I wish, I wish, I wish in vain. I wish I owned Starcraft.
---
It happens when you don't look for it. Or when you look for it too hard.
It finds you when you choose to look away, but by then it's too late.
If you see that thing ahead, there is no option but to accept
If you find that thing, there is little hope you might return from this fate
For imagination, once engaged, will never leave you alone
It tortures you in the night, gives peace to your day
And it aggravates your busy moments with thoughts of away
And when you finally reach that away, indeed
You would sell your all for one more busy moment
And to forget there ever was an away.
-
It was Angela's turn, Angela Parker.
She was a girl of eighteen, fresh from high school and headed for her state college. Well, after the summer. Right now Angela was headed to the public bus stop, walking down the urban street with one of her friends, James Randall, discussing the literary details of the game known as Starcraft.
"And Mengsk is going to continue screwing up the universe." James continued. "He's so stupid and arrogant. Man, Mengsk always digs in the worse and weirdest places to find soldiers, and it's going to bite him in the butt again and again."
Angela laughed. "My prediction for him is salvation. So far, he's been supporting the theme of bad authority, you know, that's supposed to be good but really isn't. But at the end of Brood War, he was utterly defeated, and all of his pride was destroyed by the swarm. His thoughts are going to be about revenge, so he's going to have to go after the Zerg with everything he has. This is going to result in good things for him, because he learns to become a good leader through his struggles.
"Now Raynor, he's going to become bitter about his defeat, somewhat or a lot, that depends on Blizzard. Anyway, he's got to fight Kerrigan too, revenge and all, so I predict that his nature is going to focus on revenge. A lot of his present good nature is going to be worn away, 'cause after all he has to fight an object of his affection, somebody he truly loved. So he's going to defeat Kerrigan, and when he does, the hybrids will come. Their arrival signal's Raynor's death, because he has completed his themes and has no more purpose for the story."
"No way!" James countered. "Mengsk is so going to die. All of the people who represent bad authority die. Duke was in the whole secret Confederate conspiracies and he dies, Raszagal got mind-controlled by Kerrigan so of course she went down, and Judicator Aldaris was a really bad authority. Kerrigan pwned him bad in the end."
"Aldaris! He's the perfect example of what I'm talking about!" Angela exclaimed. "His main purpose was to serve as bad authority to contrast the heroism of Tassadar, so when he was at Shakuras, he had no point to the plot, and that's why Blizzard made him a truthseeker, and truthseekers always die!"
"What are you talking about? Truthseeker?"
"Yeah, it's what I call the people who are more suspicious about their situations than the other people around them, and they have the daring to find out why something is. They always find out why, then the die before, during, or after they tell their message. Aldaris dies before he tells anybody. Simon from Lord of the Flies died in a weird frenzy when he tried to tell the other boys that the monster was just a dead guy in a parachute. That dude from Soylent Green manages to tell the people about the food before he dies."
"Come on," James scoffed. "We don't know that he dies. The movie ends first."
"Please, it was a fatal shot, you know he died."
"Well, whatever that's about, I still say you think about it too much. And Raynor is going to live. He's a knight. You know that knights always live in their stories, victorious and with a beautiful maiden in their arms." James swung Angela back suddenly, holding her draped over his arm. "Oh my darling, let us ride far from this place. Come to my kingdom and you shall be my queen!"
Angela laughed again with delight. "Just because you're a Jim doesn't mean Jim Raynor has a chance."
She loved looking at James's face. Randall, not Raynor. He had the deepest blue eyes, a dark face that mostly hid his few freckles, and lovely red hair. Most of the time James kept his hair short and spiked, but always one strand would curl on his stern forehead, like a joke at a dignified dinner party. It was the crowning feature of his face, and it really did make him look like a king, or at least a knight.
"Whoa, look at that!"
"Get a room!
"Way to go, Jim!"
"Well, I guess it's true. Nerd guys do get girls."
"Then why am I single? How do you do it, Jim?"
James and Angela stood up straight again, embarrased. Up came three other Starcraft fans, all very much amused at their two friends. Eric and Devin were hardcore fans that Angela and Jim met while standing in line for Walmart to open in 1998, all of them waiting to buy Starcraft's expansion set, Brood War. While that was fan history, Kyle was a more recent friend, and only to the guys.
"Hey Jim, you think Starcraft: Ghost is gonna come out in 2005?" Devin asked. "You're our prediction boy with the golden guess, so what's it gonna be?"
"His shadow is showing." Eric joked. "So that means six more weeks of delays."
"Yeah, I'll go with that. There's no way Blizzard's gonna finish for a long while on that game." James answered. "And then just maybe they'll do something with Starcraft II, which will probably come out in like 2010."
"I don't think I'll get Ghost." Angela said, annoyed. "They just had to put it on a console instead of PC, and I don't have any of the game consoles needed for it. I'm not going to spend fifty bucks plus the game cost just for one game that doesn't really advance the plot or answer questions about the Protoss-Zerg hybrids. Blizzard should have known better than to take the game off of the PC."
"I don't have a console either, but you don't hear me complaining about it." Kyle grinned cleverly. "That Nova's so hot, whooooeee! I'd buy a Playstation II just for her."
"Sick, they made her too slutty." Angela complained. "Who the crap wears an outfit that's all up on her butt anyway?"
"Come on," Eric inputted. "she's gotta stay nice and flexible, and baggier clothes would just get in her way."
"That's right," Kyle said. "Man, she can nuke my command center any day! Am I right guys, or what?"
The boys hooted in accordance with their immaturity. Except for James, who just grinned. He knew better than to act that way in front of his girlfriend.
"Sick, and she's all fake too. Just a bunch of slutty pixels put together wrong." Angela rolled her eyes.
"Don't worry, baby," Kyle winked. "There's always room in my heart for you and your candy a-"
A palm flew in his face, and Angela's other hand snagged the teen by his shirt, pulling him and shoving him against an electrical pole. "You listen good, punk, and you remember this face. Whenever you disrespect women, make a joke about fake body parts on computer women, and ruin the best game ever made in the process, I'm gonna be there to beat the nonsense outta ya'. Got it now, kid?"
"Hey Jim! Come get your woman! Dang, girl, can't take a joke."
"You bet I can't."
James put his arm on Angela's shoulder, and she let go of Kyle. He quickly stepped away from the pole as Eric and Devin snickered from behind. The other boys had always known that Angela was tough, especially after someone tried to steal her place in line for Brood War, or a few weeks ago when her older brother hid her hydralisk figurine. However, Kyle didn't know better. Jokes could only go so far with her around, or at least with Kyle's particular brand of joking.
"C'mon dude, chill." Devin said. "She's just punch-happy. Hey Jim, you coming over for the tournament tonight? We gotta show some newbies the true meaning of pwnage."
"You know it. I just have to do some stuff for my mom, and I'll be over there."
"Cool. See you later, man."
The three boys turned down a side road, Devin and Eric ragging on Kyle all the way. As they left, Angela and James continued their conversation, arguing if Stukov could have really been killed and was still able to be infested. James didn't think Starcraft 64 really counted in the real plot, so he backed the idea that Stukov really was dead. Angela persisted in saying that since the United Earth Directorate lied about the means of his death, they could lie about the funeral and make it so there was no actual body inside of Stukov's coffin. By the time they got to the bus stop, James was convinced that it was possible for Stukov to be in the Zerg swarm, whether or not Starcraft 64 mattered.
"Angie, you gonna play Starcraft this time, or just write it?" James asked as they stopped under the bus stop sign. "You know we miss having you there."
"I know. But you guys always hang with that jerk Kyle. Let's have us an old-fashioned tournament, like we did before this Kyle guy showed up. We used to be real nerds then, not just people who hang out."
"Sheesh, Angie. We've always been people who hang out. Why are you so obsessed with Starcraft? I mean, it's cool and all, and it's one of the most fun things to write about, but sooner or later we're going to have to get real jobs. Nobody's going to pay us to play Starcraft. I don't see why you don't like Kyle either. If you actually hung out with us, you would know that he's almost as obsessed as you."
"Whatever." Angela sighed and dropped her backpack against the bus stop sign, then sat on the curb. "If you think so, I guess I'll give the guy a chance. But he's such a perv."
"All guys are like that."
"Well, you better not be." Angela smiled at James as he sat down next to her. "I can't come tonight, but you call me for next time and I'm there. I gotta get my Starcraft fix before heading off to college anyway."
James looked doubtfully at his girlfriend. "You can't come tonight? Bull. I bet you're just writing, aren't you?"
"So what if I am?"
"Angie, Angie, Angie. Give it up. There's no way you can write a good enough story to convince Blizzard to hire you. Don't give me all that crap that the people who made Starcraft are leaving the project or the company and only a die-hard like you can write the sequel. You've written to Blizzard with a huge, wonderful portfolio and they rejected you. Again and again they said no, but you still don't give up. Hey, listen to me. Starcraft was a fun writing exercise for a while, but it's time to grow up now."
The girl scoffed jokingly, "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys-R-Us kid."
James couldn't help but laugh. "Whatever, Peter Pan. Look, I gotta go, but you don't lose yourself in the fiction, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm in the real world now."
"And don't you forget it."
The youth gave Angela a kiss before getting up and heading off toward his house. Angela shook her head as he left, staring down at the pavement. For several minutes she sat that way, only moving to make certain she had exact change for the bus. However, while her body was inactive, her mind was racing with all sorts of plotlines, outlining the possible fates of the Starcraft characters according to their themes. Angela had done this several times before, but she never grew tired of it. If only she could find that one plotline that was magnificent, different from what everyone else thought, maybe then Blizzard would consider her. If she could get a job with Blizzard, her life could be Starcraft, just as she always wanted it to be.
People will constantly fight for the things they believe in, and if there were nothing to fight for, even metaphorically, life would lose its own essence. You know people like Angela. They are those that hook themselves onto one goal and hang on with the greatest faith you could never imagine. People like her are not uncommon. You see them every day, changing the way that life is lived. However, here in the Twilight Zone, things are taken one step further. The things you take seriously will take you away from everything you know of as normal, plain, or realistic.
Obsessions are life. Remember, if you achieve your intended goal, nothing can undo it for you. Actions done are completed permanently, especially while in the Twilight Zone.