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This is the account of Abe’s fevered dream:
Mother dropped Abe off at the Twin Oaks Mall. The subdivision nearby is still under construction. “Here’s a roll of quarters and twenty dollars.”
Kyoto.
Kyoto is home.
“Abe, go play Frogger until your mother and I finish up at the bank here. Try to remember to eat, okay?”
Father drove from Kyoto to the Twin Oaks Mall. Mother dropped Abe off at the Twin Oaks Mall, at the entrance closest to the arcade. “Try to remember to eat. Have fun playing Frogger. This might take Father and I a while. It’s time for us to get out of that Sportsman house in the old neighborhood and into a split-level ranch.”
“But I don’t like Frogger. I like Tron, and I like Defender. I’m too old for Frogger, Mother!”
“Have fun!”
The big kids were gathered around Defender. No one was playing Donkey Kong. Eh. Donkey Kong. So much jumping and no shooting.
Kyoto. They didn’t bomb Kyoto out of respect.
Better get some pizza and Mountain Dew now. Dr. Pepper. No, I’ll ask them to mix it: Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper and Cheerwine. The big kids call it a suicide. They like to drink it when they’re at the football game. Jimmy Swain’s big brother Clint was starting linebacker for the Bears. They were playing the South Dixonville Wampus Cats this Friday. When Clint wore his football pads, he was huge. Huge.
Pizza, perfect pizza, pepperoni and crumbled up sausage, a dash of red pepper flakes and a greasy cup filled with suicide. The girl behind the counter was definitely impressed. Her name is Sano.
A split ranch house in the new subdivision that isn’t done yet in Kyoto while I play Defender—oh, look, they’ve moved on to Pole Position. They must be rich: that game costs fifty cents.
Abe dropped a quarter into Defender and set his pizza on the bottom of the CRT screen, waiting for the wonderful stimulating flashing of the introduction screens to stop. He took a second to sip of suicide and set it beside him, on the goo of carpet. It’s not Defender. The machine has Defender written right on it. The buttons are for Defender. Why is it Frogger? I can’t play Frogger with these controls. Who will save the population with smart bombs?
The big kids grew silent, watching Abe play Frogger with the Defender controls.
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SMART BOMB, they shouted. Abe froze. Game Over. The Defender console grew until it towered over him, casting a dark shadow over the arcade. The Frogger console crashed from overhead and behind, smashing into the mountain beside him and bursting into flames. He tried to run, but his hands were fused to the Defender controls.
SMART BOMB, they shouted.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Who is shouting? Why are you shouting? I can’t play Defender with the Frogger controls. Defender with the Frogger controls.
Must get off this plane before they bomb Kyoto.
“Little boy, is your name Lars?”
“No, my name is Abe.”
“Do you mind if we call you Lars?”
“No, not at all. This technology isn’t real, you know. Look at it grow. It is menacing.”
“Such a big word from such a little boy.”
“Can you hand me my suicide? My hands are fused to the Defender controls, and I can’t play Frogger with the Defender controls.”
“You’re right: they are menacing, are they not, Lars? Who knew they would menace before time? And here, in Ronald Reagan's America! The subdivision isn’t even finished, yet. You should run.”
“Who is talking, please? Who is talking?”
“Is your name, Lars, little boy? You should run. Kyoto is about to be incinerated.”
“I will warn the population.”
Abe struggled with the controls of the ham radio transceiver. It beeped. It booped. He pressed buttons with a frantic ignorance. Not even static. What do these numbers mean? What is Tx? He kept pushing buttons. It beeped. It booped. I need to warn the population.
The consoles grew in menace, CRT screens absorbing light, all the light, like miniature black holes. Pole Position stood upright to lead, taking one frightful step toward Abe, placing him firmly within the grip of its event horizon. Its CRT screen opened wide to swallow Abe. He took a sip of his suicide, but it was the straw of the vacuum cleaner, filled with dust and nano particles assembling themselves from the nylon of spent carpeting.
“I can’t play Frogger, Mother, not when my hands are fused to my heart, and now my heart will not beat properly.” Defibrillation or A fibrillation? The consoles towered while Abe fought to defuse his hands from his heart, but he knew a knife was necessary, and only a knife, and the only knife was the one in the towering console that was once the big kids. “My, look at the shadow. All those people, from one smart bomb, on the side of the mountain, while the consoles overtake me.”
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[Here Abe woke up and had his conversation with Lars. He fell asleep again.]
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In brilliant white, shining like the sun, making the console CRT screens blink with rage and fear, was a girl, tall, blue eyes. Her overcoat was lined with the white of the mountain peaks, and her dainty booted feet were the clouds of heaven. From her torso shone the sun itself, unfiltered, hovering over the arcade, cold.
“Sano, Queen of Heaven.”
Stooping low to be heard, she whispered white into Abe’s nostrils, and he heard, and he obeyed. She stood straight again, her brilliant presence resisting the power of the consoles. Yet they towered over Abe all the more. She reached out her hand to grace Abe with a gift: a roll of quarters.
“Have fun playing Frogger.”
Mother is at the bank with Father to redeem Kyoto from incineration, but these blasted consoles are towering over me.
“Abe.”
“They keep calling me Lars.”
Those dainty booted feet have another pair of boots laid upon them, for four feet, two not so dainty. Whose are they, in the bower with Sano? Surely, they are not…no! Impossible! In this weather?
Sano giggled prettily from within her private bower. James Thurgerson also giggled, like a man, and one of Sano’s dainty booted feet disappeared, withdrawn into the bower, up and into the imagination.
“I can’t play Frogger with the Defender controls!”
At that, the Frogger console tried to crash into the side of the mountain, but it failed. Abe tried to swallow, but he failed.
“I need my suicide.” He returned to the kiosk to get a refill. “I hereby apply for a suicide.”
“Is your name Lars?”
“No, Sano, it is not.”
“Do you mind if we call you Lars?”
“Well, my mother and my father call me Lars.”
“Look!” Sano pointed.
The consoles were emerging from the Arcade, crowding through the doorway, hissing from their CRT screens, “Can we call you Lars?”
“They’ll only increase in menace,” Abe said. “Now that they’re free. Except for Frogger. Did you see? The logs were okay, but all the cars: the smart bombs killed them all. James Thurgerson killed the flies with a gun. Get it? A gun.”
“I see nanotechnology abounding within you, my prince,” Sano said, leaning down to hand him a roll of quarters. She kissed him on his forehead, and he melted away.
“The menace is real,” she said. “See how technology bounds!” She pointed.
The consoles were dark and tall, towering, and they were bounding. Sano laughed at the sight, because she was the Queen of Heaven, but Abe was frozen in terror.
“I can’t play Frogger with the Defender controls!” he said, with a desperate anger. He tried to punch the Defender controls, but the controls hurt his right arm. Terror grew within him, so he beat the Defender console once again, but he found that his hands had fused to his heart.
“If you cut my hands from my heart with that knife, Sano, the consoles will pour in, and I will die. Please don’t cut. Please don’t cut.”
“Oh, Abe, do you mind terribly if we call you Lars?”
“No, please don’t cut!”
“Abe,” Sano said, bending low with a knife of a roll of quarters, “machines already abound in your heart, and they are creating data maps and compiling databases in order to increase all the more, by magic. Let me cut your hands from your heart, and you will be well again.”
“You’re evil!”
In white, she cast herself back, and the consoles closed upon Abe.
“Mother!”
“Lars!”
Kyoto. Kyoto is home. I want to go home. Take me home.
“Lars, Kyoto has been incinerated.”
Abe looked at the transceiver in his hands, its controls obliterated, melting away, like plastic on a stove.
“Mother!”
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