Man vs. Machine
I know no one is going to read this due to its hefty length, but here I publish my first attempt at shorter fiction (shorter being relative to a novel)
John Brown was a typically average character with absolutely nothing peculiar or outstanding about him. Perhaps a bit lazy and maybe a bit too apathetic and perhaps a bit prone to bad luck and failure, but nothing truly remarkable to say the least. There was nothing about Mr. Brown to particularly or hate or particularly like. He was an extra on the set of life, blandly blending with the background of existence. He was a man of unremarkable features as well, average height though obscured by bad posture, average build, not so ugly and possible even a little handsome. He really was not very happy though, and today was an especially telling example of the unfortunate occurrences rampant to his existence: he was attending his 6 year old nephew's birthday party at Chucky Cheese's. He really did not want to be there. Rodents were never particularly attractive to him, and singing animatronic ones were even more repulsive so. And the slogan "Where a kid can be a kid" usually invited spells of indigestion. And even worse were the loud obnoxious miscreant children that screamed and laughed their whole time there. Such noises hurt and caused general discomfort to his person. And, the pizza was sub par, a greasy, doughy concoction that could choke an elephant but seemed to attract small children like rotten meat did maggots. John hated the loud happy obnoxious capitalistic facade that Chucky Cheese represented. It was repulsive to him. But he was there as was to be expected. It was family and he was the kid's favorite uncle, although the kid was far from John's favorite nephew, and John had to save face and be there.
This particular Chucky Cheese was even more gruesome than your average Chucky Cheese. It was dingy with a grime particular to places popular among small children. A grime John hated with a passion. And, the children on this particular occasion were more distasteful than was the average. They would nag him and ask him to play, a question to which John would grace with a blunt negative. John had promised himself to be as unsociable as possible on this occasion which he did hate so greatly and be as mean as he could, just to avenge the misdeed forced upon him in the form of a mandatory attendance at the party. He steeled himself to think of one million things he could be doing at the moment; John even would have preferred an infomercial marathon to the barrage of sound and fury that assaulted his ears. So there he stood in the corner, acting higher and mightier than any 1st grader could have aspired to be.
And he sat there in his sullen way. Nothing could make him move. Nothing could really make him do anything. Nothing at all could make him budge. He was determined to be insolent and so he was. But then he saw it. An indescript machine, a crane machine, the epitome of the whole hated enterprise, in a corner. It beckoned to him, waiting for him. It was destiny. He walked over, trance-like and motionless, drawn as in sleep but awake and fully aware. He was motivated. He was compelled. Truly, an experience foreign to his underachieving soul and perhaps most remarkably it was the least remarkable thing that could ever move a man to action. He was intent on winning a stuffed animal, and not any stuffed animal at that. By the time he reached the amusement he saw what he desperately needed: a generic red bear. He did not know why he wanted a stuffed bear. He was 26 years old and in college. He never liked stuffed animals, even as a kid. He had no girlfriend to whom he could offer it as a present. But he knew he had to have. There was no question about it. He deposited one quarter into the flashing slot, and then another into its paired red slot. With the 50 cent toll paid the machine sprung to life, animated with whirling lights and intuitive doohickeys. He began to pilot the crane over to the bear, positioning it with the most intense concentration that he could have set the thing on fire. But he did not. And when it was place to the millimeter he pushed the flashing button to let the down crane, fully expecting to watch the teddy bear rise in the air and be delivered to its new owner, him. But things did not go as planned. The machine did grab bear, but not very well. It rode back along the tracks upon which it was set, but the bear twisted free, falling back into the prison of the machine.
50 cents was not very much money to pay for John. And he compulsively wanted to have the toy, even if it meant such a great expenditure of effort. So he decided to take another go. He deposited another two quarters for a second chance to play. Again the whirling lights flashed and the machine again was ready to serve in its designatedly imperfect manner. Those lights sure were alluring, though John, but he gave it no thought. That was a distraction from the greater goal, a goal of paramount importance. He tried again and failed, the machine triumphing once more. John was ardent now. The crane machine had eaten a dollar of his money, and he was not leaving until that dollar was justified by the possession of the generic red bear. Another fifty cents entered the machine. But, no toy did leave. John tried again and failed. Again. Fail. One more 50 cent try. One more fail. $2.50 had left him for good.
John was a beginning to perspire. He had to win; it was imperative. So he tried again. And again. Maybe it was just his bad hand, he thought and decided that after a couple more tries he would have mastered the unintuitive controls and be able to grab his bear with the utmost precision. Fifteen dollars did not faze him. Another twenty was eaten. John, though, was seemingly oblivious to the march of money from his wallet. The stuffed bear was life, his life, his success. It was everything. He began to twitch and tremor, only slightly but enough. He stared transfixed through the glass panes of the machine to aim. His fist clenched around the joystick, in the grip of a madman, painful and possibly unhealthy. He tried another 20 dollar bill without luck. He now saw the struggle as greater than any that had come before it. The magnitude of the conflict was second to none. Wars paled in comparison to it. Nothing could hold a candle to it. Nothing at all. John was beginning to lose it. He had become desperate to possess this inconsequential toy. Three dollars and 50 cents later he finally won, but not the prize for which he labored. The machine had sarcastically given him a Cliff the Big Red Dog stuffed animal. It was playing with his mind, like a twisted game of cat and mouse. It was bouncing him around like a handball on a middle school playground. John had slipped into delirious paranoia.
Now it was personal. A fight to the death. Man vs. Machine. This had gone beyond the possession of one toy. It was mankind against the powers of steel and electricity, against pretty, flashing lights. Against technology. John was only a representative. But he was a representative without money. His wallet had been emptied. But, such a tiny thing was not going to discourage John Brown. No fucking siree. He was going to win, prove himself against this monster; just as knights of ancient England had slain dragons, he was going to slay the crane and proclaim victory, taking with him its mighty treasure horde, the stuffed red bear. So John walked to the ATM and withdrew his entire paycheck only deposited a week before. Maybe he was not going to be able to pay the bills and his rent, but he was sure as hell going to have the bear. John had made the bear a symbol, a redeeming symbol. It would save him from the failure he was and make him into a person worthy of respect. He would not longer be the guy who was flunking every class, had no social life, was a drug addict, and was on the verge of suicide. HELL NO! He was going to become a great man and this bear was his ticket to pride and glory.
The Chucky Cheese change machine could not make change for a one hundred dollar bill, so he had the $1,536.25 he had withdrawn changed into quarters at the bank across the street. The pretty girl at the teller desk looked at him strangely, but complied, baffled and confused why anyone would ever want to carry 6145 quarters around. The crazed look in John's eye also made her a bit uneasy. It was just not right. His eyes were bloodshot, his face red, his heart rate bordering on an overload. He was tense, with tension strong enough to hold up the Golden Gate Bridge. His slight twitch had become a generally shaking palsy; the only plausible explanation could be a near overdose on some illegal pharmaceutical, though in reality the drug was not one of a chemical nature but one of mental instability, all the more deadly in fact. Genuinely concerned, she asked if he was okay, to which John snapped back angrily, "I 'M FINE DAMNIT." Before he could make a scene, John left to go back to the battle field littered with stuffed animals. He was going to win by sheer force. This was one area where he was not going to fail. He was not going let a silly machine defeat him. His ego could not take it. The bear was going to be his, at any cost. This was to be a day of triumph and redemption. The machine represented all the failure and stupidity that plagued him, all the doubts and loss. To triumph over the machine would be to triumph over himself and be born anew.
John reentered the party parlor, looking disheveled and even slightly more desperate than at the bank. But the employees of Chucky Cheese were not about to meddle with a customer that seemed ready to pay 6145 quarters into a silly machine for a bear easily purchasable for a buck fifty a K Mart. They looked on worriedly though as they saw him enter. He appeared to be breaking apart right in front of them. The desperate customer before had certainly changed from the insolent apathetic man from an hour and a half ago. The birthday that John was technically attending was wrapping up, with parents coming to retrieve their children from the day of fun and games.
To John the machine he used was much more than a game, it was meaning to a life that had lost it a long time ago. The birthday party of an hour and a half ago was only a vague memory. He had slowly tuned out the entire pizza parlor and its raucous. There was only him and the crane machine, locked in time and space to decide a grand spectacle of a duel. John knew nothing else. His entire focus was on the crane contraption. He more than resolute; he was a fanatic.
John had wasted more than 800 quarters. 200 dollars. 400 tries. 6 hours and 20 minutes of life. He had won fourteen prizes. The red in his face had deepened to the red of the pizza sauce, as red as the drip of blood from his nose. His fist whitened to the shade of the maggots that eat the discarded pizza sauce. His bloodshot eyes teared in desperate frustration. His mouth had frozen in a grimace, his teeth clenched as hard as his fist. His eyes glazed at the stuffed red bear. The world had disappeared. The rat named Chucky Cheese was gone and his posse with him. The children were gone. The employees were gone. The world had left him. John was in a white arena with the crane and the animal, surrounded by spectators, the spectators being the old memories he had of disaster, frustration and failure. He saw what a waste he was and what he had to win. To lose was the death. The crowd was not only memories but people, people he had cheated and people he had disappointed and people who knew him for the sniveling cowardly fool he was. They jeered at him, all of them: the classmates, the old friends, the family, the girlfriends, even the pen pals to whom he had written nasty letters. He had been a jerk, a bland jerk, a forgettable jerk. He had not been mean enough to warrant a memory. And that stung painfully. He had not even succeeded at as jerk. And this victory was to be a salvation equal to any for which anyone could ever possibly hope. He was to be saved by the red bear. Those people in the arena that jeered and booed would be shown who he really could be. John knew he could be a winner. All he had to do was win.
The Chucky Cheese employees began to worry. It was nearly 8:00 P.M. and they needed to close up. They were scared though of John. They had realized he had lost it, watching him rail at the arena members who existed only in mind. They worried he might be violent, and that scared them. Nowhere in the employee handbook was there a discussion of the solutions employable in the situation of a customer going insane from a game purposely made to frustrate to the BRINK of insanity. They worried of epileptic seizure. They did not know what to do. So they called the manager, an experienced restauranteur of middle age and stout stature. He came, but even he was credulous of the account of a shaking madman driven insane by a silly toy. But he saw it. There was only one thing for him to do: go tell him as kindly and carefully as possible to leave. The manager walked over to see John.
The crowd was still in the white arena. John was frantic. He needed to win and badly. The crowd was crazy. The lights were blinding. The pretty flashing lights of the machine were its evil eyes intent on the destruction of John. He must defeat it. He could not tire. Move the joystick, slice the demon. The blinding whiteness of the arena transmorphed into a field of battle. John was an angel against the legions of hell, all carrying cranes. It was an army against him, set against a sky of memory of embarrassment and hatred. John was going to be a Savior. He was going to win. Then the scene changed again and he was in a train with a small engine. He thought he could win now. The machine and he were pitted against one another on the top the railcars just like in an Old Western. The scene kept changing. John began to be unsure if he was hunting the machine or if the machine was hunting him. He knew he had lost control. But he had to fight to survive against the tyranny of the machine. He had to fight against how horribly he had run his life. He now was unsure of the enemy, himself or the machine, he could not decide. Now he was scared. He had sunk past his environment of the pizza parlor back to primordia. The fear, the terror, the pain. He only knew he must battle on and on until he reached safety, the safety of love and life and liberty, all enclosed in that magical charm of a red bear.
The manager tapped John on the shoulder. It was the first interruption by the real world since he had begun playing the machine. Little children generally avoided him as they sensed he had broken down. The manager was not so lucky. All at once John left primordia to return to Chucky Cheese, only between the blood and the tears he saw demons with cranes like he saw them in his trance. Everyone was against him, wanted him dead, wanted him to lose. Maybe he would not win but he could not live and lose. There it was, an evil force trying to stop him from victory. John let out a crying scream, like that of a cornered animal that has to fight to the death but realizes that it cannot win. John punched the manager in the throat and knocked him out. He then saw his prize, just beyond the reach in the glass, the prize that he had attempted to procure for so long, for an eternity it seemed. But suddenly, he realized that he had one way out. John picked up a little kid leaving with his parent in one hand, one death grip. The child screamed. The parent screamed. John screamed. But the child did not scream for long. John bashed him into the glass, shattering the barrier between him and his beloved, his idol, his god. He had made the sacrifice of the child to appease the Devil so that he may be allowed to take the Devil's treasure. John jumped in the crane machine, grabbing the generic red bear, but actually less generic than he thought with a talking pull cord. John had won! He had triumphed. For once in his life something went right and he made it happen! But new flashing lights situated on the top of a black and white car now came. But John saw them not. He had collapsed. In retrieving the prize, he had ripped his entire intestinal tract in half on the glass. John collapsed of fatigue, blood loss, and mental distress.
John awoke in the hospital informed of his arrest. He had been charged with murder of the second degree. John was rational again. He was going to survive. But his two unfortunate victims had not. It was sad. Next to John though was the red generic pull bear. The nurses had never been able to force him to release his grip; the same grip that had so tenaciously held to the joystick was holding the spoils. Out of curiosity he pulled the chain of the bear. It said: "YOU ARE A WINNER." And so John saw the irony. That red bear was the most expensive bear ever to be produced; it had cost two lives, one term of life imprisonment, one crane machine, and almost 300 dollars. All for one stupid generic red bear that could tell him what he probably wasn't anyway.
John Brown was a typically average character with absolutely nothing peculiar or outstanding about him. Perhaps a bit lazy and maybe a bit too apathetic and perhaps a bit prone to bad luck and failure, but nothing truly remarkable to say the least. There was nothing about Mr. Brown to particularly or hate or particularly like. He was an extra on the set of life, blandly blending with the background of existence. He was a man of unremarkable features as well, average height though obscured by bad posture, average build, not so ugly and possible even a little handsome. He really was not very happy though, and today was an especially telling example of the unfortunate occurrences rampant to his existence: he was attending his 6 year old nephew's birthday party at Chucky Cheese's. He really did not want to be there. Rodents were never particularly attractive to him, and singing animatronic ones were even more repulsive so. And the slogan "Where a kid can be a kid" usually invited spells of indigestion. And even worse were the loud obnoxious miscreant children that screamed and laughed their whole time there. Such noises hurt and caused general discomfort to his person. And, the pizza was sub par, a greasy, doughy concoction that could choke an elephant but seemed to attract small children like rotten meat did maggots. John hated the loud happy obnoxious capitalistic facade that Chucky Cheese represented. It was repulsive to him. But he was there as was to be expected. It was family and he was the kid's favorite uncle, although the kid was far from John's favorite nephew, and John had to save face and be there.
This particular Chucky Cheese was even more gruesome than your average Chucky Cheese. It was dingy with a grime particular to places popular among small children. A grime John hated with a passion. And, the children on this particular occasion were more distasteful than was the average. They would nag him and ask him to play, a question to which John would grace with a blunt negative. John had promised himself to be as unsociable as possible on this occasion which he did hate so greatly and be as mean as he could, just to avenge the misdeed forced upon him in the form of a mandatory attendance at the party. He steeled himself to think of one million things he could be doing at the moment; John even would have preferred an infomercial marathon to the barrage of sound and fury that assaulted his ears. So there he stood in the corner, acting higher and mightier than any 1st grader could have aspired to be.
And he sat there in his sullen way. Nothing could make him move. Nothing could really make him do anything. Nothing at all could make him budge. He was determined to be insolent and so he was. But then he saw it. An indescript machine, a crane machine, the epitome of the whole hated enterprise, in a corner. It beckoned to him, waiting for him. It was destiny. He walked over, trance-like and motionless, drawn as in sleep but awake and fully aware. He was motivated. He was compelled. Truly, an experience foreign to his underachieving soul and perhaps most remarkably it was the least remarkable thing that could ever move a man to action. He was intent on winning a stuffed animal, and not any stuffed animal at that. By the time he reached the amusement he saw what he desperately needed: a generic red bear. He did not know why he wanted a stuffed bear. He was 26 years old and in college. He never liked stuffed animals, even as a kid. He had no girlfriend to whom he could offer it as a present. But he knew he had to have. There was no question about it. He deposited one quarter into the flashing slot, and then another into its paired red slot. With the 50 cent toll paid the machine sprung to life, animated with whirling lights and intuitive doohickeys. He began to pilot the crane over to the bear, positioning it with the most intense concentration that he could have set the thing on fire. But he did not. And when it was place to the millimeter he pushed the flashing button to let the down crane, fully expecting to watch the teddy bear rise in the air and be delivered to its new owner, him. But things did not go as planned. The machine did grab bear, but not very well. It rode back along the tracks upon which it was set, but the bear twisted free, falling back into the prison of the machine.
50 cents was not very much money to pay for John. And he compulsively wanted to have the toy, even if it meant such a great expenditure of effort. So he decided to take another go. He deposited another two quarters for a second chance to play. Again the whirling lights flashed and the machine again was ready to serve in its designatedly imperfect manner. Those lights sure were alluring, though John, but he gave it no thought. That was a distraction from the greater goal, a goal of paramount importance. He tried again and failed, the machine triumphing once more. John was ardent now. The crane machine had eaten a dollar of his money, and he was not leaving until that dollar was justified by the possession of the generic red bear. Another fifty cents entered the machine. But, no toy did leave. John tried again and failed. Again. Fail. One more 50 cent try. One more fail. $2.50 had left him for good.
John was a beginning to perspire. He had to win; it was imperative. So he tried again. And again. Maybe it was just his bad hand, he thought and decided that after a couple more tries he would have mastered the unintuitive controls and be able to grab his bear with the utmost precision. Fifteen dollars did not faze him. Another twenty was eaten. John, though, was seemingly oblivious to the march of money from his wallet. The stuffed bear was life, his life, his success. It was everything. He began to twitch and tremor, only slightly but enough. He stared transfixed through the glass panes of the machine to aim. His fist clenched around the joystick, in the grip of a madman, painful and possibly unhealthy. He tried another 20 dollar bill without luck. He now saw the struggle as greater than any that had come before it. The magnitude of the conflict was second to none. Wars paled in comparison to it. Nothing could hold a candle to it. Nothing at all. John was beginning to lose it. He had become desperate to possess this inconsequential toy. Three dollars and 50 cents later he finally won, but not the prize for which he labored. The machine had sarcastically given him a Cliff the Big Red Dog stuffed animal. It was playing with his mind, like a twisted game of cat and mouse. It was bouncing him around like a handball on a middle school playground. John had slipped into delirious paranoia.
Now it was personal. A fight to the death. Man vs. Machine. This had gone beyond the possession of one toy. It was mankind against the powers of steel and electricity, against pretty, flashing lights. Against technology. John was only a representative. But he was a representative without money. His wallet had been emptied. But, such a tiny thing was not going to discourage John Brown. No fucking siree. He was going to win, prove himself against this monster; just as knights of ancient England had slain dragons, he was going to slay the crane and proclaim victory, taking with him its mighty treasure horde, the stuffed red bear. So John walked to the ATM and withdrew his entire paycheck only deposited a week before. Maybe he was not going to be able to pay the bills and his rent, but he was sure as hell going to have the bear. John had made the bear a symbol, a redeeming symbol. It would save him from the failure he was and make him into a person worthy of respect. He would not longer be the guy who was flunking every class, had no social life, was a drug addict, and was on the verge of suicide. HELL NO! He was going to become a great man and this bear was his ticket to pride and glory.
The Chucky Cheese change machine could not make change for a one hundred dollar bill, so he had the $1,536.25 he had withdrawn changed into quarters at the bank across the street. The pretty girl at the teller desk looked at him strangely, but complied, baffled and confused why anyone would ever want to carry 6145 quarters around. The crazed look in John's eye also made her a bit uneasy. It was just not right. His eyes were bloodshot, his face red, his heart rate bordering on an overload. He was tense, with tension strong enough to hold up the Golden Gate Bridge. His slight twitch had become a generally shaking palsy; the only plausible explanation could be a near overdose on some illegal pharmaceutical, though in reality the drug was not one of a chemical nature but one of mental instability, all the more deadly in fact. Genuinely concerned, she asked if he was okay, to which John snapped back angrily, "I 'M FINE DAMNIT." Before he could make a scene, John left to go back to the battle field littered with stuffed animals. He was going to win by sheer force. This was one area where he was not going to fail. He was not going let a silly machine defeat him. His ego could not take it. The bear was going to be his, at any cost. This was to be a day of triumph and redemption. The machine represented all the failure and stupidity that plagued him, all the doubts and loss. To triumph over the machine would be to triumph over himself and be born anew.
John reentered the party parlor, looking disheveled and even slightly more desperate than at the bank. But the employees of Chucky Cheese were not about to meddle with a customer that seemed ready to pay 6145 quarters into a silly machine for a bear easily purchasable for a buck fifty a K Mart. They looked on worriedly though as they saw him enter. He appeared to be breaking apart right in front of them. The desperate customer before had certainly changed from the insolent apathetic man from an hour and a half ago. The birthday that John was technically attending was wrapping up, with parents coming to retrieve their children from the day of fun and games.
To John the machine he used was much more than a game, it was meaning to a life that had lost it a long time ago. The birthday party of an hour and a half ago was only a vague memory. He had slowly tuned out the entire pizza parlor and its raucous. There was only him and the crane machine, locked in time and space to decide a grand spectacle of a duel. John knew nothing else. His entire focus was on the crane contraption. He more than resolute; he was a fanatic.
John had wasted more than 800 quarters. 200 dollars. 400 tries. 6 hours and 20 minutes of life. He had won fourteen prizes. The red in his face had deepened to the red of the pizza sauce, as red as the drip of blood from his nose. His fist whitened to the shade of the maggots that eat the discarded pizza sauce. His bloodshot eyes teared in desperate frustration. His mouth had frozen in a grimace, his teeth clenched as hard as his fist. His eyes glazed at the stuffed red bear. The world had disappeared. The rat named Chucky Cheese was gone and his posse with him. The children were gone. The employees were gone. The world had left him. John was in a white arena with the crane and the animal, surrounded by spectators, the spectators being the old memories he had of disaster, frustration and failure. He saw what a waste he was and what he had to win. To lose was the death. The crowd was not only memories but people, people he had cheated and people he had disappointed and people who knew him for the sniveling cowardly fool he was. They jeered at him, all of them: the classmates, the old friends, the family, the girlfriends, even the pen pals to whom he had written nasty letters. He had been a jerk, a bland jerk, a forgettable jerk. He had not been mean enough to warrant a memory. And that stung painfully. He had not even succeeded at as jerk. And this victory was to be a salvation equal to any for which anyone could ever possibly hope. He was to be saved by the red bear. Those people in the arena that jeered and booed would be shown who he really could be. John knew he could be a winner. All he had to do was win.
The Chucky Cheese employees began to worry. It was nearly 8:00 P.M. and they needed to close up. They were scared though of John. They had realized he had lost it, watching him rail at the arena members who existed only in mind. They worried he might be violent, and that scared them. Nowhere in the employee handbook was there a discussion of the solutions employable in the situation of a customer going insane from a game purposely made to frustrate to the BRINK of insanity. They worried of epileptic seizure. They did not know what to do. So they called the manager, an experienced restauranteur of middle age and stout stature. He came, but even he was credulous of the account of a shaking madman driven insane by a silly toy. But he saw it. There was only one thing for him to do: go tell him as kindly and carefully as possible to leave. The manager walked over to see John.
The crowd was still in the white arena. John was frantic. He needed to win and badly. The crowd was crazy. The lights were blinding. The pretty flashing lights of the machine were its evil eyes intent on the destruction of John. He must defeat it. He could not tire. Move the joystick, slice the demon. The blinding whiteness of the arena transmorphed into a field of battle. John was an angel against the legions of hell, all carrying cranes. It was an army against him, set against a sky of memory of embarrassment and hatred. John was going to be a Savior. He was going to win. Then the scene changed again and he was in a train with a small engine. He thought he could win now. The machine and he were pitted against one another on the top the railcars just like in an Old Western. The scene kept changing. John began to be unsure if he was hunting the machine or if the machine was hunting him. He knew he had lost control. But he had to fight to survive against the tyranny of the machine. He had to fight against how horribly he had run his life. He now was unsure of the enemy, himself or the machine, he could not decide. Now he was scared. He had sunk past his environment of the pizza parlor back to primordia. The fear, the terror, the pain. He only knew he must battle on and on until he reached safety, the safety of love and life and liberty, all enclosed in that magical charm of a red bear.
The manager tapped John on the shoulder. It was the first interruption by the real world since he had begun playing the machine. Little children generally avoided him as they sensed he had broken down. The manager was not so lucky. All at once John left primordia to return to Chucky Cheese, only between the blood and the tears he saw demons with cranes like he saw them in his trance. Everyone was against him, wanted him dead, wanted him to lose. Maybe he would not win but he could not live and lose. There it was, an evil force trying to stop him from victory. John let out a crying scream, like that of a cornered animal that has to fight to the death but realizes that it cannot win. John punched the manager in the throat and knocked him out. He then saw his prize, just beyond the reach in the glass, the prize that he had attempted to procure for so long, for an eternity it seemed. But suddenly, he realized that he had one way out. John picked up a little kid leaving with his parent in one hand, one death grip. The child screamed. The parent screamed. John screamed. But the child did not scream for long. John bashed him into the glass, shattering the barrier between him and his beloved, his idol, his god. He had made the sacrifice of the child to appease the Devil so that he may be allowed to take the Devil's treasure. John jumped in the crane machine, grabbing the generic red bear, but actually less generic than he thought with a talking pull cord. John had won! He had triumphed. For once in his life something went right and he made it happen! But new flashing lights situated on the top of a black and white car now came. But John saw them not. He had collapsed. In retrieving the prize, he had ripped his entire intestinal tract in half on the glass. John collapsed of fatigue, blood loss, and mental distress.
John awoke in the hospital informed of his arrest. He had been charged with murder of the second degree. John was rational again. He was going to survive. But his two unfortunate victims had not. It was sad. Next to John though was the red generic pull bear. The nurses had never been able to force him to release his grip; the same grip that had so tenaciously held to the joystick was holding the spoils. Out of curiosity he pulled the chain of the bear. It said: "YOU ARE A WINNER." And so John saw the irony. That red bear was the most expensive bear ever to be produced; it had cost two lives, one term of life imprisonment, one crane machine, and almost 300 dollars. All for one stupid generic red bear that could tell him what he probably wasn't anyway.