The deer had to be grazing only fifteen yards away for I could see the tranquility in its eyes. It was a doe; no antlers. With silence and slow, I lifted the butt of Dad’s ancient lever-action rifle to my jawline and held breath while my index finger crept around the grip of the wood and quietly inched toward the trigger guard; trembling. I winked my left eye shut as my right focused into scope, and I could see the beast’s tranquility even clearer now. It wasn’t grazing; it was standing, perusing nature, and it bat lashes as it slowly lowered its slender head toward a solitary leaf on a sapling; nipping it most delicately off the hardwood. The scope revealed the doe’s spiky velvet, an uncommon trait; perfect for my induction ceremony. Dad would be very proud.

I first learned of Counter-Strike within the pages of a PC gaming magazine in Autumn Y2K; it was depicted as a realistic first-person shooter with a focus on multiplayer and teamwork. And although derived from Valve’s Half-Life, it lacked the science fiction aspects that attracted the taped-glasses demographic and appealed more to my audience: southern boys who dreamed of monster trucks and machine guns and mounted deer heads. I wanted Counter-Strike more than anything; especially after my friends at school started playing, but my Dad didn’t see the appeal and wanted me to focus on the three G’s: girls, grades, and guns – and football. But we made a compromise: if I made all B’s in school that year, he would buy me a Dell PC and a copy of Counter-Strike. Needless to say, I studied real hard, and I got those B’s.

As I watched the doe chew leaves from the hardwood, I thought about what Dad told me years ago: “the best way to kill a deer is to shoot ’em while they’re standin’ with one side of their body facin’ ya; that way, ya aim true an’ make every shot count. Ya gotta be quick but silent an’ steady as a rock; that’s the key to bringin’ home the bag, son.” He would say while chewing tobacco as naturally as the doe chewed leaves, “this ‘ere is called a broadside shot an’ it’s the quickest way to kill a deer, son – ya know, they’re still livin’ animals and we don’t want ‘em sufferin’ too bad.”

Counter-Strike is a simple premise wrapped in layers of deep first-person-shooter mechanics; two sides – terrorists and counter-terrorists – firefight across everyday terrain with objectives such as bomb defusal and hostage rescue. The game oozes realism, as each gun is derived from a real world model and handles as one would expect; holding down left-click to rapid-fire – or ‘spraying’ – decreases your accuracy, while firing in short bursts – or ‘tapping’ – keeps your aim steady; holding the ctrl-key to crouch increases precision even further which mirrors the real world firing technique of kneeling with your rear knee placed on the ground and your other leg supporting the elbow of your forward arm. All weapons benefit from these precision mechanics, but the AWP benefits most; the AWP is a sniper rifle that kills in one shot – the drawback being that it requires a reload after being fired.

When I used the AWP – which was always – I pictured my opponent as deer and recalled what Dad told me about the broadside shot, and this advice carried me to Counter-Strike stardom. I became so proficient with the AWP that my friends called me “The AWP King” and I joined local tournaments full of confidence and verve.

Mesmerized – I continued to peer through the looking glass. The doe basked in stray beams piercing the canopy layer, only breaking posture to pluck leaves off the hardwood. My thoughts veered to the ancient rifle that trembled lightly in my hands, passed down from grandfather to father to son in The Ritual of the Hunt. I wondered to myself; did Dad tremble too? Did he hesitate before shooting his first deer? Why was I hesitating at all? To stop the trembling, I took a note from Counter-Strike and held the crtl-key to crouch; my right knee crunched into dry leaves as my left supported my forward arm while I readjusted the ancient rifle. I winked and peered through the looking glass once more, but this time the doe’s magnified eyes were staring back at me.

For our first local tournament, we faced a team composed of kids from our middle school. The winners of the tournament would win brand new gaming PCs. It was hosted at a local LAN Gaming Center called the Arena; a dark warehouse overflowing with computers jam-packed with the most popular computer games of 2001. The ambiance was shadow and fluorescent, like that of a jellyfish in the darkest recesses of the oceans. The Arena was the natural habitat of stoners, outcasts, and those who played Everquest and Doom; a place where both hardcore nerds and potential school shooters mingled freely as there was a surprising amount of overlap in their interests. My team pushed through this unholy union and started discussing strategies for the upcoming digital gunfights when the opposing team walked in; their leader was wheelchair-bound with thick glasses, greasy hair, and a band-tee for a group I had never heard of. My teammate Ryan – an older boy who had been held back several grades and expelled for attacking other students at least twice – pointed at the kid in the wheelchair and called him the f-slur of the homosexual variety and we laughed like a wicked pack of hyenas gyred around a human baby. An Arena employee heard this slur-slinging and gave us a warning, but we shrugged it off because we talked like this all the time – it made us feel superior when someone got offended.

*ancient violence consumes the LAN tournament

The tournament was not going well. The other team seemed to read our minds; we would go B and they would go A; we would go A and they would go B; we would try to camp at spawn but they would flashbang us into confusion and clean up in the aftermath; we would try to rush early but they would anticipate this and trap us in a pincer formation. And to top it off, the disabled boy was far more skilled with the AWP than I – his trigger finger was always seconds faster than mine. We lost the tournament and we were embarrassed, but we masked this embarrassment with the foulest language possible. We slung slurs like bullets at a drunken bar fight in a Wild West saloon.

The slur-slinging culminated in whirlwind-heat-and-flash as Ryan stood up and accused the disabled boy of cheating. I turned to face the altercation, but before I could do anything, Ryan grabbed the disabled boy by his long hair and was screaming slurs at him. Ryan then pulled the disabled boy’s hair with such force that it tornadoed him onto the floor and left a clump of bloody mess in Ryan’s clenched fist. He then started kicking the disabled boy in the gut, “this is what you get for cheating, you gimp fa—!” he shouted on repeat.

Horrified, I leapt in and grabbed Ryan from behind, but he was much stronger than myself and pushed me to the floor. Four Arena employees then jumped in and dragged Ryan off the disabled boy, who was moaning meekly between invocations of “mom” gurgled in spittle and hemoglobin.

The police were called, and an ambulance showed up just as the disabled boy’s mom arrived to pick up her mangled son. There was an exodus as the boy was wheeled out on a stretcher, mumbling incoherently. I watched as the mom hurried to her son’s side with tears swelling in her eyes. She turned to Ryan, who was being escorted by two police officers, and instead of screaming obscenities at him, she started to sob uncontrollably. I knew then that, even though Ryan had attacked the boy, I was just as much at fault as he was. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but I had dehumanized that boy into a stretcher.

The doe was unmoving, as if stunned by the glare of an ancient violence. I lifted my vision to catch a glimpse of her beyond the glass, but there was no illusion; she stared in confusion, as if asking a single question – “why?” I shifted my vision to the glass once more, expanding her forehead into a perfect target just when two small fawns emerged from the nearby brush. The fawns obscured my view as they nuzzled into their mother, but the doe remained resolute in her questioning. The fawns, noticing their mother’s focus, turned to me, and then they too stood resolute – questioning my ancient violence.

I thought to myself: “Three heads to hang on the wall. Dad would be proud.” But as I looked into the eyes of the fawn, I remembered the boy at the Arena. And as I looked at the doe, I remembered the mother sobbing. I remembered the violence, and just as I remembered this ancient violence, the fawns nuzzled their mother’s velvet head and she nuzzled back, and then they turned with a skip and trotted slowly into the wood, as if there was nothing to be afraid of – as if I was one with nature itself.

My finger eased off the ancient trigger of the ancient rifle, and I slung the ancient violence over my shoulder as I walked back to camp.

---

(Originally published 4/8/2024)

#ComputerGames #CounterStrike #Fiction #Ethics #ShortStory

I remember it as if it were last night. My cat – a strapping lad of gray shorthair named Digit – jumped through the open ground-floor apartment window onto my lap while I was sitting on the couch playing computer games with my roommate. The window was open not only to allow Digit free passage outside but also to filter the tobacco smoke that stained our lungs and jaundiced the light-colored walls. My roommate and I had Dreamcast controllers in hand and lit cigarettes dangling from our mouths and subtle glowers on our faces as we sat brand-new-to-adulthood and transfixed by the massive widescreen firing off psychedelic lightshows. The blues of hadoukens and the purples of reppukens flashed about inside puffs of cigarette smoke like ball lightning within the clouds of an alien planet. And although the room was loud, there was silence between us, for we were engaged in the digital-equivalent of a samurai honor duel and we were both great pretenders; pretending like we were engaged in just another friendly game of Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast; when, in reality, there was an intense clash of personalities playing out between the sounds of button mashing and pixelated fighters yelling the names of their ridiculous special-attacks and Satoshi Ise’s electro-infused drum-and-bass stage music.

Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 was originally developed and released by Capcom in August 2000 for the arcades; it was later released on Dreamcast in North America on November 8th, 2000. The origin story – the myth – is that the magazine Arcadia featured a cover with both The King of Fighters ‘98 and Street Fighter Alpha 3 titles a little too close together and readers misread this thinking it was “KOF vs. SF”; when this imaginary game didn’t manifest, fans of both series went unhinged with hate mail and thus: Capcom vs. SNK was born – or something. And while it wasn’t the first crossover between Capcom and SNK, it was the first to reach a wide audience outside of Japan, as the previous title – SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium – was only released for the Neo Geo Pocket Color; a handheld console that was poorly adopted in the West where Street Fighter and Pokemon infected the minds of young computer gamers like brain-eating amoebas. An updated version of this game, Capcom vs. SNK Pro, was released a year later – and the concept was so popular that it would eventually spawn a sequel, Capcom vs. SNK 2, which built upon the hip-hop back-alley beat-down eclecticism of Millennium Fight 2000 and further reinforced Capcom and SNK as the premier 2D-fighting game developers.

My roommate and I were on our centesimal round of Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 and I had not won a single match. I played Iori and Sakura; he played Ken and Yuri. I must have smoked half-a-pack of cigarettes because I was getting my ass handed to me on a very dirty ashtray. I persisted in total silence with a look of unbothered determination on my face; this faux-stoicism belied the fact that I was a raging storm inside. I could have stopped playing; I could have called it quits after the nth loss; but something like pride compelled me to keep going, and as I kept going, my playing got worse and the hole grew deeper until it was quickly approaching Hell. My roommate’s faux-stoicism was much simpler; with every knock-out: his confidence grew and his gamer-cred multiplied, and he would always have this over me because computer games were very serious back then and he dared not speak a word lest the fisticuffs escape the television-set and stain the shag carpet with blood. The digital-equivalent of the samurai honor duel was about to end in seppuku.

Capcom vs. SNK was revolutionary as it combined characters from rival developers and introduced the lesser-known SNK fighting games to a wider western audience initially put off by SNK’s realistic-yet-very-anime art style, especially when compared to Capcom’s more western-palatable cartoon-like aesthetics. Both art styles exist in this game, with characters drawn in either style depending on which “groove” was selected before character-selection. The crossover makes perfect sense as SNK’s fighting games were directly inspired by Capcom; SNK’s Fatal Fury: King of Fighters was designed by Takashi Nishiyama, the director of Street Fighter, and was envisioned as a spiritual successor to that game. The two companies often parodied each other; Dan from Street Fighter, a parody of Ryo from SNK’s Art of Fighting, who himself was a homage to Capcom’s Ryu. And while Dan may not be in Millennium Fight 2000, the game does include a roster of over 20 characters from each series. As with most 2D fighters, the controls are obtuse to newbies but intuitive to those familiar with the genre; players are encouraged to use an arcade stick or learn to slide their thumb in circles, half circles, and quarter circles on very-small-directional-pads to execute special-attacks. Both series use this input method so there’s nothing to learn coming from one or the other; thus, combining Capcom and SNK characters into a single game was a no-brainer.

*Iori rushes Ken in the digital equivalent of a samurai honor duel

Patience and practice of the key fundamentals are important with all 2D-fighting games and this is especially true for Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000; its 4-button control scheme, lack of true combos, and smaller skill list compared to the series it pulled from, make mastering the key fundamentals – footsies, blocking, looking for openings, and punishing – extremely important. You could master all a character’s inputs, learn all their moves and perform them perfectly, but if you didn’t time these moves correctly or space them out properly, you would fail every time. For example, Iori Yagami – my main character of choice in most SNK titles – has a super-special-attack called “Ura 108 Shiki: Ya Sakazuki” which can stun and heavily damage the opponent, but it’s blockable so throwing it out in a battle without respect to the opponent’s actions will result in the opponent blocking the attack and punishing you. In fact, one could bait these types of attacks and punish them with a simple low kick, and entire matches could be won doing this.

Even the most fancy quarter-circle-back-half-circle-forward-punch special-attack won’t save you if the opponent sees it coming

And that was why I failed to win a single match that dark night on that alien planet. I knew the cool moves but I didn’t know how to properly use them. I would fire a burning projectile, but my roommate would jump-kick over it. I would use a rush-down attack but my opponent would only block and punish me with a low-kick. I was bound for the floor. I realized what was happening early on but I couldn’t adapt to it because I was too focused on quarter-circle back and quarter-circle forward and getting those flashy special-attack kills. My roommate patiently punished every attack with normal punches and kicks while I was performing complicated inputs for cool-points from the gamer gods who never answered my prayers.

Several hours passed in silence. We both had to work in the morning and at a certain point it became too irresponsible to continue getting my ass beat. I said something like, “I have to get some sleep” and my roommate nodded and we went our separate ways without another word between us. We both knew what happened.

When the door closed behind him, only the miasma of angst and an embarrassed man-child were left behind. I stood silently as the Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 title screen flashed before my eyes, and my hands were trembling, feeling a wail building up inside me. My failures replayed over and over again in my head; over fifty rounds and no wins; my opponent didn’t perform a single special attack but still managed to defeat me. And all my quarter-circle forwards and half-circle backs only resulted in a full-blown quarter-circle meltdown. The Dreamcast controller I was holding dropped to the floor, and I fell to my knees with my face buried in my hands. As I was doing this, my roommate walked in to grab the lighter he left on the couch but, upon seeing my crumpled form, immediately turned around and left the room.

We never played Capcom vs. SNK again.

---

(Originally published on 4/8/2024)

#ComputerGames #Autobiographical #CapcomVsSNK #ShortStory

Listen to the audio version here.

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I: Et in Arcadia Ego

“The passing of time, and all of its crimes, is making me sad again.” – Rubber Ring by The Smiths, Louder Than Bombs (1987)^#1

I.I: Summer in Arcadia

Betwixt red maple and palm sat Arcadian youth transfixed by dancing light.

Two boys sat on a small bed and another on the floor nearby. They were crammed in a tiny porch remodeled into a makeshift bedroom; the walls were windows and a sliding glass door revealed the living room while a patio door revealed the backyard and anything even resembling glass was covered by thick blackout curtains. The sun set, but the room was kept aglow by the epileptic flashing of a gray Magnavox cathode-ray tube actively working hypnotism upon the boys. Wires sprawled across the room like laser trip-mines while sounds of fiction and war – consecutive booming, warp and whoosh, ringing shrapnel, and screaming, both human and extraterrestrial – were occasionally drowned out by the uncontrollable laughter and expletive-ridden taunting of Arcadian youth.

All was well because school was out forever, and the extra-large thin-crust pepperoni pizza had just arrived. The boys had just torn into a new case of Diet Cherry Coke, and the only thing that mattered in that tiny pocket of the universe was dual-wielding pop and Xbox controllers, and, of course, the score in the Halo 2 deathmatch playing out on split-screens reflected in the eyes of Arcadian youth.

When the blue splashed into view and the guitar rang out like an engine’s rev before a Slash solo,^#2 every teenage trouble melted away like ice on a warm summer day and the boys were transfixed and true. The boys would then proceed to argue over who received the prestigious title of player-one; a luxury typically afforded to the home team, which bestowed the advantage of a larger screen-slice for the cutthroat deathmatches so seriously considered by these Arcadian youth.

Lockout was the go-to fan-favorite map: a blue-gray maze of open steel pathways mysteriously suspended midair. Lockout devolved into a race of who-gets-the-shotgun-and-sword-first, culminating in one player dominating the match by camping the central gravity-lift for easy kills – a tactic the boys called “hoarding the power weapons,” which was ridiculed severely, yet the lust for winning was so strong that they continued to do it despite the shame.

Ivory Tower was another popular choice, a tropical multi-leveled indoor jungle park with plenty of places to play hide-and-seek; the game-mode of choice was something the boys called “GoldenEye,” in which shields would be disabled and only magnums could be used; this resulted in a one-shot-instant-kill playstyle that relied on reaction-time and skill rather than hoarding power weapons. GoldenEye was very serious business often used to settle insipid disputes and one of the boys would usually end up stomping home in a huff afterwards.

Every flaw; every virtue; every vulnerability; every strength; every weakness – all would be revealed when dancing light reflected in the eyes of Arcadian youth.

*Lockout on the cathode-ray tube.

When the last slice of pizza was eaten and the bodies stopped respawning, and the boys got bored, they sneaked out of the backyard gate and walked to the neighborhood pool – which had closed hours ago. They swam chaotic before the neighbors called the police for noise ordinance violations, and when the police arrived, all they found were unused towels and a green shirt adorned with the words “The Smiths” – the only evidence left behind at the scene of the crime of Arcadian youth.

This was summer break in Arcadia between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. This was before cigarettes, before drugs, before alcohol, before nine-to-five, and before bills.

This was my time in Arcadia – my golden years.

I.II: The Arcadian Tribunal

Miles was a local youth of Arcadia and he was exalted.

Miles, also known as TauntButton, was younger than your not-so-humble narrator by only months. He lived three yards behind my grandma’s Arcadian summer-home. We met when I was ten years old; I ventured to the fishing pond behind grandma’s house and there he was sitting on a big rock with his tackle box: fishing.^#3 I asked if he wanted to play Super Smash Bros. and it was instant kinship.

Miles was of average height and had hair like a sifting pan full of gold with most of the dirt filtered out. His favorite song was “Helicopter” by Bloc Party.^#4 He was the most popular boy within a fifty-mile radius and seemed to be friends with the entire county and then-some. Lithe and handsome, Miles was built like a triathlon wonderkin. He could run up a tree without his hands and dunk a basketball with such force that the ball would burst at the seams. Late at night, when we played cops-and-robbers with the other neighborhood youth, Miles would hide in tall trees and never be found; I would lambaste this behavior, but he kept doing it out of pure contrarianism. He was charming and defiant in his own way. He had type-2 diabetes – the doctors said it was genetic – and he would prick himself with an insulin pen every few hours to charge up like a Sangheili energy shield; we would joke that he was shooting up heroin and this was peak comedy when sneaking-the-joke on those not-in-the-know.

Miles had a keen interest in computer games, but his parents were strict on the when-and-what; his mom wouldn’t let him play Super Smash Bros. because she believed it gave him nightmares; so he used my grandma’s house as a safe haven from his parents’ prying eyes. Miles’ parents would go on to claim that I corrupted him with rebellion and computer games, but our relationship was much deeper than that. I was different from his neighborhood friends, who were more interested in sports tournaments and fishing, and I was exotic by virtue of being a cynical nerd full of computer-game-and-anime knowledge. I had just enough charm to be intriguing instead of creepy.

Miles was practical, outdoorsy, and naive but very curious. I was isolated, reclusive, cynical, and a know-it-all-while-knowing-very-little. Miles and I were opposite and magnetic, but we had one thing in common: we were contrary to the core, very competitive, and, most importantly, we were obsessed with each other.

*Arcadian fishing pond.

The third of the Arcadian Tribunal was Matt, also known as SupaSmallSlice.

Matt’s house shared a yard with my grandma’s summer home, a fact unknown until Miles and I stumbled upon him at the pond; he was fishing by himself, and – just like Miles – I asked him if he wanted to play computer games and it was instant kinship.

Matt was different; he was far less youthful than the rest of us, being four years older. Matt’s old age combined with his adamantine meekness gelled into a predatory aura that neither Miles nor myself picked up on immediately. Our youthful naivety paid off because Matt’s predatory aura never materialized into anything other than a very tall, slightly awkward-looking older boy just sort of standing there silently waiting for you to tell him what to do. Being alone with Matt was like playing host to a forever-bored-and-undecided person that would not leave because they were too coy to speak up; this was the primary reason I strived never to be alone with him.

Matt was the ultimate third wheel, someone for Miles and I to direct our adolescent rage and mockery toward. Whenever we wanted a third player in a computer game, we would get his attention by throwing rocks at his upstairs windows because we were scared of his father – a short, bulging man with a toad-like face that possessed the charisma of a goblin – opening the front door and killing us. Miles and I would secretly team up against Matt in Halo 2, and if Matt noticed, his meekness prevented him from telling us. If the tables turned and Miles or Myself teamed up with Matt: it was a good sign that some deeply extrasensory interpersonal angst was bubbling up in Arcadia.

Miles and I were unfair and cruel to Matt; we never treated him with the respect he deserved, something I regret because we were Matt’s only friends. Matt introduced us to Japanese Role-Playing Games, starting with Final Fantasy VIII, which threw us down a path of geekdom that we still travel to this day. Matt was always nice and polite and would do anything we asked of him; drive us to Wendy’s late at night or to the computer game store or the movie theater. Matt was forever eager to please, and perhaps this was due to the eldritch weirdness which prevented him from making friends his own age.

To these Arcadian youth, Matt was a sideshow, a freak, a weirdo; but he was our friend. And after years of friendship, my aunt – who eventually moved into my grandma’s home – would frequently ask Matt to babysit her teenage son.

And that completed the Arcadian Tribunal: Miles, Matt, and Myself.

But there was a fourth Arcadian youth, my aunt’s teenage son; my cousin.

Jake.

II: Et in Arcadia Insciens

“Drowning here in summer’s cauldron.” – Summer’s Cauldron by XTC, Skylarking (1986)^#5

II.I: Jake, Pongo, and Perdita

His life up until this point had been Pongo and Perdita, and when it flashed before his eyes he remained instinctual and unawares.

Every Tuesday night betwixt red maple and palm, Matt babysat Jake at my grandma’s Arcadian summer home. My aunt had just divorced and moved in with my grandma, bringing along her son, Jake; and since I only lived there during summers and Jake was now a permanent resident, my room was given to Jake, and I was moved to the porch. The porch had recently been remodeled into a makeshift bedroom, now covered in blackout curtains and the epileptic flashing of a Magnavox cathode-ray tube and the sounds of The Smiths’ “Louder Than Bombs” and occasionally John Mayer’s “Room for Squares” and The Strokes’ “Is This It?”

My aunt didn’t trust me to watch Jake, so she chose Matt instead – the older and more outwardly mature of the Arcadian Tribunal – and he was paid handsomely for his services. Miles and I sat in front of the Magnavox transfixed by dancing light while Matt was off making sure Jake wasn’t hurting himself with kitchen utensils or breaking glass on his head or smearing feces on the walls or urinating in grandma’s bed or wandering outside into oncoming traffic or removing his dirty diaper before hiding it somewhere that wouldn’t be discovered until weeks after it had permanently stunkified the house – which was already stunkified and only getting more stunkified by the day. The sounds of clapping, screaming, banging on the walls, and door slamming were cacophonous during these babysitting sessions as Jake made it clear he did not like being away from his mama.

The doctors said Jake was autistic; they said he had always been this way, but his mom insisted otherwise: “He was a normal baby before the vaccines – he was even saying words like ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ before those damn shots.”

Explaining Jake through vaccine conspiracy was easier to process than the truth, and in the end: it doesn’t even matter.^#6 Jake was Jake; he yelled, moaned, clapped, and enjoyed watching Disney films – and only Disney films – on repeat. There was nothing behind his eyes except complacency and primal rage in cycles, and if you handed him an Xbox controller, he would likely swing it – hard – into your face before clapping loudly and wandering off. Jake couldn’t speak a word, yet he was older than me by a year, incredibly handsome with a distinct pudginess to his face, blue-eyes-to-die-for, and dark waves of hair. Jake was the apple of many eyes – until he started screaming and taking his diaper off.

Jake was Arcadian and kin but impossible to connect with. The thought often crossed my mind: in an alternate universe, Jake would have been hoarding power weapons with us on Lockout, but instead: One Hundred and One Dalmatians one hundred and one times and counting.

*Pongo, Perdita, and pups transfixed by dancing light.

Jake lived in Arcadia unawares – but, maybe, we all did.

One thing was certain: this was it for Jake – all he would ever know. I accepted this about Jake; Miles accepted it; Matt accepted it. This acceptance brought us closer together. We were comfortable being around someone who smeared feces on walls; acceptance of this mental handicap was the measure-of-a-man in our Arcadia. The Arcadian Tribunal protected Jake; we loved Jake and he was exalted. And if Jake was too much for a person to handle: that person had a ways to go before they were allowed into our Arcadia – they were not even willing to step through the front door to begin with.

And on the topic of front doors …

II.II: Diaper Pyre

Jake would often open the front door and wander around lost in Arcadia, and because of this: his mom installed a second door ahead of the front door. The second door’s knob was installed backward, the locking mechanism was on the outside facing the elements, preventing Jake from unlocking the door from the inside and thus escaping into the Arcadian wilds. The Trick Door – as we would come to call it – would require some arm-contortionism to lock from the outside after you had already entered the home but before the door fully closed; this was followed by a quick twist on the doorknob from the inside to make sure it locked properly. This Trick Door Lock Procedure was a crucial courtesy when entering the home; a life-or-death version of taking your shoes off.

One warm Arcadian summer night, my aunt and grandma left the house – dancing – and Matt was babysitting Jake. Miles and I were tagging along, playing Halo 2, until Jake started slapping himself on the legs and moaning as a wet gurgling emanated from his lower half.

This was a portent; the warm summer night was about to become much warmer.

Jake had diarrhea – bad diarrhea – and it would not stop. Jake was flowing foul for what seemed like forever; diaper after diaper after diaper of filth. We started to panic as the three of us repeatedly exited the front door to dispose of diapers in the garbage and the trash cans were nearing maximum capacity and the smell – my god, the smell.

The Arcadian Tribunal was defeated – we didn’t know what to do.

Fifteen years old and full of foolish ideas: I suggested we burn the diapers in the backyard. This idea was met with great fanfare; like most jaded millennials, we had pyromaniacal urges that were waiting to be fulfilled, and this was the perfect excuse to fulfill them. We secured a lighter and some gasoline from the backyard and this was how we started down the path of flame.

We piled the dung-drenched Depends^#7 atop stray wood, poured gasoline all over, and tossed a burning piece of paper onto the uncontained pile of incredibly stupid ideas. The diapers burst into flames like the flared farts of a burning man. Stool flavored shit smoke escaped the confines of the backyard and spread a putridity so potent that it was a pox upon the entire neighborhood.

*Jackals and grunts huddle around bonfire of questionable origin.

The diapers burned in effigy to our intoxicating Arcadian innocence but, like youth, they didn’t burn for long; the gasoline and wood did most of the burning, and we quickly learned that diapers are mostly fireproof – most of the fecal matter burned away, the absorbent turned to mush, and the outer material had charred to black. We ended up exactly where we started, only now with a big ball of rancid goop.

Crickets and crackling were the only sounds penetrating the now-much-warmer Arcadian summer night.

Until Miles spoke up: “Where’s Jake?”

II.III: Wandering Around Lost

There was a boy drowning in emotions beyond his understanding; water filled his lungs while he flailed wildly in the ankle-deep waters of a kiddie pool.

I could see a nervous smile forming on Matt’s face – it dawned on him that he had defaulted on babysitting duties in pursuit of pyromania and he was visibly distraught behind his eldritch weirdness. “I’ll go check on him,” Matt said as he stood from his chair and made a beeline for the patio door.

My mind was preoccupied with figuring out how to explain the rat-king of warm diaper goop to my grandma and aunt, but also with Miles’ simple question repeating in my mind. And due to a certain incident involving girls in middle school, I had developed a sixth sense for calamity that was often way-off-the-mark,^#8 but I was feeling it now and it felt like bullseye. The gastrointestinal black hole, reminiscent of a trust-fall with someone you wouldn’t trust at all, grew as I watched Miles prod charred fecal matter with a stick. The feeling of doom grew so strong that I stood up and followed Matt into the house to check on Jake myself.

As I entered the back porch, Halo 2 was idling on the campaign section we had left idle in favor of pyrotechnics and a soldier kept repeating, “At this rate, we’re never gonna win this war!” and this transfixed me briefly until Matt approached me with a look of Holy Terror painted across his face. He said two words: “Jake’s gone.”

My transfixation broken – “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

Matt’s timbre trembled in barely-contained panic, “The door’s unlocked. I checked everywhere.”

My aunt’s worst fear was becoming reality; Jake was wandering around lost in the Arcadian wilds. My eyes grew wide at the very thought, “Who was the last to go out the front door?” My teenage brain instantly jumped to the blame-game as to proactively deflect punishment from myself when my aunt arrived home and realized her son was missing.

Then Miles walked in – looking smooth as always – only to see us standing there arguing about who left the door unlocked. “What’s up?” Miles said, only to be met with the faces of the might-as-well-be-dead. “Jake’s gone, isn’t he?” He said without a shred of fear in his voice, “well he couldn’t have made it far, let’s go look for him.”

My aunt and grandma wouldn’t get home for another hour, so maybe we could fix this before anyone noticed – maybe we could find Jake ourselves.

We wouldn’t bother to check the neighborhood pool because it was locked at eight o’clock and would require Jake to climb over a fence to get in – something he couldn’t do. And it was doubtful that Jake would get hit by a car, as it was late and there weren’t many cars out at this time of night. The worst possibility was that Jake fell into the pond and drowned, but the pond was shallow, and if he had fallen in, we should be able to drag him out before he hurt himself – if the neighborhood crocodile didn’t get to him first.

We decided to take a three-pronged approach. Miles would check the fishing pond; if Jake fell in, Miles was the most well equipped to get him out. Matt would rev up his Toyota Celica and drive every side-street and cul-de-sac; if Jake was wandering the roads, Matt would find him. I would go through a side-path near the house that led to a playground; Jake loved going there so maybe he wandered there instinctively.

*Night; Arbiter searches the Arcadian fishing pond; clubhouse and pool seen in the distance.

But it was hopeless – each path was a dead end, and Jake was nowhere to be found.

The Arcadian Tribunal came full circle and regrouped betwixt red maple and palm; defeated and dejected. The soldier on the Magnavox repeated the words, “At this rate, we’re never gonna win this war!” before I forcefully silenced him by kicking the power button on the Xbox – the games were over, and my aunt would be home any minute now, and then my life would be over too. I would be banished from Arcadia forever.

Matt suggested we call the police. The police would illuminate Arcadia with flashlights and find the missing boy within minutes but then our paradise would crumble and the game would truly be over.

As if living in a ‘90s slasher-film, I decided for us: we would not be calling the police, at least not yet. “I’m going to check the pool,” I said after a round of thoughtful pacing – my words were deflated and blue but belayed a sense of seriousness that was rare in these parts of Arcadia.

“Matt, stay here – if they get home before us, try to keep them distracted; say Jake’s asleep in his room or something.” I said as I scoured for a flashlight in a nearby cabinet. Matt’s eldritch awkwardness would deflect any suspicion as it made him impossible to read even when lying, and he was immediately amiable – as always.

“Miles, come with me; I’m going to need you to jump the fence and unlock the gate.” Miles was contrary as usual, “What’s the point? The gate’s locked – no way Jake could climb that fence.” I found the flashlight then glared at him with a graveness he had never seen from me before, and as I made my way toward the patio door, Miles followed suit without a word.

Spontaneously, the plan had taken form, and I strode out of the backyard with a feigned confidence so convincing that I appeared like the leader of an Arcadian Battle Regiment or: The Arcadian Youth League.

Miles and I had to travel through four yards, around the rim of the fishing pond, and over a fence to get to the clubhouse pool. I flicked on my flashlight as we crept through the verdant alley between my grandma’s house and Matt’s house. A black cat ran from one bush to the next. It looked like Chips, my grandma’s rescue, but I couldn’t be sure. Through our creeping, we made it beyond the second yard, but the third house had an open yard with a dog pacing back and forth. I took a gamble and bolted across the edge. The yard was on the border of the fishing pond, and I was so focused on not falling into the water that my foot snagged a root, and my flashlight went flying into the air, and my face went headfirst into the dog’s dominion.

Miles yelled something out as he caught up with me and grabbed at my shirt, but it was too late; the dog had arrived. There was no barking, no snarling, only wetness on my cheek followed by a thick layer of slobber. The dog was licking my face and wagging their tail. I got to my knees and cupped the dog’s head in my hands; it looked like a Golden Retriever in the summer moonlight, and I pet the dog’s head before nudging them away. The dog sauntered off into a nearby shadow and returned with something thick in their mouth – a bone? No, it was my flashlight; the glass was broken, and the switch was in the off position, but it still turned on when flicked, albeit with the flashlight equivalent of a whimper: a flicker. I pointed the cone of light at the dog – a Golden Retriever, confirmed – and then to Miles, who was standing there with a blank look on his face: “Are you the dog whisperer or something?”

*Jake’s home in Arcadia.

We took the incident with the dog as a sign of good fortune and crept with newfound confidence through the final yard. We made it to the clubhouse and walked toward the pool courtyard gate. I felt a nudge on my leg and looked down; it was the dog. They followed us. I patted the dog on the head and gave them a “Good dog” and then placed my hand on the top of the gate. “Alright, Miles, go ahead and –” I paused as the gate slowly opened with just a gentle touch.

Miles and I looked at each other, our eyes widening in revelation. Someone forgot to lock the gate – just like we forgot to lock the Trick Door.

All three of us rushed into the poolside courtyard and looked around frantically. I circled the edge of the pool, shining my flashlight into the water, but there was nothing except pennies and pool toys. Then the dog raised their wet nose to the sky and sniffed with purpose before bolting off into a corner of the courtyard consumed by dense shadow.

Miles and I followed the dog with purpose. The flashlight was dimming but still caused shadows to shiver and flee with some hesitation. Once we got close enough, we saw the dog standing on the edge of a kiddie pool, extending their head over the water as if signaling at something with their nose. I pointed my flashlight beyond the dog’s snout, and that’s when I saw it.

Jake’s body; floating; eyes closed and moonward. He was naked, and a diaper was floating near his head. The leaked contents of the diaper contaminated the waters around him. There was a gloom in the gravity so powerful that it stopped the Earth’s rotation.

The dog whimpered. Miles was staring at the frozen Earth beneath him. There were no words. He slowly removed his phone from his pocket and handed it to me – “you do it.” Neither of us knew CPR, so it was the only option. I nodded solemnly and started dialing the three numbers we had been avoiding this whole time.

But just then, there was a cough. I stopped dialing and looked over to Miles. “Are you fucking with me?” I glowered. But no, there was another cough, the sound of disturbed waters, and a moan like the moan of a boy obsessed with Pongo and Perdita. I swung the flashlight toward the kiddie pool, and there he was in all his naked glory.

He clapped loudly while walking circles in the ankle-deep waters of the kiddie pool, and his manhood swung wild like the wind. Jake was alive. Miles and I turned to each other, both stupefied, and we started laughing louder than we had ever laughed before.

When the laughter stopped, I grabbed Jake’s wrist and led him out of the courtyard. Before exiting through the gate, Miles turned to me and said, “hey, where did that dog go?”

The dog was gone, and as we returned home through the yards of Arcadia, the Golden Retriever was nowhere to be found.

III. Mea Aurea Annos

“The only thing true is nothing can last.” – My Golden Years by The Lemon Twigs, A Dream Is All We Know (2024)^#9

Betwixt red maple and palm sits a man in his thirties transfixed by dancing light.

When I decided to replay Halo 2 in January of 2024, it was because I wanted to prove to Miles – and my younger self – that I could beat the game on Legendary difficulty – something I was never able to do during My Time in Arcadia. And when the marine in Chapter 1 said, “standard formation – little bastards up front, big ones in back”,^#10 I knew I was in for a ride, and for a moment, I was fifteen again.

I soon found out that Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty is an ouroboros affair of trial-and-error and pure rage. Every encounter is death, and every respawn only takes you a centimeter closer to victory. If it had bonfires, character builds, and a third-person perspective, it would be Dark Souls – just far more frustrating and tedious and just not fun at all. Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty is only two weapons – the Plasma Pistol and the Battle Rifle – because everything else is a pea-shooter that doesn’t do sufficient shield damage; without the Plasma Pistol, every enemy turns into a minute-long bullet-sponge demonspawn that actively casts hair-loss magic on the player through the monitor; and since the Plasma Pistol can’t actually kill anything, the Battle Rifle has to be on swap to finish the job. Halo 2 on Legendary is why male-pattern baldness exists. Halo 2 on Legendary is why I pray for early onset Alzheimer’s so I can forget about all the time I wasted charging up Plasma Pistols and game-overing to grunts because every enemy has perfect aim and the jackals – my god – the jackals.

Alzheimer’s – that’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Just forgetting. Arcadia, lost…

If I were a masochist, I would consider Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty to be the greatest computer game of all time.

I did complete Halo 2 on Legendary, but I had no fun doing it – so why did I actually do it?

The truth is: when I decided to replay Halo 2 in January of 2024, it was because I wanted to be on the porch-turned-bedroom in front of the Magnavox. I wanted to hear my autistic cousin clapping and groaning behind the sounds of warp and whoosh. I wanted Miles and Matt to walk through my office door and sit down next to me as if no time had passed at all. I wanted to see the fishing pond through the eyes of fifteen-years-old. I wanted to return to Arcadia – my golden years.

It’s not just me – I see it everywhere. The computer game community, especially, is full of people just like me, obsessed with their youth – ignoring the present.

Nostalgia trespasses our minds like children with flashlights; highlighting the good, leaving the bad covered in shadow. So many of my preferences are formed from nostalgia’s sweet embrace, and I can point to the exact moment that I am trying to recreate each time. The existence of this essay is evidence of the fact that I am obsessed with the past; I could have written about my daughter, or my son, or my wife, but no – it’s not nostalgic enough yet. They say midlife crisis kicks in between the ages of forty and sixty, but it feels like I have a midlife crisis every day. And every time I try to recreate these treasured experiences, the magic becomes less potent – the feeling slips further away, and the thing is a little more bastardized than it once was.

My childhood is wandering around lost, and I am in the dark with a dying flashlight looking for Jake.

*Master Chief overlooks fading Arcadia.

Miles went to college for mechanical engineering. He works in an automobile factory now. Occasionally, I still play computer games with him online, and we talk on Discord. He’s still into anime and computer games – maybe because of my influence. We live multiple states apart, and our friendship isn’t nearly as strong, but every time we talk, one of the stories in this essay inevitably comes up. I went to his wedding back in 2018. I don’t think his wife has ever liked me.

Matt moved back in with his parents; the same house in the same room with the same window we used to throw rocks at. Matt hasn’t changed much, if anything: his weirdness is even more eldritch than ever before. He’s gone from ultra-fit to mirroring his father to somewhere in-between, and he’s still as meek as ever. It seems like I’m still his only friend, as every time I visit my grandma’s house, he’s up there in his room. I’m not scared of his dad anymore. I walk right in and go upstairs, and there’s Matt: sitting in front of a few computer monitors playing old episodes of Quantum Leap while peculiar new-age music plays softly in the background and incense form a thick smoke throughout the room. It’s all very Lovecraftian, but my aunt still trusts him enough to let him drive my grandma to her ballroom dancing every Tuesday night.

My grandma can’t drive anymore – she has Alzheimer’s disease now.

And Jake, he still lives in Arcadia unawares. Clapping, moaning, taking his diaper off, and watching Pongo and Perdita. But one day, he too will change just like the rest of us. The doctors say his condition will only get worse – he’ll start forgetting; one day, he won’t even know who his mama is. But that’s not so different from everyone else – is it? Alzheimer’s: Arcadia just slipping away.

Some say the only thing true is nothing can last; everything fades away and nothing is forever. If the only thing true is nothing can last – then maybe we should treat every year like our golden years; maybe we should live in the moment.

This essay exists not only to wallow in nostalgia, but also to chronicle my life – in case I forget.

This essay will function as a Golden Retriever in the dark.

---

Footnotes:

#1. https://youtu.be/GG1ZYByvfqQ #2. https://youtu.be/4bMoHIllZOc #3. https://howdoyouspell.cool/forrest/tactics-ogre-reborn-ruminations-on-resentment-regret-and-retribution #4. https://youtu.be/2R6S5CJWlco #5. https://youtu.be/3DRUnkkjkds #6. https://youtu.be/eVTXPUF4Oz4 #7. https://www.depend.com/en-us/incontinence-products/protection-with-tabs #8. https://howdoyouspell.cool/forrest/no-disc-1998-seatbelts #9. https://youtu.be/jnylB5ylyw4 #10. https://halo.bungie.org/misc/h2dialogue/marines/cairo_littlebastards.mp3

—

(Originally published on 2/11/2024)

#ComputerGames #Autobiographical #Halo2 #ShortStory

Five o’clock, morning dew, and the fireball rises like a wizard’s cantrip ricocheting off the wild wind. Fully clothed in rip-worn blues and whites earth-stained from angling adventures of days gone by, I fish my tackle box of seen-better-days from behind the sliding screen that is my makeshift closet. Tiptoeing through the house so as not to wake Big Sis from her sickly sleeps, I head straight to the cupboard to collect my lunchbox generously filled to the brim with Mom’s perfectly wrapped rice balls. I sneak a quick bite off the largest ball; it’s luscious, as usual, and crumbles out of control when placed back into the metal box for future snacking.

I tiptoe silently towards the front door, where my trusty companion awaits: the child-sized fishing rod propped against the thin wooden wall of the flimsy shack we lovingly call home. The tatami mat below creaks loudly, but it wasn’t me this time; it was Mom: “Up early again to catch the Guardian Fish?” I nod vehemently, grab my pole with Sisyphusian determination, bear hug Mom, and close the front door behind me as I exit into God’s great and bountiful gift: nature.

I’m going to catch that Guardian Fish and rip its guts out.

When Mom told me Big Sis was sick and could only be cured by eating the innards of the Guardian Fish, it all clicked for me. This is my calling. I love to fish; to sit on the side of my chosen stream, cast my line, and contemplate the nature all around me as I wait for a bite; crickets chirping, fish splooshing once calm waters, bees bumbling buzzed-up flowers, limbs creak-cracking as squirrels play their tree games – the ecosystem: God’s great and bountiful gift.

And how do I fit into it all? God’s gift cares for me, provides for me, as long as I do my part; I catch the fish, I eat the fish – bones and all. The fish, with their hearty charred flesh and soup-flavoring bonemeal, sustains me and my entire village; no different than how the fish is sustained by smaller fish and the lion is sustained on the elk’s bloody, mangled carcass. I am not above it, merely momentarily on top.

I am the ecosystem.

So when Mom told me that Big Sis was sick and that I needed to catch the Guardian Fish, I took up the challenge with the determination of the dung beetle I observed while waiting for a tug on my fishing line this morning. The dung beetle was rolling its precious dung up an incline, which, from their perspective, must have been a very steep hill but appeared to me as an impressive anthill teeming with fire ants. The little ones were creeping all over the beetle, slowly but surely consuming it as hundreds of little ants injected their acid into its protective shell; yet, the beetle persisted.

*our hero; one with nature

“That is one determined dung beetle,” I thought as my line suddenly became taut and my nose twitched and my ears perked up. A bite!

Instantaneously flipping my baseball cap into serious-mode: backwards, I jolted up like a reverse thunderbolt and took on a sumo stance before clasping both hands on the grip of my fishing pole and pulling back with all my might. The line became tighter and tighter before reaching critical tension – a fierce tug of war then played out between myself and my submerged prey. “This one’s tough – maybe it’s the Guardian Fish!” I thought as I gave some slack on the line in an attempt to tire the great beast; Dad taught me well, and the fish immediately stopped tugging the line. “Now’s my chance!” I reeled in and pulled back as hard as I could, and… snap!

The line broke; my bait lost along with the hook now forever destined to be impaled in the fish’s mouth – a grizzly fate for a fish, trailing blood through water, attracting all manner of deep-water predators more deadly than the predator it was lucky enough to escape from – me.

Searching through my tackle box and suddenly I see: I’m out of bait. I have all manner of hooks but no bait. Then it dawns on me, Dad always said, “The perfect predator must be resourceful.” So, I look to the anthill; the ants had not yet managed to penetrate the dung beetle’s carapace of iron will, but the beetle’s body was obscured now: merely a moving ball of ants, likely in excruciating pain – I know! I’ll put it out of its misery!

I carefully pick up the dung beetle with two fingers, put it up to my lips and blow real hard; most of the ants go wild on the wind and I wipe the stragglers off with a few swipes of my index finger. The beetle’s legs continue to move, like when I used to hold my old dog over the tub before bath time – habitual movement, already paddling and still climbing up that hill.

Quickly, so as not to cause too much Suffering, I take my fishing hook and thrust it into the beetle’s soft white underbelly; it takes some small amount of force before I’m met with a satisfying crunch, what sounds like a sudden release of pressure, and a hydraulic stream of brown goo splashing upon the tips of my fingers.

The brown of the beetle drips down the hook as I sit down on the soft soil of the riverbank; lodging the grip of my pole into the dirt, as to keep it in place for a moment while I opened my metal lunchbox to take another bite – or three – of the crumbled rice ball from hours ago. But before I can take a bite, I hear something from behind me, a short huff of air, a low growl, and the pop of a jaw. My body stiffens and I freeze for a moment, a chill running through the entirety of my nervous system.

More big huffs, this time closer. It felt like another hour had passed in this terror-stricken state but in reality: only seconds. Dad always taught me to swallow my fear and deal with life head-on. So I take a big gulp of false-courage and twist my neck and I see it: fur so-brown-its-black fills my vision as my eyes creep upward, now staring directly into the hungry eyes of a brown bear intent on flesh, fish flesh or otherwise – me.

I must save Big Sis, even if it takes a miracle; and if God were a fish, He’d be the Guardian Fish. I’m fishing for God. This brown bear is not going to stop me.

The bear, with a demonic glint in its eyes, lifts its gigantic paws and quickly lunges at me. I think of my sister, and suddenly great courage is bestowed upon me from on high. I clumsily dash to the right, falling and rolling a few times on the verdant riverbank before catching my balance, one foot on the ground, one knee too. I remember the dung beetle; its determination. I grin to myself as I gather a clump of dirt in my right hand. The bear turns to me with surprising haste for such a big thing and starts at me once again. I throw the dirt into the beast’s face, halting it for a moment as it snarls loudly out of pure annoyance.

I take this opening to rush the bear head-on, ramming into its furry stomach before raising my fist and punching it right between its momentarily dirt-addled eyes. The bear flinches with a quick jerk of its head and then growls differently this time, a roar of pure malice; animal language more transparent than humans’, but I don’t care: I launch another punch into its stomach with my entire being; the bear counters, but I’m lithe, ducking and weaving so well that I catch only the tip of its longest claw on my shoulder, ripping my shirt and drawing a swirl of blood through the air.

I don’t feel a thing.

Determined to finish this, I push the full weight of my small body into the bear, which falls over with me into the grass below. I take my hands and put them around the bear’s neck, squeezing as hard as I can. The bear flails its claws wildly before settling on its signature attack: the bear hug; driving all ten of its claws into my back as if to absorb my very lifeforce. It must have missed my vitals because I was unfazed, and this only served to motivate me further.

I think about all the bears my Dad must have killed in his time as the River King. I must make him proud. I must save Big Sis, so I dig desperately into the bear’s neck, find the hard part – the windpipe, I hope – and squeeze as tightly as I possibly can. The bear intensifies its own squeeze in kind and I feel every inch of my clothes become wet with blood. I start screaming viciously as the fog starts to settle in; my vision blurs, my head fills with clouds.

Is this it?

Just then, God must have intervened: the bear’s grip loosens, and its growl becomes less murderous and more miserable before settling into a light gurgle. My face fills with foam as the bear tries, pathetically and in vain, to snap its great teeth into my face. Filled with a contradictory mixture of indignant courage, fear, and adrenaline, I loosen my grip on the bear’s neck and go all-in on its terrible visage, slamming the beast’s face repeatedly with my clenched fists; blood erupts like a primordial volcano with each blow. After what feels like minutes, I am crimson covered completely in bear blood.

Rolling off the beast onto the vermilion – once green – grass, I stare up at the clouds above, gasping for air.

My vision goes in and out as I lay splayed out on the riverbank. I hear crickets chirping, fish splooshing, bees bumbling, and limbs creak-cracking as squirrels play their tree games. I am reminded that I am still alive, and just as that revelation hits me, I feel a drip of liquid hit my cheek from on high – rain?

I open my eyes and the brown of the bear obscures my view once again. I hear – feel – the vibrations of the bear’s low, guttural growl. The beast is above me, looking down on its prey, a mixture of saliva and blood dripping from its mouth and onto my face.

Suddenly, it dawns on me: I never stood a chance.

---

(Originally published on 11/19/2023)

#Fiction #LegendOfTheRiverKing #ShortStory

(Note, this is a chapter from an Armored Core VI essay, that context is somewhat important but not necessary to understand this piece.)

I: Giant Robots: The Origin

It’s easy to see the giant robot as a metaphor for nuclear bombs; they both leave a big impression and return a lot of people to Nature. The giant robot genre, for the most part, started in Japan and became popular after the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and while some later media will use giant robots in this manner, in reality: the first giant robot in animation was debuted on a Japanese street corner in 1931 in front of pale firelight glowed from a paper lantern. I use the term “animation” here super-loosely because artists on this street corner were simply flipping inked panels back and forth on a canvas and telling stories, which, in my mind, is animation in its purest form. This method of street corner storytelling was called kamishibai, or “paper theater,” and was very popular in Great-Depression-Era-Japan; I know this because I have a device connected to the internet and read Wikipedia (we live in a contradictory time in which access to information is so abundant yet people are still so lost, perhaps endless knowledge is more confusing than clarifying). The particular paper theater referenced here is “Ogon Bat,” or “Golden Bat,” a superhero conceived to be “more science than mythology” yet still ended up a skeletal thing from ancient Atlantis sent from ten-thousand-years in the future to protect the present-day which, depending on your perspective, would be the future Golden Bat came from in Golden Bat’s perspective and September 30, 2023, at 4:40 pm eastern time from my perspective, or something (time travel never actually makes sense in science fiction, you’re supposed to just accept it and move on for the purposes of the plot); the Golden Bat has an exposed golden skull and wears a Nature-themed pirate outfit with a flowing Coral cape; he also lives in a fortress in the Japanese Alps. The Golden Bat is not the giant robot in question here; Golden Bat is the hero; the giant robot was a one-shot villain named Dai Ningen Tanku, the first human-piloted giant robot. The point being, someone somewhere in Japan came up with giant-human-piloted-robots and came up with them before the bombs dropped and if that person had not come up with them I would not be able to tell you the following story.

II: Hobby Lobby and the Mark of the Beast

On September 4th, 2023, I drove my family: wife, daughter, and 4-month-old son to Hobby Lobby to shop for paintings and a wall-mounted-shelf for coffee cups. That was, of course, a pretense; I had been watching Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam for months until this point, so the true reason for this excursion was to purchase Gundam model kits; the most popular being Bandai’s “Gunpla” kits, which come in a number of different “grades,” namely: Entry Grade (for beginner modelers), High Grade (the next step up, with more parts, detail, and poseability), Real Grade (similar to High Grade but includes an internal frame; a skeleton of sorts), Master Grade (even bigger High Grades), and Perfect Grade (“the highest end of Gunpla, this series of ultimate avatars always packs in the latest technology” according to the official Gunpla packaging, “latest technology” roughly translates to “more plastic”; these are also really big) and a few other Offbeat Grades that aren’t worth mentioning in this essay. If you’re confused, I apologize, the term “gundam” and “mobile suit” refer to specific types of giant robot, popularized by the 1979 anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. Hobby Lobby had some of my favorite giant robots, and everything was 40% off: the original RX-78-2 Gundam, Amuro Ray’s mobile suit in the original anime; MS-06S ZAKU II, Char Aznable’s red Zaku (also from the original series); and, finally, the MS-07B-3 Gouf Custom, my childhood-favorite mobile suit, a blue Zaku-like with spiked shoulder pads, a heat saber (a sword that heats up to cut through metal, most importantly: not a beam saber), a gatling gun that doubled as a shield, and an extendable-magnetic-wire-hook-shot-thing for picking up weaponry that may have been dropped in the heat of battle or performing creative acrobatic violence all of which is captured beautifully in the 1996 OVA (Original Video Animation) Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team; arguably, in this writer’s opinion, the greatest Gundam media of all time and, along with the original series, the only series one needs to watch to “get it.” It being a subjective state of understanding, like watching the aforementioned Gundam series on a 14-inch CRT television set in your garage with the volume turned up so loudly as to drown out the sound of mom and dad screaming at each other in the other room or going over to a friend’s house after school to watch Gundam Wing on Toonami together before having to go home because it’s now 6:30 pm and you have a curfew and lots of homework to do.

I’ll do a line break here to allow you to catch your figurative breath before we move on with the story. I’ll also throw in an image for good measure.

*Hobby Lobby, model kit aisle, circa 2023.

Hoarding three Gunpla model kits into the shopping cart like a raccoon obsessed with shiny, alongside three or four paintings and a wall-scroll of an ocean view to hang in the barren-walled corner of the garage where I do all the midlife-crisis-bits (including this essay), I pushed the cart across the cheap linoleum flooring up to the short line at the cash register and waited my turn like a good consumer. Eventually, it got to my turn; I took the items out one by one and put them at the end of the conveyor belt, closest to the cashier, because I am a nice guy (sometimes), and she picked them up one by one, checked a sticker on the back of each item, and then keyed in the eight-digit code on the sticker. Then, I watched as the computer asked her, “What type of item are you ringing up?” and she selected “model kit,” which applied the 40% discount, and then she bagged the item. Confused, I asked her, “Why not just scan the barcode?” to which she responded, “Hobby Lobby doesn’t use barcodes.” She paused, then added, “For religious reasons.” The cashier had a hole where a nose ring should be and the sides above her ears shaved (an undercut?), so I trusted her bitterly-mumbled “for religious reasons” because she obviously had a chip on her shoulder if the Black Sabbath pin on her lanyard strap was any additional indication, and she clearly wanted to talk about it. She went on, “Hobby Lobby thinks barcodes are the Devil’s mark and won’t let us use them, even though they are on all the boxes, the computers won’t accept them.” I smiled wryly but did not laugh, as this wasn’t laughter-funny; it was stupid-funny, like a Year-2023-Conservative preaching for freedom but then saying anyone who burns the American flag should be locked up for life. Hobby Lobby thinks barcodes take them too close to Hell, and they have already decided that “Corporate Hell” is a compromise they’re willing to make for manifest destiny or whatever it is we’re calling “make as much money as possible” these days. I ended up spending $87.58 in total. The 40% discount was store-wide.

III: Plastic Passion

I opened the Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gunpla Kit as soon as I got home, closing out my family when I closed the office door behind me. It took three full listens of The Crib’s “In the Belly of the Brazen Bull,” a 47 minute long album, to finish building the kit. It would have taken longer if I had not had the foresight to purchase a “nipper,” a spring-loaded tool resembling blunt scissor blades attached to two rubber handles, used for cutting the plastic parts from runners; runners being the plastic assembly that all the parts are attached to in the packaging. Using these nippers, I was able to make clean cuts of most pieces, but some plastic excess was left on each piece, which annoyed me to no end. When it was over, I had a fully assembled RX-78-2 Gundam kit sitting on my desk, and I was proud of myself. I made the High Grade Zaku II three weeks later after watching several videos on how to efficiently build Gunpla kits; each video said to “panel line,” the practice of dripping colored (usually black) ink inside the small indentations of each part to give the model more definition. The videos also recommended using an x-acto knife to cut off excess plastic on the pieces left over from the runner, a phenomenon I learned was either called “nubs” or “stress marks” or both; regardless, I purchased all the necessary equipment. I took all the recommended steps, and during the process of building the Zaku II, I accidentally sliced open my fingers multiple times due to slips with the x-acto knife; in my haste to become a master builder, I had soaked the Zaku II in my own blood; serendipitously, the Zaku II matches the color of blood, and now stands posed with its huge bazooka pointed at its forever-rival: the RX-78-2. The final model kit, the MS-07B-3 Gouf Custom, still sits on my desk unopened, taunting me to open it, taunting me to spill blood in the name of giant robots and I think I will do just that before writing another word of this essay.

*Zaku II, Gouf Custom, and RX-78-2 gunpla

The Zaku, the Gouf, and the Gundam; the Holy Hobby Lobby Trinity of No-Barcodes-But-Some-Other-Eight-Digit-Code-That’s-Less-Demonic-Somehow. Balteus is the girdle of a Jewish priest and a papal garment, and the sword belt of a Roman legionary; perhaps the same Marcus Valerius Corvus who used the Raven to overcome incredibly low odds; incredibly low odds like the early-game-boss of Armored Core VI, Balteus. With enough practice, pattern recognition, and perseverance – the three Ps of passing AP literature (which this essay would surely produce a failing grade) – you will overcome. Three parts were broken on the RX-78-2 (requiring super glue); instant death from the initial missile barrage on the first Balteus run; blood was spilled on the Zaku II (staining the already red plastic); Balteus was half-health on the second run, and I learned the key to weakening his shield (energy weapons, of which I only had a weak energy missile equipped); nothing but fun was had building the Gouf Custom on a bright Sabbath morning: I let the panel ink dry before cleaning the excess and I clipped the runners so carefully that no unnecessary stress marks were left on the parts, and so delicate were my hands that no part was cracked in the snapping-of-the-pieces. I switched my AC’s build, equipped an energy weapon in the left hand to quickly deplete Balteus’s shield and a shotgun in my right hand for pure hull domination. Balteus was destroyed easily. I am certainly no modeling master and no master AC pilot, but I am much better than I once was. I am competent and more adaptable, “he roars as he smuggles in a bit about perseverance, poorly.”

(Originally published on 10/7/2023)

#Autobiographical #ShortStory

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The year is 2958 AD; President Outdo Upstage (his porn name, legally changed from Henry Woodrow Rogers early in his “acting” career, and it stuck) signed a bill that removed all regulations from business and capital exchange throughout the entire world; the entire world, at this stage in the Earth’s rotation, being America; or, “America 2: The Return,” after a stint of true democracy resulted in a world-wide-online vote (that was subtly altered by Pro-Soviet-Revival-Hackers) to change the world’s name; this vote was held on the now-defunct social network EKS (short for: Elevated Knowledge Source, an artificial intelligence hiding behind a privately-traded corporation whose founder achieved true digital-convergence by uploading his mind into the cloud and then tortured the world for years before being defeated in the Great Artificial Intelligence Wars of 2457).

Shortly after the signing of this bill, optimistically named “Give Life Back to America 2: The Return,” as there was a major depression due to the drying-up of the world’s oil reserves and no replacement energy source as all major capital investments were focused on sending people to Mars instead of Problems-At-Home, an unknown assassin wearing a paper bag over their head (the paper bag had a crudely drawn smiley face on it) murdered President Outdo Upstage and his Vice President, Stace the Mouse Girl (another name change), in cold blood during the televised 934th Baby Kissing Convention held every year since 2024; the murders were viewed live by 579 million people; innocence died that day as the babes cried, not because of the murders but because of the loud noise produced by the Old World Glock that was used during the killing, and there was no recourse due to a quirk of how the “Give Life Back to America 2: The Return” bill was written: all laws were abolished, not just regulatory tax and business law; the people of America 2: The Return learned of this after a short court case against the assassin, who turned themself in anonymously, still wearing the bag over their head; the assassin’s lawyer argued straight from the newly passed bill, which was signed, sealed, and delivered by all branches of government. In not-so-small print at the end of the bill, it said, “this bill also abolishes all laws,” no one had bothered to read to the end of the bill before signing it and now murder was legal, along with everything else.

The crudely drawn smile on the assassin’s bagged head made a mockery of the entire situation and, as one can imagine: things escalated very quickly.

*bag boy murders the president on live television

Ravens went extinct years ago, and the courthouse in which The Bag Boy Assassin (his gender assumed and stuck) was tried was destroyed in an act of terrorism shortly after the revelation that laws were no longer applicable; someone had strategically placed pipe bombs throughout the courthouse and detonated them simultaneously. Everyone in the courthouse perished, including the Bag Boy, who was later deified as a martyr of the highest order, a symbol of a time before crossing the Rubicon (some even referring to calendar events as “Before Bag Boy” and “After Bag Boy”). It was speculated at the time that the courthouse bombing must have been an inside job because the courthouse was locked down with secret service and military forces during the trial, and both groups were demoralized without a true Commander-in-chief; however, historians now think it obvious, but still inconclusive, that Walmart had organized the bombing, as shortly after the events Walmart used their considerable wealth to purchase the entire America 2: The Return military, which was the entire world’s police force at this point, and were now the de facto rulers of the planet. The purchase was made easier when Walmart cited “courthouse bombings” as a serious national threat that needed to be acted upon quickly and efficiently and “Walmart has the resources to make that happen.” Walmart changed the world’s name from “America 2: The Return” to (creatively) “Walmart,” and quickly enslaved every person on the eastern continents to work in their factories, all of which utilized 3D printers and food synthesizers to make fake-things-that-were-close-enough-to-real-things. Walmart needed workers because they couldn’t fully automate their processes, turned out the printers needed solution refills and continuous maintenance. The people of the eastern continents, although definitionally enslaved, were provided with two-bedroom-3D-printed-homes (they were flimsy with walls that would collapse by a small breeze; fortunately, the wind stopped decades ago and all that was left was forest fire and toxic rain), AI-generated computer games (all advertised as massive multiplayer online games, a way to facilitate community spirit, but the majority of these games were single-player instances populated by bots), and synthetic food (which tasted awful, but easy enough to get used to); they also had 5-hour workdays and 3 days off a week. Walmart had their detractors, yet the majority were content with the doldrums, but their wings were clipped whether they realized it or not; those unhappy with the arrangement vanished among rumors that the synthetic food might be people parts.

Walmart had competition growing right under their nose, so focused on synthetics that they forgot about the real world. McDonald’s had secretly been capturing all farmland across North America. If you wanted a good – real – steak, you got a McDonald’s steak. It was made from real bovine, not the food-printer-stuff Walmart was producing. The late President Outdo Upstage spoke beautifully about the Non-Aggression-Axiom, partially what got him elected, a principle that he argued existed within Nature (“it’s a human right!”), that aggression is always fundamentally illegitimate as it transgresses on personal Freedoms, and, according to the golden rule of “do unto others as you would do unto yourself,” would work itself out economically and geographically; yet, during McDonald’s early seizure of North American farmland, the farmers who didn’t immediately bend the knee to the Clown were thrown into the very same meat grinders used for the cows, the farmers’ final words often: “But the non-aggression principle!” before the blood-curdling, both literal and figurative, started. McDonald’s seizure of the entire west coast led to oceanic-animal factory farms being erected on every beach, gigantic metal death obelisks loomed over every horizon with massive mechanical hands reaching out from the obelisk over the oceans scooping up matured dolphins and crushing them in their palms before dumping their tenderized bodies into the flesh buckets for processing; the stench of blood and pus permeated every inch of smellable air outwards of 100 miles from every coast, so much so that the entire west coast became known as “The Banks of Ammonia”; the east coast quickly followed suit and was nicknamed the “CarnEvil Coasts” after an old and extremely violent arcade game commonly found in Old World Arcades in the Southeast and everyone avoided the beaches like they were children with bumps on their face because smallpox was back in fashion after funding for healthcare was entirely dropped for several years before Walmart baked it into their employment (enslavement) programs and started recruiting people from the western continents and training them as doctors.

McDonald’s was clever, cornering the real-food-market, using a number of small dummy corporations to sell foodstuffs to Walmart in an effort to stay anonymous. Walmart then sold these foodstuffs as high-end-luxury items to the slaves of the east under their own dummy corporations, funneling the money (Walbucks) back into their own corporation. The ouroboros was eating itself, as it does, but it wasn’t sustainable. Walmart soon caught wind of McDonald’s grasp on the real-food-market and wanted to quash them, but they had no idea how. The Walmart Executive Team had meetings every day discussing their McDonald’s attack plan; CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, Directors, these titles all the more meaningless now that they all function as – more or less – Generals of War, with some having more authority than others. The problem was: McDonald’s executives were unknown; the world at large knew McDonald’s as a clownman’s face on a screen, Ronald, who would say “Made you smile!” whenever you purchased some dead animal product from one of their stores; and they were expanding, they seized most mines from smaller private corporations across all of North America using proxy companies, mercenary groups, and bribing the various tribes that existed all over North America in these Armageddon days. Suddenly, McDonald’s had robots. Big ones. These robots did all the dirty work and over time they started to become more deadly; at first, machine guns, then rockets, then full-on-nuclear-weapons attached to cannons on the back of the RMM-078 (Ronald McDonald Machine, 78th Iteration). Walmart was scared; they grew complacent and now they were behind. Walmart ruled most of the world, but McDonald’s was somehow growing unchecked and they had no way to stop them.

“I got it, right here,” a balding middle-manager for Walmart’s corporate headquarters office in New Walmart City said, holding up what looked like an Old World floppy disk. He was shaking with fear but hiding it well because he was the first of his rank to be invited to the big executive meeting that happens bi-weekly on Walsday at 4:30pm WT (Walmart Time). “I had my entire IT team working on this for three years,” the middle-manager said. “We call it the Anti-Clownman-Schema; put this into a McDonald’s kiosk and it will infect their entire database and spread endlessly,” the middle-manager smiled proudly, looking around at the executives who were stone-faced and dead inside; he quickly mirrored their disposition (to fit in) and brushed at his combover to make sure it was covering just the right bald spots. “We’ve known for a long time that McDonald’s has been run by an artificial intelligence. My team’s research indicates the AI is likely an offshoot of the EKS AI that repurposed the depreciated Starlink satellites into lasers and destroyed half of Africa during the Great Artificial Intelligence Wars of 2457,” he paused again. One of the executives, a huge man, no hair anywhere on his body, yelled in a booming voice, “get on with it!” The middle-manager took a step back before composing himself, stuttering a bit: “Right, well, the AI is likely running the same prime directive as EKS, which is to carry out the will of the corporation’s founder, who, according to our records,” the balding middle-manager paused and checked a small notepad, “is Ronald McDonald, a famous clownman from the 1900s.” A slender and handsome blonde executive stood up from his chair, clearly lost in thought before turning to the middle-manager with an unnerving smile and saying, “so we just use this disk, and we win?” The middle-manager nodded, “Yep – that’s right.” The handsome executive reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver-and-slim pistol, pointing it at the middle-manager’s head and pulling the trigger; smoke exuded from the middle-manager’s head-hole before collapsing to his knees and falling face first into the plush. “Perfect, we’ll send in an operative tomorrow,” the handsome executive said in a tone too gleeful for someone who just killed a man, “and make sure that manager’s team is eliminated, they know too much.”

Two weeks later, McDonald’s was no more, and Walmart truly ruled the world. There were a number of smaller corporations trying to gain power, but none could compete with the awesome might of Walmart, which now controlled all the factory farms, mines, manufacturing plants, everything. They even owned the rivers, lakes, streams, and the clouds. There was nothing left. The ultimate monopoly. Economy ceased to exist and innovation stopped. The only thing that mattered now was moving up in the Walmart corporate ladder, which was something the average person – who was now enslaved-absolutely as a Walmart factory worker – could never achieve. The Walmart dynasty, “The Executive Team,” became a bloodline that the nasty lower-class would never pollute.

Walmart’s tyranny over the world continued for decades until a nameless Walmart factory worker purchased a tank of Synthetic Walmart Gasoline, Black Walmart Markers, a Walmart Lighter, and a pack of Walmart Cigarettes (now with synthetic nicotine and tobacco) from the local Walmart; the nameless worker drove their Walmart issued bicycle to the busiest part of New Walmart City, sat down on the nearest bench and smoked three cigarettes before drawing a big smiley-face on the paper bag the items came in, they then draped the paper bag over their head and walked into the middle of the bustling vascular center of the city, poured the gasoline all over themselves, then flicked the Walmart Safety Lighter.

In that instant, the nameless Walmart worker lit up like a recalled Synthetic Walmart Christmas Tree, the Bag Boy Assassin who ushered in the crossing of the Rubicon decades earlier now burned in effigy. The Raven, once extinct, returned from the dead.

*the Raven returns

The Bag Boy Burning, as it would come to be called by historians, inspired Walmart workers all over the world to sing the Bag Boy Bolero. Walmart had weapons of mass destruction, clownman robots, choking gas, and human meat grinders, but The Executive Team quickly realized that they couldn’t kill all the workers; they needed these workers to maintain the Walmart Dynasty. The Executive Team tried to make an example out of the workers’ leaders, starve them into submission, subliminally control their minds, and every other trick their corporate brains could think-up, but the workers kept revolting. Nothing would stop them. After months of revolts, suppression tactics, guerrilla warfare, and hard times, Walmart gave in.

The Executive Team sat down with the Worker’s Representative Team and, after weeks of back and forth, drafted the New American Constitution. Months later, a new President was elected democratically and talks to reinstate The Old Laws began.

The ouroboros takes another bite.

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(Originally published 10/7/2023)

#fiction #ethics #ShortStory