A mood detector and translator — for guinea pigs — beeps out “cunt! fucker! safety! what’s that!? over there!” Seems surprisingly accurate, though I’m not able to spell out how exactly (you’ll have to use your imagination, dear reader) but now I’m annoyed that I know for certain how easy it is for me to pick up a guinea pig wrong and irritate it. Wish I didn’t know, actually…
A clothesline of skulls and other bones stretches across the city towards Plarvolia — for artistic purposes. As I gather some bones, I realize they may be only enough to fill a single transported line, rather than the usual convoy that she typically sets it up for. Perhaps enough to fill a single box.
Within a photorealistic video game universe, I ascend the long spiraling ramp of an icey tower. Proves very easy for me; perhaps I’ve trod this path before. As I climb higher I hear the voices of a pair of Native American brothers discussing money that I owe them. I keep navigating up and up, like a vertical glacier. At the top of the tower I discover a metal statue with jewels scattered about its base that resemble Infinity Stones. I pay them no mind. Instead, I focus on collecting small horse-shaped carved figurines from nearby stair alcoves, ignoring the “main objective” of the statue and jewels. Winning is not my priority, as it was never my objective, though certainly someone else’s.
For the first time now, I utilize my ability to flash between scenes (similar to fast travel in other video games). An sudden shift in scenery transports me from the straight garden pathway of a 1920s-era California country estate to a bright 2-story orphanage full of white, sunny windows. In this level of the game’s story it’s where I am being raised. But there are also multiple Home Alone-style criminal adult baddies who are chased me, hiding like the guards in Legend of the Hidden Temple. When they catch me it resets, and I attempt again to navigate through or around the ground floor rooms.
I find myself dating multiple girls, a situation that began around the same time. I effortlessly carry on multiple conversations, often switching from one person to another in the next room. Remarkably, I can recall each girl’s recent stories and seamlessly pick up where we left off when I encounter a different girl. These interactions take place in a narrow, unremarkable communal space, divided by wooden fences into backyards that are a dull blue and translucent in tone. It’s somehow based on the design of my childhood bedroom? Hm. During a barbecue, I access hidden panels where I keep stored equipment for certain occasions. Despite the complexity of juggling multiple relationships, I’m doing quite well.
Over a fence, I join a conversation about young Australians who have developed a new casual tense of their own invention. This isn’t just slang either, but genuine emergent grammatical innovation. I note that this has happened like three times now in my life. I observe that these kids find the demands of formality-entrenched work culture to be at odds with their Aussie attitudes, leading them to develop a new way of communicating with customers in their teenage retail jobs. This inevitably leads to the absorption of this new casual lingo into formal expectations though, necessitating yet newer forms of casual lingo. And so the treadmill marches on…