Kate Didd

I fell flat on my face yesterday in a way that should’ve hurt my entire body. The kind of fall that knocks the breath out of you, leaves bruises you’ll find days later, and demands a moment of silence from the universe.

But I felt nothing.

No pain. No fear. No embarrassment.

I just erupted into laughter.

Not performative laughter. Not nervous laughter. Real, uncontrollable laughter, sparked by the inner monologue running through my head, a voice that suddenly felt like it finally belonged to me. And in that moment, something cracked open.

Everything changed.

The world stopped feeling real.

It felt like I was inside a video game, where I speak, people react, and their reactions land exactly where I expect them to. I say the line, they play their part, and I move on to the next scene. Somewhere between observation and participation, I realized I wasn’t just in the game, I was playing myself. Like a SIM character with self-awareness, surrounded by people who suddenly felt more like NPCs than fully rendered beings.

And before you ask, yes, I know how that sounds.

So I played devil’s advocate with myself.

What if I entered this world as an idea? A new player with no abilities unlocked yet. What if my creators were chaotic, distracted, overwhelmed and instead of teaching me how to play, they shoved me into a corner? Or worse, dropped me into the pool and took out the ladder.

If you’ve ever played The Sims, you know exactly what that means.

I kept dying.

But I kept coming back.

Because that’s how games work, you restart from the last safe point.

And suddenly it clicked:

What if that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life?

Every time something unbearable happened, I didn’t disappear. I reset. I returned to the last place that felt safe, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and then I moved forward again. Same map. New strategy.

How many times have I “died” in this game?

I should’ve been dead at a young age. Statistically. Logically. Circumstantially. But I didn’t finish whatever mission I was given. The universe didn’t close the program. The save file stayed intact.

I’m not saying I’m important.

I’m saying I have a lot on my mind, and it’s spilling out.

Maybe none of us are important as individuals. Maybe all of us are fragments of one thing, one spark, one consciousness, one universe bumping into itself over and over again. And maybe not everyone we encounter is a fully conscious player. Some of them might just be crowd matter. Background code.

So do I sound insane?

Or am I just glitching in an algorithm that doesn’t know what to do with me?

I’ve said my whole life that I don’t belong here. And I mean here, this version of reality. I’m from a world where patriarchy died years ago. Where women ruled, not through domination, but through balance. Where peace wasn’t a fantasy but a baseline.

So what world is this?

Why does none of this feel real?

Why don’t I have full ownership of my own body? Why is my health, my safety, my welfare something I have to ask permission for, when in my universe, those things were inherent? Given. Non-negotiable.

Or do I only sound crazy because men have always been allowed to say, “My body is mine,” and then take what they want from the rest of us? Because their universe taught them that entitlement is natural, and empathy is optional.

What if they don’t fully believe we’re real?

What if, to them, we’ve always been part of the simulation, objects of pleasure, labor, sacrifice, never fully human? And what if they sense, on some unconscious level, that we know something they don’t?

So what happens if we flip the game?

What if we move through the universe without emotion, but with clarity, logic, and intentional action? Or intentional inaction, because sometimes not playing the rigged game is the most powerful move available.

What if higher thinking looks like placing misandry exactly where it belongs, not as hatred, but as resistance? Not as cruelty, but as correction. Redirected power back to the birth-givers. The creators. The ones who actually generate life, worlds, futures, rather than claiming ownership over things they never made.

Or maybe,

Maybe I’m just in the wrong timeline.

And maybe falling flat on my face yesterday wasn’t an accident at all.

Maybe it was the moment the character looked up at the screen and realized the game had been lying about the rules.

And once you see that?

You can’t unsee it.