loved ones.
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