Dark Pac
In the suburban streets of rural denver, the darkness billowed over the horizon as the stars penetrated the everything that obscured sun-glazed periphery. And I sat in an arcade, playing Pac-Man. I adore Pac-Man; not just as a game, but as a member of society. Any two-bit dork with the misfortune of having watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World could tell you that Pac-Man was originally called Puck-Man and had its name changed to prevent vandalism, but I find two problems with this tidbit. For starters, I hate the idea that the name of pac-man could be tarnished and that changing the name was the only solution. If people could scratch a cover of the bible to say "the booble", would the vatican recall every copy of the good book? doubt it. Secondly, the game wasn't originally called "Puck-Man", but "Pakku-Man". The distinction is important because not only does it mean that anybody who tells you that it was called Puck-Man is as incorrect as any historical revisionist, but it also illustrates a sort of orientalist notion that, while the east makes good products, they are only adequate and suited for western markets if they are edited.
Anyways, I was playing Pac-Man. I knew the guy who ran the arcade, and had convinced him to mess around with the dip switch so that pac man could have 5 lives instead of his usual 3. This was so that more people could have a more positive Pac-Man experience. God, I love Pac-Man. And I am of the belief that everyone should.
However, this night in the arcade was one that every man, woman, child, and Pac would remember. What transpired was widely reported in the news, but I can only tell the story from my truthful, albeit limited, point of view.
So I was playing Pac-Man, and I had just reached the fifth board. I had only sat in front of the cabinet a bit ago, so I would consider these early boards to be a warm-up. However, the sound effects were rather odd. Pac-Man went "wakka... wakka... wakka... BANG!"
However, the bang actually wasn't a sound effect. It was the man sitting in front of the Frogger machine adjacent to me getting shot in the head. He slumped over and his face slid down the arcade machine, leaving a trail of blood on the desolate roads that Frogger jumped across. Pandamonium erupted, and within minutes the police arrived. I continued playing Pac-Man through the whole incident. It was rather silly that I was expected to meaninglessly lose my mind over a simple murder. to my knowledge, people are murdered daily.
I was questioned by the police later, but they obviously dismissed me. In fact, nobody else in the arcade was charged. Nobody was found to have a murder weapon, in spite of the fact that the exits were sealed. no windows were shattered, and security cameras showed nobody firing anything. However, a bullet was indeed lodged in the man's skull. However, the real tragedy was the termination of the arcade. I suppose it made logical sense, as I can't imagine a murder scene being an appealing place to visit, but this meant that there was no place in town to play Pac-Man.
I returned to my condominium and wept. I had never really felt pain before; at least, not pain this intense. It felt like my entire body was burning, and that everything that happened could somehow be undone if I hoped hard enough. Anyone who has experienced loss can tell you that no amount of hoping could ever bring a loved one back, and I had to come to terms with the fact that Pac-Man was gone.
I was in mourning for about a week. I didn't feel like eating anything for a while, and i didn't feel like watching tv either. this is in part because i didn't have cable, and the only thing i had on vhs was taped episodes of hanna-barbera's Pac-Man cartoon. God. I didn't want to think about Pac-Man. After getting sick of waking up each day to a mirror reflecting an unshaven mess of a man, I decided to go on a walk to take my mind off things.
The air was brisk, and the streets were busy. I realized that society doesn't stop for personal dramas - I had to get over my grief and pull myself back together. As Willie Nelson famously sang, "it's not something you get over - it's something you get through". And I felt a new spirit take over. It was time to begin as a real someone. Someone who doesn't compromise their lack of personality with pac-fanaticism. The sun imbued my skin with a sensation i had never felt before. I could move like a leaf in the wind and latch onto whatever I chose.
It was on my way back home that I saw it. My local garbage dump was shielded by a tall chain-link fence, and behind it sat the same Pac-Man arcade machine. The way in which it stood out in the crowd of garbage reminded me of a sexy tease, and my libido couldn't be tamed this time. I hopped the fence and hoisted the cabinet on my back. I hadn't thought this far ahead, as I realized that I had no idea how I was going to get the bulky machine to the other side. I wasn't in the mind to figure something clever out - I just grabbed piles of trash and mounded them by the fence to make a hill. As I yanked more and more trash, I ended up cutting my arm on some rusty pieces of metal. Tetanus wasn't going to stop me now, however. I tossed trash into the heap until it was finally tall enough to scale the fence with. I painstakingly scaled the hill with the Pac-Man machine and, at its peak, carefully dropped it onto the sidewalk. While the cabinet was beefy and durable, able to withstand such a fall, I was not. But I had no time to think. I landed on the sidewalk, and twisted my ankle in a way that was painful enough to kill a weaker man out of shock alone.
However, I was strong. My raw passion for Pac-Man pulled me through, and, with the machine on my back, I limped back to my lousy condominium. I unplugged my Maytag Microwave from the socket and plugged in this ziggurat of electronic entertainment. The typical arcade boot-up garble came up and I held my breath. Finally, I saw the Pac-Man title screen and wept. She was back.
But... something was off. Instead of reading Midway at the bottom of the screen under the ghosts' names, it said "Namco". This was bizarre, because, while Namco did develop the game, Midway licensed it for American releases and their company name was always at the bottom. This discrepancy gave me chills. Surely, something was sorely wrong. There's no way this could cabinet could be of this world. Though I was positively terrified, I suppose curiosity got the best of me. I inserted a quarter and started up the game.
I was immediately caught off guard by the lack of a beginning jingle. If you've ever played Pac-Man, you know it. However, it wasn't here. I was starting to tremble a bit by then. I had no idea what other terrors the game had in store. The game started just fine. Even though the jingle didn't play earlier, the sound effects came through just fine. My heart pounded with joy at each "wakka". I finally remembered why I loved Pac-Man so much.
But things started to change soon after. The "wakka"s got quieter and quieter. The ghosts' siren sound was still playing at the same volume, but Pac-Man's voice followed a decrescendo into just a murmur. Finally, he made no noise. Pac-Man stopped in the middle of the maze, something that can't be done in regular gameplay. The ghosts' siren stopped to. From the cabinet's speakers emerged a cough. It started out sounding like a fake cough, the kind kids would use to avoid youth basketball practice in the third grade. However, it developed into violent hacking and wheezing. Was... was Pac-Man sick? I figured that even Pac-Man was immune to common viruses. But the coughing got worse. The sound of vomit came out in between intervals of coughs. And finally, after one awful sounding cough, the Pac-Man sprite spit out blood.
I ran into the bathroom and threw up. I couldn't believe what I just saw. Pac-Man was in some sort of horrible pain. It physically hurt me to even think about that. I didn't want to play this game any more. I stumbled back towards the machine, but, without looking at that wretched monolith, I unplugged it from the wall. I turned to the machine. I could see my reflection in its dark glass. Thankfully, the nightmare was over.
Or so I thought. It appeared that this game had a different plan. The screen flickered on again, showing the usual arcade boot-up garbage.
"No!" I shouted, but the game didn't listen. It continued booting up and went back to the title screen. Instead of saying "Pac-Man", it said "Puck-Man". I couldn't see all of the ghosts' names through my tears, but I saw that Pinky and Clyde were renamed to War and Famine. The game was teasing me. But I couldn't play it. Not again. Not after what I witnessed last time. I kicked a hole in the bottom of the cabinet, exposing all of the electrical wiring. With my Swiss Army Knife, I hacked at all the cords, sending sparks flying with each slash. It was like an explorer cutting his way through the jungle of doom. Despite suffering several electrocutions myself, the game was still playing. I reached through the wires and found a DIP switch, but none of my tinkering stopped the game.
All out of options, I shoved the entire cabinet over, so that the screen faced the floor. I decided that I would just ignore its existence and go to sleep. After all, I had a long day. So I tucked myself into bed and said hello to the world of dreams. Only these dreams were not welcoming. I had one dream in which the Pac-Man design featured on the side of the original arcade cabinet was being skinned alive. It led to another dream where all of the ghosts were sobbing in a black void. I woke up crying myself, but it was immediately interrupted by fear.
Looming over my bed was the arcade cabinet. I screamed. I kicked it over and ran. I couldn't even escape that wretched abomination in my sleep. I had only one choice. I started work on a cryogenic freeze chamber that would keep me in a permanent sleep until unlocked by another person. I took refuge in the fact that the cabinet didn't have the fingers to do that. But before I began my eternal slumber, I wrote a sticky note and placed it on the outside of the chamber.
"To whomever may read this.
Please only wake me when there comes a future where this Pac-Man machine doesn't exist. The human race will tear itself apart if this machine continues on, and I do not wish to witness such a sad destruction. Perhaps one day, the world can find an answer to end such a tragedy. I place my trust in you, the reader of this note, to help cultivate a better world for the people of tomorrow. A tomorrow I can look forward to waking up to.
Signed, Thomas."
Written by Uncle-motong
Content is available under CC BY-SA
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