Book I: Donkey Kong
Chapter 1: A Man Twice-Named Mario
"Wa-hay-hay-hay, all you crazy New Yorkers! It's tiiiiiime to wake up! Looks like there's a big traffic backup on the Brooklyn Bridge this morning, so be sure to head for work earl-"
Click. With the groggy push of a button, the obnoxious radio announcer was silenced. The man responsible for the sudden quiet sat up in bed and elicited a loud, low yawn, his breath making his thick, black mustache waver a little. He turned, and peered at over his bulbous nose at the clock with his large blue eyes, still blury from sleep. Despite his original purpose, he never actually registered the time. Instead, he tiredly decided that the time was "time to get up," and slowly made his way into the shower adjacent to his bedroom.
He was a somewhat overwheight man, though "fat" might be a slight exaggeration. Unkempt brown hair adorned the top of his head, which reached only five foot six inches into the air, making the fellow rather short. As he dried off from the shower, he put on a long-sleeved red shirt of coarse, somewhat thick material, and a pair of blue denim overalls on over it. He pulled some white work gloves on, and buried his feet in a pair of brown shoes. Finally, he grabbed a red cap on his nightstand on the way out of his room, decorated with a white circle on the front, which contained a big, red "M."
His name was Mario. Mario Mario. Certainly a strange name any way you look at it. He was originally going to be named Luigi Mario, but there was apparently some sort of mix-up when his birth-certificate was being filled out. His father, who had a bit of a mischevious streak in him, decided to keep the name as it was. By the time Mario was old enough to change the name himself, he was used to it. Still half-asleep, he descended the staircase of his cramped apartment.
"Mmmm... Smells good Luigi. What's cookin'?" Mario asked as his large nostrils were filled with aromas that promised breakfast. His younger brother, who had received Mario's orginally intended name, turned away from the frying pan he was tending to.
"Nothin' special. Just bacon and eggs."
"Sounds great," Mario replied as he took a seat at the small round table in the center of the kitchen. His brother was dressed almost identically to him, with the exception of green residing in all the places you would find red on Mario's clothes. Luigi's cap also bore an "L" rather than an "M." Luigi Mario was the taller and thinner of the two, and his hair and mustache were much more neat. He was the more responsible of the two brothers, and some times even acted as a parental figure to his somewhat immature big brother.
Luigi shoveled the food onto a plate, which he placed in front of his brother, who immediate dug in.
"Say, what time is it anyway, Luigi?"
"Uh..." Luigi said absent-mindedly as he checked the clock in the corner. "About 11:00." A loud clatter filled the room as Mario's silverware fell to the table. Luigi looked at him with a disapproving gaze.
"You're late for work again, aren't you?" Mario threw his chair backwards and leapt out of his seat, dashing out the door before his brother had the opportunity to scold him. With a sigh, Luigi picked up his brother's plate and ran it under the sink.
The two lived together, in a tiny appartment in Brooklyn, just across from the family business, the Mario Plumbing Co., which was currently run by Luigi. Mario had nothing to do with the business; in fact, you would be hard pressed to say exactly which business Mario did have anything to do with. At a younger age, he had showed quite a bit of promise. He graduated high school at the top of his class, and went on to medical school. However, after a bit of an... accident... he was expelled. Since then, he bounced around aimlessly from job to job. He must have done hundreds of them by now. All of them ended the same way; Mario's irresponsibility ultimately led to the loss of the job. And this morning, it seemed as though history would once more repeat itself. Mario peddled away at his bycicle madly (he lost his driver's license many years ago), trying to get to his job in time. Currently, he was working as a carpenter at a construction site, but it didn't seem like this would be true for much longer.
However, for all of his flaws, for all of his mistakes, Mario did have one thing in his life that made him happy. One of the only things he had ever done right was to never let this perfect part of his life slip away from him.
He had a girlfriend, named Pauline.