hanging out in pikesville
It was about 4 o’clock; morning time. That’s the time when the Sun comes up, out of the side of the planet.
I was walking down the street, carrying a transistor radio, listening to the Kingsmen’s song ‘Louie Louie’ as it was playing on the radio; pretty good. Not many people know that the drummer says ‘fuck’ in the middle of the song.
All of a sudden a car started to pull up next to me.
“Hey esse, do you know where to get some dusty brown stuff?”
“Dusty brown stuff? Yeah, I think I do. Head down Centre St. on the left, then go to the 3rd house on the right. He’s got a bench that sits by the road. Can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.”
Then they took off. I didn’t know where they were going to, but I didn’t care. I was on my way.
I had a lot of thoughts swirling through my head. “What should I eat tonight? Do I have a video to return? If I’m existing, at what central point in space is my consciousness collected? Is it empty? And why can’t I think of anything at any time without consuming hallucinogenic plants? If the Mario Brothers are brothers, why don’t they look like brothers in the movie?”
It was about this time that a planet started to zoom in really close to where I was standing. Maybe it had a certain amount of magnetic radiation and just the right amount of gravity but it was coming pretty quick. It looked like a magenta kind of color and its form looked like a bowling bowl. Then I cubic shape like an elevator started to project from its side. I didn’t know what it was. It took a few minutes but I then noticed that it had structured itself to look much like an elevator. Then a door open at the bottom of it.
“What is this?” I thought.
I walked inside and it had a nice paisley carpeting on its walls.
“Nice décor”, I said.
A voice started to speak to me.
“What is your name?”
“My name is Paul,” I said. “But some people call me Paco…” I muttered.
“Hello. We are inhabitants of a planet called X. It’s on the negative side of this galaxy, in dark matter; and in a different dimension.”
“Okay. What can I do?”
“We would like for you to come with us.”
“For what reason?” I asked.
“You possess the necessary intelligence and imagination to excel in something we’re very interested in.”
“And what’s that?”
“Tetris.”
“I know the game.”
“Then come with us…”
I thought for a moment. ‘Should I go’ is what I was thinking. I don’t have a very good job. And not very much plans for later in the evening. I guess I will.
“I’ll come.”
I was disintegrated into no matter then transported in a region inside their spaceship.
This room had nice walls in it that kind of looked like walls I had seen in a building in Ocean City. There was a black light poster on the wall, and a tape deck stereo system which include a slot for an 8-track cartridge. Walking into the room came two people.
“My name is Zyonka and his name is Geppetto.”
“So you were saying you needed help with Tetris.”
“That’s right. Come down this hallway.”
We proceeded walking down a hallway. I was begin to notice that the temperature was a bit hot, but I was waiting on saying anything because I was thinking it was too soon to remark upon the temperature.
“This is a room we called a ‘den’.”
“I’m familiar with the term.”
“As you’ll see… there’s an arcade game there with Tetris on it.”
“I was unaware they had Tetris on an Arcade Console.”
“Oh yes. We bought it in Japan in the late 70’s in a warehouse.”
“It’s been awhile since I’ve used one of those things. Oh cool, you’ve got a joystick.”
“…except that was in a different dimension of the galaxy, so Tetris may not have been available to you on an Arcade Console in your perspective galaxy.” He continued to say.
“I played the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game the other night on my Nintendo emulator; the second one. But it was on a netbook computer so I had to play it on a very small screen because the graphics were going to slow for the full screen capacity.”
“We know about that game, very easy. It’s elementary. Tetris is the game the holds the key to the Universe.”
“Why.”
“The element of Tetris that makes it so sophisticated is its quanta speed and its ability to give the user all necessary presence to possess all knowledge of this Universe and others.”
“I thought with Tetris you try to move the blocks to fall near the bottom?”
Geppetto and Zyonka turns toward the console. They plugged it in by its cord and turned on the game.
It had a fine musical soundtrack as accompaniment to the game.
Zyonka played first; then Geppetto. I was already impressed by their skill towards the game. They were much better at it than me.
After like 10 minutes of playing the game, I said, “You guys are clearly much better than I am. Could I go? I think I’m gonna get a pizza.”
“Try it first.”
I decided to try it. Instead of playing on the very challenging 10th level of expertise, I played on the first level. I think A.
The sound came on that I was familiar with when I was younger. I choose the A side of the game instead of B because I think I liked the song better. The blocks began to fall and within maybe like 3 minutes I was getting overwhelmed at its intensity. The blocks started to stack upon each other like they usually do until they filled the top of the screen. The game then froze.
“Sorry, I haven’t played it in a really long time,” I said.
I was then teleported to a certain area of sidewalk down the street from where I was standing before. The experience of the visit I had in the spacecraft was now faded to a distant memory. It felt like a dream that I may have had long ago; and just a figment of my imagination.
“What were you saying?” Ashley said to me.
I really wasn’t sure where I was. “I think I was talking about the old Smurfs ride that they used to have at Kings Dominion…”
“Oh yeah, that was a cool ride,” she said.
“Why am I thinking about the Mario Brothers movie with John Leguizamo??…”
“I don’t know.”
“The Pest, that’s a good movie.”
