Winter Still

Winter still

Winter chill

Covered in bright

Covered in white cross-cut shredded paper

Plausible Deniability

Keeping your eyes closed while receiving a shipment of contraband does not confer this benefit.

Typographic Landscape

Here’s a line of capital ‘M’s pretending to be a miniature mountain range:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Hospital Concert

While standing on the patient’s bed and watching TV, the musician stumbled backwards and fell backwards, crushing an acoustic guitar.

Park Contractor

I’m the general contractor for an amusement park, slow-walking the scheduling of new projects as I slow-walk though the park.

Tummy Thunder

There’s a rumbling outside and in my stomach; probably from the undercooked potatoes in the curry.

Airsoft Kool-Aid

Matt P plunged the barrel of his sniper rifle into the olive green pool, and stirred.

Field Trip

Escorting children off the school bus at the Natural History museum,  Steve finds a roll of pennies.

Opening the roll, he finds a 1944 cent with the Lincoln Memorial reverse, and a 1924 Barber dime, both coins literal one of a kind unique impossibilities.

E3 2049

The Electronic Expo revives in the old Towne East mall in Wichita, Kansas. Each former commercial store is a cavernous showroom dedicated to a single arcade game.

As one of the first attendees, Steve sprints down a second floor walkway, past a Spencer’s Gifts filled with dozens of Star Wars arcade machines.

Next door, a B. Dalton bookstore shows rows and rows of classic Asteroids cabinets.

The upper floor of JCPenneys displays nothing but Primal Rage machines: hallways filled with upright cabinets, bright white showcase 33” screens, and a converted Jurassic Park cockpit.

Spotlighted at the front of the store is a unique prototype machine seemingly carved out of a model volcano, with control panels placed close to the floor, forcing players to sit cross-legged or kneel in a sandy compartment to play. Somehow there are four of these compartments around the base of the volcano, with caves cut into the slope where 25” monitors are mounted. 

Dominating the peak and vent of the volcano is a rotating holographic projection cube that shows off the fighting game action. Monolithic Stonehenge pillars contain stacks of subwoofer and speakers, rattling spectators skulls with each prehistoric punch.

Stabbity Rainbow

Mom’s solar-powered multitool walking stick is color-coded:

RED: 3’ telescoping steel spear

ORANGE: 7” serrated steel jackknife

YELLOW: spare sewing needle

GREEN: tungsten rock bar tip

BLUE: wooden toothpick

PURPLE: 50,000 volt titanium cattle prod

PINK: barbed aluminum wire-guided crossbow bolt

Spray Painting

Spray painting IRL.

Taking a nap.

Spray painting in my dreams.

Bling Bling Bling

Pearlescent, iridescent, translucent,

strawberry scratch n’ sniff,

rose gold Rolex.

Own A Subway

Carpooling in to the office. We plan to leave at 5:45pm.

Breakfast smoothies are all gone but there are chocolate crullers. I have one with coffee.

Checking in on my arcade game cabinet under repair, the color scheme is white and orange. The game is a racing puzzle strategy like Mille Bournes, but with multiple vehicles.

Walking after lunch, I try to snap a picture to own a subway car.

Cool Beach Vacation

I wake up 15 minutes before my 6:45am alarm goes off.

Ride the bus to an empty beach parking lot but TD isn’t there.

Instead we meet them, ZR, MM, and HD downtown and rent Razor scooters, racing up concrete stairs, then climbing impossibly steep salt girder formations.

“We could’ve taken the elevators,” I gasp at the top.

Forgotten Memories

Whenever a song from the 80's plays on the radio, I get a feeling of a forgotten memory.

Maybe it's something to do with a familiar smell, like the almost-imperceptible aroma of slightly overheating electronic components.

Maybe it's the potpourri of disinfectant, sweat, and the metallic scent of tokens, mixed with the cacophony of arcade sounds.

Maybe it's the multisensory kinesthesia of Happy Days reruns on the TV, Bard's Tale on the C64, and a high school art project.

Each song is the soundtrack to a 3-minute time capsule of a forgotten memory.

Intergame Transfer

I lassoed a Dark Red Hereford in Activision’s Stampede, and fixed a saddle on its back.

I mounted and rode the calf, leaping out of the CRT, IRL.

Then we jumped into my laptop and explored our new Minecraft world.

Fall Harvest Decor

Eggs and sausage fry in oil in a concrete basin.

I pass by several times (with shoes and bare feet) through the food court, and up and down staircases, among the fall harvest decorations.

On the third time passing, I pick up someone’s discarded sandal and hang it on a hat rack.

Later, creeping slowly with headlights off as partygoers return home. 

Paintball Tactics

Pinned down. No ammo. Enemies repositioning. Daring attack. Surprise victory. Weapon acquired. Flanking maneuver. Rocket launcher. Building interior. Hallway formation. Videogame defilade. Ceiling explosion. Prisoner surrender.

The Great Spreadsheet War

Armies of Gray and Brick Red ceramic tiles clash in a war to win a construction bid.

Prototype Build Quote

"It's gonna take an hour at least to build each of the three configurations you want, and longer to test each one."

Falling With Style

Playing with the reduced effects of gravity at the university’s new science research center construction site.

Leaping and soaring high above the steel beam structure. 

Floating softly and controllably back to the ground.

Heading to the showers where janitorial staff host an interview with a new pest control company.

There’s cake.

Underground Fried Rice

Carved into the foot of a mountain, this restaurant features 999 varieties of fried rice including: chicken fried rice, beef fried rice, pork fried rice, shrimp fried rice, vegetable fried rice, honey fried rice, miso fried rice, shoyu fried rice, duck fried rice, mushroom fried rice, pineapple fried rice, egg fried rice, lentil fried rice, birria fried rice, lamb fried rice, goat fried rice, fish fried rice, shadow fried rice, rainbow fried rice, potato fried rice, steak fried rice, tofu fried rice, peanut butter fried rice, butter fried rice, seaweed fried rice, cranberry fried rice, chickpea fried rice...

Popper Parkour

Thousands of makeshift jumbo toilet paper poppers adorn the ceilings of a three story townhouse with furniture packed into every room.

Egg Water

At the indoor community pool, a bucket of hard boiled eggs is dumped into the water.

AH grabs one and eats it while, with the shell on, while I stuff my sweatpants pockets.

Strawberry Bavarian

Some remember today as the day in 1806 when Bavaria declared itself a sovereign nation.

But I will remember it as the day my brother and I rode bikes and slurped strawberry ICEEs.

Monster Truck Art Show

At Mr. S’s free annual “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” monster truck themed art gallery, several contestants are turned away for being too ‘pushy’ in the registration line.

Each of these contestants was unique, exhibiting some uncommon or rare physical disability: dwarfism, albinism, muscular dystrophy, ataxia, alopecia, and many with one or more missing limbs.

These contestants rejoined the registration line and were eventually admitted to join the parade of trucks roaring around the obstacle course while displaying a wide variety of art projects in oil and watercolor paint, ink and pencil, woodcut prints and etchings, charcoal and crayon resist.

It Swindy

Thought sand feeling smash together.

Nextdoor, the Netflix Airlines travel agency closes early.

Swinging Venetian blinds indicate an open window.

A yellow gumball gacha machine bursts open; its contents swirl around the empty office.

Bonus! Free DS!

I forgot I left my laptop and backpack in an outdoor patio of a BBQ restaurant.

When I returned, everything had been neatly returned to my backpack, including someone’s Nintendo DS I didn’t recognize (mine is red).

I spent the rest of the dream searching for the owner of the DS - someone who named their Animal Crossing character, Kira.