The Return Of The Game-Maker

I was trying to score points. My mind was telling me that I had to score some points. ‘Score some points, score some points, score some points.’ My mind said. My mind, my mind, my bloody old mind. ‘Score some points would you,’ it said – ‘you’re starting to look like a loser.’

 

I was engaging in some self-talk – the way you do, the way you do. A bit of old self-talk. You can’t beat the old self-talk now can you? ‘Score some bloody points you goddamn frickin asshole,’ I said to myself, ‘you’re starting to look like a goddamn frickin freak!’

 

I was in the blank world, the unfinished world, the ‘bare-bones’ world, the prototype world that hadn’t actually been made into anything yet. The best way to describe it would be to say that it was like a colourless and featureless plain that stretched out indefinitely and featurelessly in all directions. When I say ‘plain’ perhaps I should really say ‘plane’ – as in ‘a mathematical plane’ – since there was a curious abstract quality to it. It was like an unformatted RPG – perhaps that would be another way of talking about the blank world. It was a game that – as yet – had no rules on it.

 

‘That’s all very well for you to say,’ I replied to my mind, ‘but how can I score points in a game that as yet has no rules on it? If there were a few rules here and there then I could at least have some chance of successfully obeying them, and thereby earning some valuable brownie points that I could no doubt use later on…’ I had a good look around me then just to be sure, but I could see that what I had just said was true – there were no rules, there were no rules anywhere to be seen. The situation was frankly devoid of rules.

 

‘Would you not just cop onto yourself,’ my mind answered waspishly, ‘do I have to spell everything out for you? Do I have to tell you everything? Do I have to spoon-feed you?’ My mind’s contempt and impatience was palpable, ‘the first rule is that you have to make up some rules. Show some frickin initiative would you…’

 

So I did what my mind said. I did what my mind said and made up a whole bunch of rules. It didn’t matter how dumb they were I realised because the important thing was to obey them. Rules are generally pretty dumb when you actually look at them but the point isn’t to look at them. The point is never to look at them. Rules aren’t there to look at.

 

So as I have just told you, I made up a whole bunch of dumb rules and then I set to work trying as hard as I could to obey them all. I also made up another rule that I didn’t tell you about yet – I made a rule that said I was to forget that I had made all of these rules! That was the decider you might say, that was the finishing touch. That was the icing on the cake…

 

I had iced the cake and so then I set to work eating the cake – I ate and ate and ate. I had so much that I quite made myself sick. I ate too much and gave myself a horrible dose of indigestion. ‘I ate too much cake, I ate too much cake, I ate too much cake,’ I wailed piteously. I had created a compulsive universe you see and there was no escape. There was no escape because I had forgotten to make the rule saying that there was to be an escape… I had screwed myself royally!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *