This is a story about the love of my life. Let’s call him Pudge, because that’s his name. He’s a bit shorter than I am, and a bit pudgy, but probably the sweetest guy you’d ever meet. Sometimes, when we run into each other wandering around town, he presents me with random gifts — a T-shirt or a chair or even a bit of wallpaper.

Sometimes,when I wasn’t home, he liked to come over to my place and sleep on my floor. I know it sounds creepy, but I’ve always thought it was kind of romantic.

But then, one day several months back, Pudge disappeared without a trace. He sent me a farewell note. “I’m moving,” he said. “I need to find a town with a twenty-four hour buffet.”

I suppose this would all make a bit more sense if I explained to you that the love of my life is an orange cartoon bear. Actually, he is technically a sprite, a little pre-programmed character in Animal Crossing: Wild World, which I have been playing obsessively for about two years now. More than two years, in fact. But let’s not sweat the details.

A short intro to ACWW for those of you who haven’t heard of it: It’s a Nintendo DS game in which your character moves into a town, earns money by fishing and selling fruit and bugs, and eventually builds a huge mansion.

More importantly, your town is populated by a random assortment of animals. I’ve met ducks, chickens, baboons, koalas, kangaroos, cats, dogs, rabbits … and, of course, bears.

On my mantle — my real live mantle — sits a picture of Pudge, which my real live boyfriend gave me for my birthday last year. Sadly, it’s not a particularly flattering image. It doesn’t capture the way my little orange friend used to look when he smiled, or had an idea, or when he was waiting for me to talk to him, shifting from foot to foot as if doing the potty-dance.

ACWW has three pre-programmed personality types for male animals. There are cranky characters, who generally greet you by shouting at you. There are the jocks, who are always talking about how much weight-lifting they’ve been doing. And then there are the lazy characters, who daydream about swimming pools filled with crème brûlée.

Pudge was lazy. And since I first met him, way back in March of 2005, I’ve been absolutely wild about him. The green tips of his ears, the goofy grin on his face — everything about him makes me smile.

What’s shocking about this is not that it’s possible to develop real feelings for a fictional character. We do it all the time with books and movies. But it is a little strange that I have such special feelings for this particular fictional character, considering that the other lazy sprites say and do all the same things as Pudge. They just don’t look exactly like him.

For instance, my friend Drake is a forest green duck who likes to fish and is very fond of vichyssoise. He’s a gorgeous little duck. But … he isn’t Pudge.

How, you ask, can a gal form a serious bond to a character in a video game? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because Pudge was with me when I first founded my town, Mitra. Maybe it’s because no character has quite the same face he had. But whatever it is, I’ve been searching for him ever since he left me last year. I keep hoping that he’s lost somewhere in game-space, and that he’ll come back and remember me and love me just as much now as he did back then.

Copyright 2008 Last Exit