Everyone Dies in the End #6

Artemis

The tank rounded the corner, ready to fire. Its green glow identified it as an enemy, but Artemis didn’t need any help in that area. He knew what the tank was, and he knew what he must do. Smiling, he thumbed the button, and the white projectile zipped across the screen. The glowing green tank began to back away, but not quickly enough. White projectile merged with green, luminescent tank, and the tank exploded in a shower of red pixels. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and Artemis used the break to wipe a sweaty hand on his jeans. Then the screen went black. Artemis waited. A second longer and two large, cyan words floated into view. “Game Over.”

“You’re kidding.” Artemis, glanced around the darkened room as if for support. Of course there was no one to support him, no one at all. The TV screen continued to calmly display the frustrating words. “Freaking kidding me,” he muttered. “That’s it? Seventy-four levels, three months, and I get a get a Game-freaking-Over sign off?”

Artemis threw the NES controller into the easy chair in the corner. It hit softly, and rolled to the linoleum floor. Dejectedly he crossed the room, bent to retrieve the controller, and then sat in the chair, rubbing his face with his hands. He had made room for the chair in the small, cinder-block dorm room by dismantling John’s bunk and chunking it out the window. His roomie wouldn’t need it. A reserve, he had been called up when the war broke out five months ago. Artemis figured he was lying dead in a West German forest by now. He hoped not, John was a good guy, friendly, open, not one of those that made fun of Artemis’s passion for gaming. He mouthed a furtive prayer for John or his soul, whichever still existed.

Artemis wasn’t sure he believed in God, but figured he ought to cover his bets. Susan, who had moved in to the room next door, was a fervent atheist, citing this world war as proof, but Artemis knew this war proved nothing. God didn’t throw down the nukes, Gorbachev and Regan did. God didn’t create this suffering, man did. If God was to stop nuclear war, should he stop conventional war? If he was to stop conventional, shouldn’t he stop natural disasters, how about car wrecks, or the common cold? If no one died how would God stop starvation? If God answered every need, every desire, if God took away every reason to strive, what would be the point in living? No, Artemis wasn’t sure, but he had a hunch that God existed, and he was probably plenty pissed at this race of people made in his image.  

The controller had split open on the dorm room linoleum—the hardest surface known to man.  Good! I don’t care if I shatter the sorry piece of plastic crap. That thought made him laugh out loud, breaking the spell of anger. Of course he didn’t care; he had a stack of NES consoles, unboxed, and stacked in the corner of the room, looted from the Best Buy on 3^rd and South.

Without warning the pixels on the screen imploded, and the familiar Battle Tank theme song played. Okay, here we go, thought Artemis, bonus levels! Oblivious to Artemis’s desire, new words swam onto the TV screen. “Thanks for Playing Battle Tank. A pause, and then the game returned to the main menu. His shoulders slumped. It was his last unplayed game, his most favorite game, and it didn’t look like anyone would be making any more. Not anytime soon. The thought saddened him as few others could. Since he was nine, games had been the central focus of his life. Others escaped reality with books, he escaped with games. Not crap like Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit—oh God how he hated Trivial Pursuit. Who the hell wanted to play a game like that? If there were ten questions, he knew one. And that was fun? Trivial Pursuit gave games a bad name. He wanted dungeons, he wanted dragons, he wanted tanks, sabers, choices, violence, and yes, even love. He wanted games that like books, transported the players to an exciting universe, but unlike books, let them play in it.

He had said those very words to Susan a week ago. They shared a lot of words, spent a lot of time talking, there wasn’t much else going on. That thought elicited another chuckle. Everyday they checked locks on the dorm’s doors, recounted the food stores in the basement cafeteria, and checked the emergency generators’ fuel supply. That was the whole of their daily routine. They only ran the generator two hours a day, and never used lights—lights brought people, strangers—and strangers were rarely a good thing.

He had said those words—that games not only created an exciting universe, but let people play in it—and she had said, “What are you trying to escape?”

He had stared at the girl in front of him. She sat cross-legged, candlelight altering the shadows on her face. She wore sweats and a baggy, oxford cloth shirt. In fact, he could remember her wearing little else, always a different pair of sweats, occasionally a baggy pair of shorts, always a shirt that appeared a size or two too large. She wasn’t unattractive. Perhaps a little heavy, but certainly a pretty face, blue eyes, a small mouth, pouty lips, shaggy black hair. Artemis couldn’t tell if it was spiked, or just a little dirty. They rarely took showers, it was an unspoken agreement. The water supply wouldn’t last forever, and they both knew that they would rather be dirty than thirsty. Maybe she was afraid to dress in anything but baggy clothes. It was only him and only her, no fall back, no safety net. These thoughts flew through his mind, like leaves on the wind. Of course all that was to ignore the most obvious feature on Susan’s face, a small, circled pentagram below her left eye. He had asked her about it once. He was still waiting for an answer.

“Why do you watch Dark Shadow tapes?” he replied. She shrugged and took an immediate interest in a loose thread on the cuff of her sweats.  The wandering fingers moved to a candle, pulling the drying wax from the side. Just when he thought she wouldn’t answer, she did. “I can relate.”

He had laughed. “Well, I guess I could tell you that I relate to gaming, and it would be true, but it’s more than that.” He looked at her, focusing on the pentagram. She looked at him, focusing on his eyes. “Did you play tag when you were a kid?”

“Sure,” she nodded, averting her eyes.

“But not now?” he continued. She laughed. “No, not much point with only two of us.”

He shared the laugh, and sipped from the warmish Coke beside him,”but that isn’t the point. There was a time in your life, when you also liked games.”

“But I grew out of it,” she interrupted.

“Yeah,” he nodded, "so does everyone else. The world tells us to leave those games behind. Grow up. Most folks do, they spend their lives growing up, working hard, getting serious, and then they wake up at forty-five, realize they’ve forgotten to have fun, and put a bullet in their brain.”

          The discussion had ended there. He wasn’t sure if he had made a point. Artemis wasn’t sure about anything when it came to Susan. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to be sure.