Before I ever set foot on this island, I knew it was probably not the place for me. But all my friends play Animal Crossing. All my friends love Animal Crossing. I had to see for myself. 

The following are my field notes on the residents of Guantanamo. (None of them complained when I christened our island that, so it’s fine.)

Tom Nook — I consider his presence neither an enhancement nor a detraction. He is simply a function of the island. Now much has already been said by politically aware gamers of Tom Nook the Landlord, Tom Nook the Colonizer. I think we should all relax. Tom Nook does not charge me a late fee when I don’t make a payment on my house for three months. Tom Nook does not tell me I cannot use nails to hang art on my walls. Tom Nook may encourage my capture and study of the local fauna, but no self-aware species is indigenous here. If you wanted to live in a blameless utopia free from the sins of ownership and expansion, you should have found your own island  to name after Kropotkin and populate with tattoo artists and bicycle mechanics.

I do not believe Tom Nook is some great oppressor. He is well-meaning enough and only does things in the way he knows how to. However, this does not change the fact that I cannot respect a man with no discernible personality. He serves his function, nothing more. He drops precious few hints as to what kind of man he really is, probably because he doesn’t know. I weep for what the archetype of the modern salesman has done to masculinity, but I do not hate its victims.

The Young Nooks — They each are certainly on the way towards repeating their father’s mistakes, further extending a cycle of generational karma. Perhaps their own sons will find the strength of will to end it. 

Am I not concerned that these small boys have been entrusted with sole responsibility for running the town’s general store? Well, we have no established child labor laws here, and—being their father’s sons—the Nooks junior like their work. They like it much better than going to school, anyway, where they’d be of no practical use to us at all. So please hold respect for our community’s culture, as strange as it may seem to you.

Teddy — My lone jock anchor in a town populated by dweebs and weaklings. Myself, I am not in good shape. It’s been at least six months since I’ve intentionally exercised. So to me, Teddy seems disciplined and aspirational. I look up to him. Still I must admit his monomaniacal focus on his workout routine worries me at times. I wonder if I am enabling a destructive addiction simply because it is cool and therefore makes me cooler by association. If Teddy were to give up being jacked, would I still consider him my best friend here? And do I really know and care for Teddy, or do I just want everyone to believe that I do?

Early in our friendship he gifted me a hideous pair of purple sunglasses with star-shaped lenses. I wear them every day in hopes that someone will ask about them. Then I can say, “They were a gift. From my dear friend Teddy. You know, the absolutely ripped gentleman who lives in the southeast corner of the island? Yes, him. We’re quite close, actually.”

Fuchsia — A woman in so much disarray I often wonder how she got herself this far. Still, I find myself warming a tad to her constant, easygoing friendliness. The annoyances she brings along with her bohemian lifestyle are ultimately harmless. For example, she nicknamed me “Reverb” without impetus and for no discernible reason. I suppose I’ve been called worse. Once I found her staring out at the sea and belting an unintelligible song at a frankly impressive volume. The song wasn’t so bad. Fuchsia is unhinged, but she is happy. Isn’t that what we want? Isn’t that why we moved to this island?

Nate — Nate is an unholy product of post-Buzzfeed culture, frozen in the moment of his birth. He speaks like a Redditor from 2008. He repurposes insights that were trite even a decade ago as though he edifies his listener by doing so. Men like Nate make me think the Internet was a mistake. Now every hack turn of phrase that some Doctor Who fan deemed clever when his own eroding mind shat it out must be spread to baby-brained computer addicts all over the globe. I hate Nate with my life. I go into his house while he is busy, crank up every burner on his gas stove and then slip away; almost every day I do this, but he has neither died from gas poisoning nor house fire yet. Oh, well. Tomorrow I will try again.

Freckles — She reminds me of some of the other homeschooled girls I grew up with who never ventured beyond the bubbles their families raised them in and now pursue status as wholesome Instagram micro-influencers. Nothing presents itself to Freckles on a level deeper than the aesthetic. Nothing comes to Freckles that she does not seek to use to build her following or improve her image. At another time in my life I may have been repulsed by her. Sometimes a person’s lack of depth or self-awareness triggers an avalanche of fury because you secretly fear that you might be the same way. However, once you have recognized this fear, you will mostly find yourself charmed by the oblivion of others. I like Freckles well enough. She has left her bubble, and that is the first step.

Norma — To be a woman and a cow… I am ashamed to say my impulse is to pity her. And yet she seems more than content to cheerfully live a humble life. Of the villagers here, she is the only one who seems to understand that to move to Guantanamo is to disappear into obscurity. Such a small, remote locale is not a place where one can become famous or popular or well-connected. Many perfectly unremarkable women still doggedly pursue the world’s approving attention. The rare one who neither fears nor craves being seen carries a certain grace.

I went to call on Norma earlier today. Turned out it’s her birthday. I didn’t even know. I rifled through the miscellanea cluttering my pockets for the least objectionable item I could pass off as a gift. I handed her a clay pitcher. She told me this is something she already owns and has no need of, which is good because it means I’d judged her taste correctly. I am mortified that she is not more mortified. She should not let me treat her like an afterthought in her own home. But she never becomes agitated. Nothing sweeps her off her senses. The humble she-cow knows and accepts exactly who she is. I am grateful to be a human woman and not a cow, but I envy Norma’s surety. I wonder if pity and respect can reside in the same place after all.

The Sisters Able —  Unlike the rotating cast of traveling merchants who visit us from time to time, Mabel and her near-silent sister Sable commute daily to and from this island where they run a boutique clothing shop that caters to a community with a single-digit population. What does this tell us? Trust funds, of course.

It turns my stomach to walk into the Ables’ shop. Mabel aggressively stalks me as I browse, eager to ironically cast herself as servant to the in fact penniless settler. She has to know I can’t afford any of this, what with the nauseating debt I still owe Tom Nook. Able Sisters is not a place to shop for clothing, not in earnest. It is the artificial Versailles village where Mabel plays glamorous peasant for the day before returning via seaplane to whatever palace she takes her dinners and spends her nights in. 

Sable toils away in the corner of the shop at her machine, sweating and nervous. I have never seen her but furiously employed in the labor that provides her entrepreneurial sister with a commodity to market. She begs not to be spoken to. She does nothing but sew. What does Mabel do to her when I am not looking? I’d ask her, but Mabel stays on me more like a prison guard than a pushy saleswoman. Her clumsy performance may have the other islanders fooled, but I am not so easily misled. I will have my eye on Mabel.

Isabelle — I know she has family she cares about elsewhere, so why does she want to live here? The others I get—some fish need the small pond in order to feel big. But Isabelle is driven and capable. Surely she could get a job as an executive assistant in any city, yet she chose a village whose entire diameter can be run in less than half a minute. There must be someone she wishes to avoid or something she wishes to forget. I find her preternatural good cheer suspicious, anyway. It’s uncommon for someone with a desk job to be so relentlessly upbeat.

My guess is that Isabelle comes to her joke of a workplace every day with a smile on her face because she believes that if she just commits to this life, if she can tell herself she chose it, then she could be happy here. Maybe she’s already tallied everything ambition ever got her: dashed hopes, lost friends, end of list. Maybe it’s time for her to find peace in a world that is small and in a life that crawls level across the graph. Not everyone was made to chase a dream. Not everyone was meant to find great love. So why not show up to work with a smile? Stop returning to old haunts and let the ones who got away be away. Just pick a place and be there and be real and try to do a good job. 

She is rather young to have given up on fate, but it was wise of her to see to it early. Now she won’t have to spend a decade trying gracelessly to postpone the ordeal.

K.K. Slider — Seems all the citizens speak to me about these days is attracting this pop star to our island. I do not understand. He cannot care about any of the losers who live here. Their existence can be of no import to him. It disgusts me how ardently they idolize him. He may be an undeniably talented vocalist, but he is still just a dog-man. Come on.

Look at you, citizens of Guantanamo! You have abandoned your friends and families and communities to be here. Now you hinge your self-respect on whether some bland celebrity wants to hang out in your vicinity. You should be ashamed. Did you think that if you defected from society at large and molded a new one in your own image that you could finally terraform a world in which you are the Cool Ones? Fools. You do not break unjust cycles by replicating them. You sought to build a paradise, but no place can be paradise without love. K.K. does not love you, yet you yearn for him. I do not love you, yet you throw yourselves at me. Island of nerds and simps. I fear you will never break the cycles you came here to escape.

Teddy, you are obviously exempt from all of this. Did you still want to tell me about your new dumbbells later?