One night in 1994, Artemis Finkleberry, a Civil War re-enactor with an uncanny resemblance to a young Abraham Lincoln, was playing Mortal Kombat II on a Sega Genesis he had rented from Blockbuster Video earlier that night. He had broken up with us his girlfriend over a trivial issue sometime in the afternoon and got too familiar with a bottle of Merlot around Happy Hour. However that didn’t matter to him. Only the buttons on his controller and the television screen were real to him anymore. Artemis Finkleberry was gone. He was Johnny Cage fighting for Earthrealm now. Shao Kahn doesn’t stand a chance.
In the middle of his Scorpion’s Living Forest, there was an epic battle between a ninja with honeybee color named Scorpion and a famous movie star named Johnny Cage. Artemis played Johnny, the computer played as Scorpion. Now even though Artemis got a few good kicks that made sure the battle would not end in flawless victory he himself was not able to get victory. Scorpion knew better combos and pulled them off masterfully. He had won. Suddenly the words Artemis and his proxy Johnny didn’t want to hear were inevitably uttered. “Finish Him!” Scorpion obliged. He did his chain-thing bringing Johnny “over here”. Johnny was ready to receive his “fatality” when Scorpion broke routine and said, “Johnny. May I ask you a question?” Johnny was in no condition to refuse anything. “How often to yesterday's epiphanies degrade into tomorrow's scrap heap of lame explanation. Don't you wish to find something a little more substantial?” He hands Johnny a pamphlet he fetches from his pocket and says, “Once upon a time there was a man named Joseph Smith and one day he discovered two golden tablets…."
Artemis, a little spooked, removes the cartridge from the Sega and replaces it with Sonic the Hedgehog 2. He plays several levels of smooth sailing until he gets to Aquatic Ruin Zone. Sonic and Tails were underwater running, collecting coins as they did so, when Sonic suddenly stopped for a moment to ponder an idea. Tails looked around and gave a gesture, as if to say, “What are you doing? We have to get out of this place.” Tails looks at a nearby air bubble while Sonic just stands there lost in thought. Suddenly, Sonic screams, though a little muffled by the fact that he’s underwater, a message loud and clear, “Repent for the time of the kingdom of heaven is near.”
Artemis, who plays professional plays Abraham Lincoln when he was twenty, immediately rushes to remove the cartridge and replace it with “Madden 95’. All was good and proper in the game, football simulator, until The Oilers came across a twenty-foot tall statue of The Buddha, who called himself Sid, on the fifty yard line. Curious they asked the gold-plated lead statue how he got there He answered “Croatian moving men. Strongest backs in the Balkans.” One of the players on the field called out, “I know a Bulgarian who’d disagree with you.”
“Tell your friend to go lift a piano and then a one ton Buddha statue and then he can talk. Oh he can’t lift a one ton Buddha statue. You want to know why? Because only a Croatian can do that. How do I know that? Because I know what I’m talking about that’s why,” then “Sid” addressing the other players on the field says, Now gather round children and we will speak of samsara and lava lamps. You can ‘thanka’ me later.” The Buddha Statue laughs but no one else does. “My sophisticated humor is wasted on you jocks. Oh well. First we begin at birth…”
Artemis immediately removes the cartridge. He assembles together the three games he played that night looks at them with tremendous skepticism and fear. At that moment he decides to do two things. One, return the Genesis and the three games he rented the following morning. Two, call up his girlfriend, apologize and agree that, “Yes, it’s true. I do play way too many video games and no, you’re not too pretty to play Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. You’re perfect.”
No comments:
Post a Comment