LJ Idol, Week 12
Saturday morning, at approximately 4:17 AM, I was attacked by a flying black cat. As terrifying as this image may sound, I wasn’t that concerned about it. I knew that whatever damage it was going to do to me, I could take it. Besides, I knew that there was a fireball in the cat’s future that it, and its owner, were unaware of.
To rewind a little, we go back to the preceding Friday night at about 11:15 PM. I’m checking some last minute things on my computer while she further buries herself within the blankets of our bed. She’s telling me that I’m crazy. Yes, I’m aware of that. Hell, I think I’m crazy too. The timing seems so inconvenient, yet at the same time it seems exciting and even slightly necessary.
It’s a secret, for the most part. I don’t tell my colleagues at work about this the day before.
“What are you up to tonight? Any plans?”
“No,” I say. “Just going home and going to bed.”
The same goes for the day after. Saturday afternoon, I find myself back at work and I’m operating in near-zombie mode. A five hour nap has done very little to fulfill my body’s need for rest after being awake for the past 24 hours straight. The knowledge that it’ll be at least another eight hours before I get to crawl into bed does nothing except further diminish my ability to care about the world around me.
“You look tired today. Have a long night?” asks my manager.
“Uh…no…everything is fine. Don’t worry about me!” I respond before filling my coffee cup for the second time.
Saturday morning, at around 2:33 AM, my situation has gone from good to bad to pretty terrible. My small army of wolves been doing pretty well for me, but I hadn’t anticipated the presence of the lich. The lich was something I had known in advance would be a difficult beast to deal with, but the reality is worse than anything I could’ve imagined. With little effort at all, the twisted undead lich brings back to life the vampires and cultists that I had spent so much time killing the first time around. With no lich-contingency plan in place, I have no choice but to simply wait until I’ve been completely overrun.
It’s about 11:30 on Friday night and I’ve taken a seat at a table across from a burly man in a well-worn cap that advertises a local swimming team. He introduces himself as Carl and proceeds to tell me the story, without me prompting him to do so, of the time one of his cousins got mad at another of his cousins and threw some of his belongings into a fire. In the spirit of making conversation, I tell Carl that I wish Chipotle was still open. We both agree about that.
Joining us soon after is a small family: a mother and father in their 50s and their son who would appear to be his mid-teens. They seem friendly enough, and Carl seems to have met them before. We briefly talk about the absurdity of the song “Tubular Bells” which seems to be playing in its epic entirety in the background before the subject changes to the future of werewolves.
Finally, I hear the words I’ve been waiting for: “Alright! It’s midnight! Let’s get this started.”
Saturday morning, at about 3:31 AM, I seem to be caught in a glacially-paced stalemate. I picked off her soldiers with the help of some volcanic fire, but not before she fried my vampire with a bolt of energy. Neither of us seem to be making a move, for fear that the other will already have an answer for it.
My attention wanders to a battle taking place not far from us. I watch two animated trees, fueled by the spirits of the deceased, mercilessly pounding on a group of knights. The commander of the knights is angry and cursing at the unfairness of the battle. I can only laugh, though, as I had grown tired of hearing his braggadocios demeanor all morning and it’s about time that he got what was coming to him.
I turn my attention back to my opponent who has finally made a move with some zombies. I counter with another round of volcanic fire and a pack of wolves. Her zombies are persistent, but ultimately weaker. The battle goes from slow and labored to intense and tight. I persevere, however, and am able to claim victory.
This is the midnight pre-release party of the latest expansion set of the long-running collectible card game known as Magic: The Gathering. Just typing that sentence out makes me cringe slightly, as there are few things in this world that brand someone as a nerd quicker and more accurately. Still, as a longtime enthusiast of the game (going all the way back to the mid-90s), there is still something exciting about being one of the first people to experience new cards and new strategies in a comic book shop overrun by other people who are just as (if not more) nerdy as me.
The rules are simple enough: You get a fistful of packs of cards. You need to make the best deck that you can with the cards that you were given before entering the tournament. It’s tougher than it seems, with some clever assembly required to give you the upper-hand against people who are sometimes better skilled than you and sometimes just better lucked.
Observe: the girlfriend who drops off her boyfriend and asks: “What time do you want me to pick you up?” His answer: “Tomorrow morning. Like…8 AM?” She sighs and swears under her breath before leaving.
Observe: the red-haired and spectacled college girl who looks like she took a wrong turn on the way to Starbucks. The table that she sits at, empty before her arrival, quickly fills with awkward men trying to make awkward conversations with her.
Observe: the conversation between two men over how cool it would be if they had come dressed like their favorite monsters tonight. One of them finally points out that it’s way too cold out to be dressed like an Inferno Titan without a shirt on. Another bystander points out that shirts are required to be in the comic book store to begin with.
Saturday morning, at about 4:50 AM, an older man with the voice of someone who’s been smoking for years bellows across the store:
“Red! Hey! Red!” People are looking around, confused about who or what he’s talking to. Finally, the man points at the red-haired college girl, getting her attention. “Hey, Red! I’m going to get some coffee from the convenience store. Do you want some?”
If it’s possible to look both frustrated and annoyed at the same time, she nails it.
“My name isn’t ‘Red,’” she says. “And, no, I don’t want any coffee.”
“Are you sure?” he says. “It’s on me.”
“No thanks,” she says.
“Hey, I’ll take a cup,” says another guy.
“I was just asking her,” the smoky-voiced man says before shuffling out of the shop.
I finally crawl into bed at about 7 AM. She doesn’t seem to react to my presence in her slumber. I’m sure later today, when we’re both awake and in the same place at the same time, she’ll remind me of how crazy I was. I’ll agree with her.
However, it was all worth it.