October, 2016

Retrogamer: Sell It to Me

You find yourself on a street, controlling a small man in black leather. Claws extend from between his knuckles. Angry peons rush at you, to be taken down bloodlessly with your claws. It is bloodless. There are fires in the background and trash cans explode when punched with your claws. It is mindlessly appealing; it […]

John Cena Is the Only Thing That Is Left Here

In the game, he is more superhuman than he is in real life: muscles swollen out from underneath low-rising socks—a man who can expose skin because he is not worried about exposure to the brambles left behind by the wind—someone who can bleed and not think anything of it because there has been nothing left to rust. There is no blood.

Congratulations, Computer!

Once per lifetime,
you may trade fish
for the blessing
of the Lake Goddess.
Successfully hook the elusive
blue trout, throw it back.
The Goddess emerges,
green-haired specter
over water, and boosts
your choice bachelorette’s
affection fifty points.

The Memory of Place

I cannot speak of it much. Like its tunnels, Moria is too serpentine, too dense, too dark. I have nothing good to say about that place.

Some Cities I Remember Building

Steel, granite, and glass reached for the heavens along a long curved peninsula, true downtown lying on a raised plateau overlooking a tropical bay, causing the blue and green and brown buildings to extend higher. Suburban sprawl, fields of factories, spiraled out from the dense center, bedroom communities and farming towns.