In the family room sat John's Dad's collection of fanciful harlequin statuettes. Fucking garbage. John hated the things. I mean, funny was funny, but John's Dad could be a real cornball sometimes. At night, sometimes, John would pray for burglars to take away the statuettes.
Next to the harlequin collection sat the fireplace, a bright orange flame flickering away within. It didn't matter that it was April and not terribly chilly outside. In a home, a fireplace needed a fire, because that's what fireplaces are for. A fire belongs in a fireplace, dammit, cata(ptcha)gorically, at all times, without exception. As domestic myth of unaccountable origin holds, a home borrows the spirit of the flame for as long as it makes a guest of it, much as the moon takes liberty with the sun's rays. "The moon's an arrant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun" (Mark Twain). John was certain that Mark Twain had said that.
John tossed GameBro Magazine into the fire, although it didn't burn as quickly as he had hoped. Each magazine was guaranteed to be printed on 40% recycled asbestos. For big ups to Mother Earth, yo. While it burned, John examined the sacred urn containing his departed Nanna's ashes. When his father gave the portrait above the fireplace a wistful glance now and then, John could tell it brought back painful memories. A tall bookshelf. A ladder. An unabridged Colonel Sassacre's. He never wanted to talk about it. In his reminiscing stupor, John accidentally toppled the urn, spilling ash everywhere. In retrospect, upon mulling over cinematic tropes regarding ash-filled urns, the current outcome had been a virtual certainty. John decided that he had better clean it up before his Dad found it.
But before John cleaned it up, there were some things he wanted to do first. He combined his father's pipe, which had been sitting on a little end table, with the Clever Disguise, beefing it up so that he would be even more unrecognizable. Next, he went up to the oversized gift in the middle of the room and inspected it closely. There was a tag hanging from it that said:
CHAMP.
YOU CAN DO ANYTHING IF YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO IT.
I BELIEVE IN YOU.
Contemplating what exactly could be inside the box was exciting, but it undoubtedly made John a bit nervous at the same time. He slowly tore off the paper and revealed what was inside. Oh hell no. It was a giant harlequin doll. Great, what was John going to do with it? He propped it up on the couch so that it wasn't lying on the floor with its legs all akimbo, which had struck John as unseemly.
Then John remembered the ashes. He captchalogued the ashes that were spilled everywhere to his available card and merged the sacred urn with them. Most of the ash ended up back in the urn, but a lot of it was on top of the urn and around it in a big messy pile. John realized that using a broom and dustpan would have been tidier. John put the urn back on top of the fireplace. No one would be the wiser. Except for maybe people with eyes.
John suddenly had a brilliant idea. He ran back up to his room and grabbed the fake arms from the cake and captchalogued them with his free card again. Pesterchum was acting up again, but John wanted to look around his room one more time. This time at the other side. There was his closet and a bunch of posters that had not been mentioned before. But Pesterchum was getting annoying, so John sat at his computer and looked at who it was. Oh, it was someone else this time: tentacleTherapist, or TT.
TT: I understand you have recently come into possession of the beta release of "The Game of the Year", as featured in respectable periodicals such as GameBro Magazine.
EB: that's an ugly rumor.
EB: whoever told you that is a filthy liar.
EB: and you should probably stop hitting on him all the time or whatever.
TT: I can't control myself.
TT: I must have a weakness for insufferable pricks.
EB: anyway i still haven't checked the mail, my dad has it.
EB: i'm trying to go get it from him, so brb
TT: John.
EB: what?
TT: You're wearing one of your disguises now, aren't you?
TT: You are typing to me right now while wearing something ridiculous.
EB: no, why would you even think that?
EB: that's so stupid.
TT: Ok.
TT: Why don't you go get the game from your father?
EB: alright, wish me luck.
EB: oh, btw...
EB: jk I was wearing a funny disguise this whole time.
EB: gotcha! hehehehe
TT: I know, John.
John then proceeded to carry out the brilliant plan with the fake arms. There was just enough frosting on the fake arms to attach them to the armless giant harlequin doll downstairs. He stuck the arms onto the doll, not caring what Colonel Sassacre had to say. The arms made it at least a million percent funnier.
Wait what? There was a random piece of paper sitting on the ground. John looked at it. Broblerone of Switzerland, it read. It must have fallen out of GameBro. John tossed it into the fire where it belonged. He tossed the gift wrap from the harlequin doll into the fire as well.
John wondered if he could captchalogue the doll, but it was too big to fit in his sylladex. Besides, why would he even want it? He looked at his captchalogued items: Colonel Sassacre and the smoke pellets. He opened the book to a page entitled The Creepy-Crawlies!
Hell's bells, we are having a mighty sporting time of it!
Hold fast, my intrepid fellow prank-smiths! We've merely nicked the mahogany of our japing chests.
If I may direct the incisive ogle of your beagle puss to the wriggling regency of rubber bugs, plastic parasites, squirming serpents, pliable pests, and every such order and phyls of creepy-crawlie!
Land sakes alive, we are cooking with petrol now!
In further exhibits we shall dwell on artifice useful to your exploits. Is your pappy's rod and reel handy? What about a bit of iron cord; it shouldn't prove elusive. Bring those writhing rascals to life, and set the nerves of some old maid to the to the wreck of Hesperus!
Do you have a bothersome aunt who never seems troubled to find ways with your sunny afternoons? A broad, splintery fence. A bucket of whitewash perhaps?
By gum you'll fix her wagon!
And what of that tawny gent who puts his lackadaisical lean near the sarsaparilla font? You'll have that listless octoroon find the spring in his step just yet!
Um maybe I should consult the text later, John thought. This text is way too big to navigate in a timely fashion.
Instead of continuing to fool around, John decided to confront his father about the mail. There were two doorways he could choose to enter through. The door on the left led to the kitchen, from which the smell of baking wafted - a powerful aroma which could have lifted an especially portly hobo off his feet. The door on the right led to the study, where John's Dad spent a lot of his time. He could have been in either room, but John chose to enter the study.
The study, however, was empty. John looked at his father's desk, upon which sat a deck of playing cards, one of his Dad's pipes, the April issue of The Serious Jester Magazine, and a stray captchalogue card. There was also a can of peanuts.
"Ha ha," John laughed. "Oh, dad. I won't be falling for that one again any time soon." It really was quite difficult to cope with a severe peanut allergy.
Next to the desk stood his Dad's hat rack. John removed the bowler hat from the rack and placed the magician's hat on it. He combined the bowler hat with the Clever Disguise, making it somewhat less funny, but significantly more distinguished looking. John considered combining the pipe on the desk with his disguise as well, but the first one tasted bad enough as it was. How he suffered for his comedy.
John's Dad maintained numerous pipes around the household. A father without a pipe was like a strapping roughneck without a toothpick. That is to say, HE WAS A RATHER PISS-POOR EXCUSE FOR A ROUGHNECK IF YOU ASKED JOHN.
John looked at the captchalogue card. Yes! This would be perfect for expanding the space in his sylla… ARGH! John captchalogued the captchalogue card. To calm himself down, he proceeded to play a piece on the piano entitled Showtime. Its haunting refrain soothed his frustrated spirit. But it wasn't enough, so John decided to play 52 Pick-up with the deck of cards on his father's desk. 52 Pick-up was his father's favorite game, but he was alone, rendering the game an especially foolish version of Solitaire. SO STUPID. Look at that mess on the floor. The peanut gallery over by the wall, consisting of a picture of a jester dude and The Joker from Batman, sure was getting a kick out of this whole thing. John was allergic to its scorn.
With a sigh, John returned to the living room. On the television across from the harlequin doll, a commercial for Hi-C Ectocooler was airing. John contemplated leaving the house and checking the mailbox outside. He wanted to exhaust all possibilities before plunging headlong into a Dad encounter.
John exited the house and opened the mailbox. Predictably, it was empty. John had already been scooped by his father.
The streets of John's neighborhood were empty. Wind skimmed the voids, keeping neighbors apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed, or say, a plundered mailbox. A familiar note was produced. It was the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune.
It was John's thirteenth birthday, and as with all twelve preceding it, something felt missing from his life. The game presently eluding him was only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes were those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle was Absence itself. It was a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon's faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It was the most diabolical riddle of all.
"Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire" (Walt Whitman).
Yes, John was certain Walt Whitman had said that. One hundred percent positive.
He had a feeling it was going to be a long day. An arm sticking through a blue portal appeared in the sky.
On another note (certainly not the one desolation played), John wondered if he should leave a surprise for the mailman. N… No! Absolutely not.
Wait a second. John peeked through the window of his Dad's car to see if the man had left the mail behind. Hmm… there was a green package on the passenger seat on top of what looked like a small slip of paper. John couldn't get in the car to see what it was, though, because the door was locked and his Dad had the keys. Could those items have come in the mail? John didn't see anything else that was usually in the mail, like bills and coupons. He supposed it was possible that his Dad had forgotten about the package and piece of paper.
John peered through the kitchen window to try to see if the mail was there, but because his Dad had been doing so much baking, the glass had steamed up. God he was so weird. But John could see what was on the table just beside the window. It would appear that the mail was there! Included among it was a red package, some bills, his Dad's PDA, an envelope that appeared to be suspiciously labeled with the SBURB logo, one of those… Hey, wait. Could it be? Unfortunately, the window was locked. An encounter with his Dad was inevitable now. Best not to put it off any longer. He was going in. It was time for the Clever Disguise to work its magic.
As soon as John entered the room, his Dad turned and saw right through the Clever Disguise! John didn't know what he was thinking with that foolish ruse! He unequipped the Clever Disguise and placed it back into his sylladex, which contained, in addition to the disguise, the captchalogued captchalogue card from the study, Colonel Sassacre, and the smoke pellets. John's Dad held a cake in his hand - a dreaded artifact of confection. He stood between the boy and the mail. There was only one way to settle this.
STRIFE!
John began by aggrieving with a very strong Auto-pastry attack. His dad then used Guardian Rubric: Coddlebrand, a DOMESTIC attack, which John abjured. This was ridiculous. John attempted to abscond, but he could not. His pesky guardian blocked his path. He would have to engineer some form of distraction. Oh god. John's Dad brandished yet another artifact of confection, a pie! The man was ruthless. John realized that he had better brace himself for impact in the most comedically striking fashion possible. He equipped the beagle aegis again, which absorbed the brunt of the treat. John's Dad enjoyed the prankster's gambit on that exchange, as was usually the case.
John captchalogued the pie tin and unequipped the beagle puss. Everything in his sylladex was pushed back a card, expelling the smoke pellets. Yes! This could be just the distraction he was… Nothing happened. Wow. What a huge letdown. There was only one thing to do now.
John acceded to his Dad's nonverbal request that he take the cake. "When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield" (Oscar Wilde). Wise words by a man who likely could resist anything but temptation. Upon captchaloguing the cake, the Colonel Sassacre's Text was ejected from his sylladex. The book landed on the smoke pellets, setting them off. Sassacre, you beautiful bastard. Now was his chance.
John's Dad was busy placating the smoke detector, so John could safely sneak away. He snagged his Dad's PDA. Maybe later he would switch the background image to something hilarious as a prank. Besides, it may come in handy later. In captchaloguing the PDA, the captchalogued captchalogue card was forced out of the sylladex, and consequently integrated with the deck. John now had five cards to work with. He took the red package on the table, which was addressed to him, and then the envelope with the SBURB logo on it. It was the SBURB Beta! Yes! The beagle aegis was expelled from his sylladex. John left the kitchen and captchalogued the cake with one of the fake arms in it from the couch next to the harlequin doll. The pie tin was expelled from his sylladex.
John decided to merge the two cakes in his sylladex (the one at the beginning and the one at the end) to make an awesome double decker cake! But… everything in his sylladex got squished between the two cakes in the process. Ugh… why didn't he think these things through first?
He retreated upstairs to go into the bathroom and fix the mess by dissecting the cake. At the main juncture, he proceeded to his right and entered the side hallway. To his left was the door to the bathroom. To his right was his Dad's room. It was locked, and John was forbidden from ever entering. His Dad had secrets.
John entered the bathroom. Through a window, he could see his back yard. The jewel in its crown was the swing set which had provided him with years of joy. There was also a spring-mounted pogo ride that was just like the ghost slime on his shirt. The pogo ride had been responsible for more than one painful injury, and had provided him with years of lament. On the bathroom sink was John's Dad's razor and on a rack to the side was a fresh towel.
John took the razor and used it to perform surgery on the cake. He then took the towel and cleaned off the extracted goods with it. He took the PDA, package, and Beta, forcing the manhandled cake out of his sylladex and into the toilet. And just like that, his sylladex was full again. God that thing was annoying.
John left the bathroom, turned out of the side hallway, and crossed the main hallway to his room. There were two chums pestering him on his computer, but he ignored them for the moment, examining his Failure to Launch poster. He wasn't generally into chick-flicks, but Matthew McConaughey's cool charisma could salvage any heap of smoldering wreckage. The wall upon which that movie poster sat was his "McConaughey Wall," a casual shrine to an amazing actor. The film above Failure to Launch was better, John thought.
CAN YOU SEE HER? I WANT YOU TO PICTURE THAT LITTLE GIRL. [chokes up] NOW IMAGINE SHE'S WHITE.
You got us, Matthew! Your smooth talking exposed our latent racism. Damn you are good!
Okay. That was enough. John looked at his computer.
- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 16:34 -
GG: hi happy birthday john! 3
GG: helloooooo?
GG: ok i will talk to you later! :D
- gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 16:56 -
- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 16:40 -
TG: hey GG is looking for you why are you even so popular all of a sudden
TG: is today some sort of special occasion or something
TG: did you do something to curry favor with ladies
TG: did you break your leg on a puppy or some shit
TG: dude what are you doing
- turntechGodhead [TG] is now an idle chum! -
EB: i discovered a comet that is going to destroy the earth, and it was named after me.
EB: now i am famous, and everyone wants to talk to me a lot.
TG: no stop
TG: just no
TG: dont talk about your awful stupid movies or make references to them
TG: your gross man-bro crush on matt macconahay is an unsavory thing to behold
EB: mcconaughey.
TG: sounds like a noise a horse would make
TG: ie dumb
TG: equally dumb are all those pictures of that clown youve got hanging up
EB: those are my dad's.
TG: i was talking about nick cage
EB: oh, what?! no man, cage is sweet. so sweet.
TG: ha ha so lame
TG: you dont even like him ironically or anything this is like for real isnt it
TG: hahaha
EB: i do things ironically sometimes.
EB: what about what i sent you for your birthday?
TG: no those are awesome
EB: what? no, they're stupid, which was the joke. the IRONIC joke. get it?
EB: wait...
EB: you're actually wearing them, aren't you?
TG: im wearing them ironically
TG: because theyre awesome
TG: the fact that theyre ironic makes them awesome
TG: and vice versa
TG: are you taking notes on how to be cool? jesus get a fucking pen
EB: you do realize they touched stiller's weird, sort of gaunt face at some point.
TG: ew yeah
TG: oh well
TG: anyway speaking of which
TG: did you get the mail
EB: yeah.
TG: did there happen to be a package there
EB: yeah, there's a big red one.
TG: you should probably open it
EB: i would, but it's trapped under the sburb beta, so i will probably open it after i install the beta.
TG: oh man the beta came
EB: yeah! wanna play it?
TG: haha no way
EB: why not!
TG: it sounds so HELLS of boring just get TT to play it she is all about that
EB: where'd she go.
TG: her internet is blinking in and out i guess
TG: probably be back online soon
TG: oh and christ in a sidecar are you still using the stack modus?
TG: seriously dude
TG: you need to BONE UP on your data structures that shit is just ridiculous
EB: ok, i will.
John decided to space out on his computer for a second before doing anything important. He opened the Typheus web browser and directed it to what was indisputably the most amazing website ever created: .
Midnight Crew
You are members of a sinister gang called the midnight crew. Your nefarious plots are serpentine in their complexity. Your schemes convoluted. You are planning a heist in your underground hideout.
What will you do?
Eh… the new adventure was okay, but John wasn't sure if he liked it as much as the last one. Okay, it was time for less meta and more beta. John inserted the CD and began to install the SBURB Beta.
What the fuck was this?
SBURB CLIENT:
SBURB VERSION 0.0.1
© SKAIANET SYSTEMS INCORPORATED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
SBURB client is running.
Waiting for server to establish connection…
Whatever. While John waited for the "server to establish connection," he figured he might as well go and bone up on data structures. He went to his closet, where he kept a lot of clothes and an array of handy computer programming guides: Data Structures, Discrete Mathematics, ^CAKE, ~ATH, DIS*, AUTOMATA…
John took out his book about Data Structures. It was more correctly titled Data Structures for Assholes by Buckminster Funnyuncle. On the book was a picture of a green disgusted face. There was a speech bubble coming from the face, saying "Your ignorance just made me throw up a little. Get a clue, you computer-illiterate piece of shit." There was a quote by the author in the top right corner of the cover, saying "I think my rage just crapped its pants." On the bottom left corner was a little star saying "FREE FETCH MODUS IN BACK!"
John wasn't really sure he wanted to dig into the huge tome just yet. It looked really boring. And kind of ornery. Maybe he'd just check out that free fetch modus instead. John turned to the back cover of the book, where a free fetch modus sat within a plastic sleeve. This one was dictated by the logic of a queue data structure, operating on a "First In, First Out" method rather than a "First In, Last Out" method of a stack. It was an orange fetch modus card, with the label "FIFO" on it.
John applied the FIFO fetch modus to his sylladex, thus rendering items captchalogued in it no longer immediately accessible. He could only use the bottom card, and had to wait for items on upper cards to be pushed down to it. For instance, the red package was now inaccessible. The only thing he could use was the razor at the moment. This modus didn't strike John as a significant upgrade to his previous one. In fact, it almost seemed more inconvenient.
John wondered if he could switch back to FILO, but would it even be possible? He didn't even remember if he'd ever had a physical card for the stack modus. He found this all to be a little abstract and preferred not to think about it anymore. John tried to put down the razor, but how would he have done that? He didn't know. He wasn't quite sure he understood. John wanted to get to the package, however, so he captchalogued the cake on the dresser. He had finally found a use for all of those loitering pastries: dead weight. John took the other cake from the bed, expelling the razor into McConaughey's face. Oh good lord. THAT BEAUTIFUL FACE. John wished the razor would have failed to launch.
John needed to acquire more stuff, though, to get the package out of his inventory. He opened his magic chest and captchalogued Wise Guy by Harry Anderson. And there went the fresh towel. It floated down onto his head. John took the trick handcuffs, expelling the PDA like a bullet. It smashed through the window, landing it along with various shards of glass at the edge of his yard. Oh God dammit.
John examined the package. It was from one of his internet chums, TG. It was bound in packing tape, though. He needed something sharp to open it. Ah, of course! The razor! It was all so simple, he wondered why he hadn't…
As soon as John removed the razor from the Time to Kill poster, it went into his sylladex, expelling the package. It bonked him on the head. Ow. He picked up the package again, ducked to the side, and the cake from his dresser shot out of his sylladex, smashing against McConaughey's face again. Sigh. John decided to take it from the top.
He captchalogued three glass shards in quick succession and ducked for cover. The other cake, the trick handcuffs, and the Wise Guy book smashed through the window and into the front yard. And now that John's cards were packed with glass, he probably didn't want to do that again anytime soon. He should get that stuff in the front before he forgot.
For the time being, though, John used the razor on the red package, opening it. There was something suspicious inside. Something suspiciously dirty and smelly…
It was a stuffed bunny! Much like the one held hostage briefly by Malkovich's Cyrus "The Virus" while taunting hard-luck protagonist Cameron Poe. And strikingly similar to the one scooped up from the soot of a burning Vegas strip by Cage's Poe and offered to his daughter, a gesture symbolic of a tattered exterior surrounding a heart of gold. Poe wasn't much to look at. But he was a good man.
But no. It wasn't merely like that bunny. According to this note of authenticity, it was the very same bunny. This was so awesome!
John's computer appeared to be trying to get his attention, so John looked at the monitor.
Client has established connection with host.
Press [Enter] when ready.
John's Pesterchum was also flashing, so he opened the window.
- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 17:08 -
TT: It looks like you managed to retrieve the beta. Excellent.
TT: I'm going to try to connect.
EB: whoa ok but i just got the most awesome present.
TT: The rabbit?
EB: SO SWEET.
TT: I've heard tales of this wretched creature often. Its Homeric legend is practically ensconced in the fold of my personal mythology by now.
EB: ha ha, what?
TT: Why don't we focus on the matter at hand?
EB: oh the game, ok.
EB: i don't really know how this works. what am i even looking at here?
TT: You are running the client application. I am running the server, so I am the host user. I have established a connection with you. This is sufficient for us to play the game.
EB: oh, ok then.
TT: Why don't we get started?
John pressed the Enter key on his keyboard.