I'm Lavar Burton and this is Lavar Burton Reads.

In every episode I hand pick a different piece of short fiction and I read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

Today our story is by the author Mike McGinnis and it's entitled Navigators.

Now this story appeared originally in the best American short stories anthology from 2012.

Our protagonists today are a father and son who play a video game to basically escape

into a different world and who of us has not played a video game to escape into a different

world.

The interesting thing about this particular video game is that whereas in most RPGs,

role player games, you collect items and power ups as you go along and your character

gets stronger and develops more talents and abilities in this game, in this story, the

exact opposite is true.

And with every interaction, the heroine in this case is actually diminished and the

role of the heroine is to, as your proxy, get to the end of the game in the state of

nothingness.

The goal is to be no thing.

Interesting.

There is a motif of mapping and strategy that the author uses in this story and the

title Navigators.

What are we navigating?

Are we navigating a game?

Are we navigating life?

...