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Recollections of the Games of Early Childhood
Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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Ah, the flower of youth. How odd it seems now to gaze back upon the Halcyon Days long past and remember the strange, occasionally stupid, always rather interesting games I forced my parents to buy for me a child. Pray, friends, for my own absolution -- and for theirs.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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It's a perfect way to pass a quiet hour with your little friends, the tick, tick, tick of the great clock becoming an ever-increasing drumbeat of dread as the Moment of Horror approaches and the Count awakens.
In the space between, the mind becomes aflood with questions: When shall the Dark One open his great, lined cape? Whose lifesblood shall sustain him unto the ages? And once you are in his vast and eternal thrall, will you have to take that stupid math test on Tuesday?
Alas, the Count did not bestow life unending. Or even unlife unending. But he did impart a sort of permanence when the allegedly water-soluble marks of his Favor got smeared into your Garanimals. The detergent was powerless, even with the blessings of the Church, and in such small but potent ways the Count was with us always.
At least until third grade. Then the little teeth markers finally dried up.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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Few games can compare to the stark wonder and terror of Candy Land. I remember trembling for hours afterward as visions of the the diabolical machinations of Lord Licorice and the bubbling mire of the Molasses Swamp danced through my troubled psyche.
Curse thou, Queen Frostine, whose icy gaze even now chills my blood! And what accursed rites brought forth Gloppy (for such is as close as his True Name can be rendered with merely human speech) from his abyss of sweet, sticky torment?
They haunt me still. Even when I close my eyes. Even in my dreams.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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Everything I needed to know in life, I learned from Monopoly.
I learned that greed is good.
I learned you can get out of jail for free.
I learned you can earn money just by wandering around the streets in an aimless circle. You just have to find "Go." Hmm. Maybe the men in the Impala up the street know where "Go" is.
I learned that if you need land for something bigger and better, like hotels, those damned fools and their little green houses have to go, go, go.
I learned you buy low, then trade high. If they want it bad enough, they'll cough up the dough.
And finally, I learned that friendships are made to be broken. Into little, tiny, shard-like pieces.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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Bodhisattva Newman speaks: "What? Me Worry?" And we shall not, for all things, even this game, are illusory. Even the boards, so firm, so cardboardy, shall indeed crumble to dust.
Upon opening the box, I saw the Gap-Toothed Face of the Master and received the Glimpse of Nirvana: Lose all your money, win the game.
I am winning even now, my friends. WINNING.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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My quest for the Dark Powers was boundless, and when I saw the Box of Mystery in the TG&Y, I knew that its secrets must be plumbed. At long last, and the cost of many, many, lives, it found its way to my hidden sanctum. I remember the intake of breath, the seeming sudden chill in the air. Soon, the black sorceries of ancient Khem, the rites of drowned Atlantis, the hidden and close-guarded alchemical secrets of the ages would be mine.
Inside was a jumble of parts and pieces. I knew that they must be assembled in a special manner, and once they were that Gates would be loosed and Knowledge unspeakable gained. Contained within as well was a small, silvered sphere, no doubt a portion of the Secret of the Stone of the Wise, the Medicine of Metals.
I summoned the Sisters as I was bidden, though it did not take six years and up as the Box said it would.
Wanda the Wicked snared me with her heated gaze. Long did I toil for her, through the days and long into the night, for the crumbs she fed me. Ghoulish Gertie demanded unspeakable things of me. I shudder now to think of that perfect orb and what I saw reflected therein under her tuition.
Glenda the Good ever beckoned me to turn, like Prospero, from the dark pathways I had chosen. But it was too late. She fled, her tears falling as crystal upon the flagstones.
I am close. The pieces are at last finally assembled. Gertie has told me that the sphere must be dropped down the chimney. I finally know what that seeming nonsense phrase means -- in all of its stygian, fiend-haunted glory.
God help me. God help us all.
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6.
Board Game: Merlin
[Average Rating:4.90 Overall Rank:7344]
Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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Trust the computer. The computer is your friend. You are now in tune with the One Mind. You can read the Truth in the Pattern of the Lights. In games of Tic-Tac-Toe, in the melody of the Music Machine, you can see the Wisdom, hear the Lightning and the Thunder of the Computer's Vengeance and Grace.
You know what you must do. Go, now, quickly. Merlin loves you, sings you to glory and to rest.
You are 5 million strong.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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Night, and the land of the Old Gods lies still. Lamplight falls: a hidden sarcophagus. At last!
Within lies the corpse of a king and riches untold, but the guides say only a curse awaits those foolish enough to disturb his slumber. We must place the Ankhs carefully, then. I am a man of science, not superstition. But it is best to be cautious. Besides, there's still that *%$^ing math test Tuesday.
The cobras! Hidden in the depths! They strike! It BURNS.
Light fading. I see the face of a Lord of Ancient Aegyptus rise from his tomb, and I give thanks in the spreading darkness that I will not live to face his wrath, as my fellows now must, here in the dust-shrouded Valley of the Pharaohs.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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It was a good day to die. Ragnar, my shield-brother, gazed at me, his cerulean eyes troubled as the sea.
"So, how did you do on that math test?" he asked.
"Speak not of such petty sorrows," I said, unbidden tears blurring my gaze. "We stand here now as kinsmen, but soon we must return to our lords to fight in their service. I weep for this day, that we must face one another on this field of blood and tribulation and not fight as our fathers of old, for common good and the glory of our sacred house!"
I sighed and wiped my eyes.
"But ... the Norns saw it thus, and so to our fates must we go. May Odin guide us unto the Halls of Valor, where we may be joined as brothers again!"
Ragnar's eyes rolled.
"I'm never coming over here again," he said, shooting his plastic disc of fury at the high walls of my Leige's proud fortress. The ancient stones crumbled as a child's toy knocked over by a careless frost giant.
"Wait! I wasn't ready!" I said, beating my breast. "Do over! Do over!"
Perhaps it was not a good day to die after all.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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I did not believe. I shut out the light, clasped closed my eyes.
"It's your turn, idiot!" the voices kept telling me.
But I would not believe.
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10.
Board Game: Clue
[Average Rating:5.60 Overall Rank:5783]
Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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They said it was murder. But I knew it was suicide.
"Boddy's stock portfolio was in the drink!" I said. "So, he offed himself. Plum's innocent! That boring academic doesn't have the sense to balance his own checkbook, much less eighty-six a crafty sort like Boddy. Case closed."
The other "detectives" looked at me incredulously.
"But ... that's what was in the envelope," Scarlet said, batting her eyelashes at me. "Professor Plum, in the Conservatory, with the Bloodied Axe."
"It's a setup!" I said. "You sham shamuses don't have the sense God gave an Ocelot. Boddy planted that evidence himself, knowing that if his death was ruled a suicide his family wouln't get the life insurance payment he left for them."
"What?"
I snarled and turned on my heels. The Chief would reward me, I just knew it.
Maybe he'd even give me back my badge.
And my gun.
My dear, sweet gun.
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11.
Board Game: Jaws
[Average Rating:5.16 Overall Rank:7116]
Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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The White's maw opened before me, but the beast stood stock still, its fins trailing in the water. Impossible. I knew they couldn't stop swimming, but this one somehow did. It opened its mouth wide, wider. It did not seem to notice me.
I reached in my hook. Damn thing had eaten my camera, and I wanted it back.
My companion swam up beside me, trailing bubbles.
"Um. We should flee."
"Not now," I said. "Soooooo close. Do you know how expensive the lens for that thing is alone? Set me back at least 50 bucks. It's imported, you know."
"Bye," my faithless companion said and swam off into the watery dark.
I shook my head.
"Stupid shark. GIVE ME BACK MY CAMERA!"
I immediately realized I shouldn't have been quite so loud.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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I knew it was a test. The Overlords were watching me. They would determine my speed and agility, my mental dexterity. My fate rested upon this moment, and I was sore afraid.
The timer ticked down. Each of the pieces found its place. Those who watch over us would soon ... wait. How had so much time already passed? The elders, they must have tricked me somehow. No ... it was impossible ... NOOOOOOOOOOO!
I like my job as a robot polisher. Don't get me wrong. But I know they made that timer go faster than it was supposed to. The Elders, they must have that power.
Or at least, that's what I tell myself to get by.
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13.
Board Game: UNO
[Average Rating:5.31 Overall Rank:7783]
Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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"Take the cards from my hand," the old woman said. "Hold them."
"So that my personal energies shall imbue them?" I asked.
"No, because if you don't the game won't start," she said. "Now, you can match each color, or each number ..."
"When do we read the misty lines of my future fate that I may cheat mischance and mayhap even death itself?" I inquired.
"Is this your kid?" the aged crone asked my mother.
"Um ... no. Never saw him before," she said.
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
-
"Now, your red pieces want to capture my pieces."
"But shouldn't all the pieces just try to get along? Maybe they could hold a summit or something. Maybe draft some resolutions. And it's no wonder they have trouble. Look at these borders. They should open things up. Let pieces travel freely. Mingle. Xenophobia creates misunderstandings."
*Sigh* "Go play your Atari. Daddy's tired."
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Brian Bethel
United States
Abilene
Texas
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I put card after card on my hook. But I never caught a thing.
Total ripoff.
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Posted Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:01 am