Three Scenes In a Game I Do Not Understand

You and I are playing some sort of augmented reality live action role-playing game. The presenter (who is running the event and moderating the game) is this tall blonde German guy. He’s one of those dudes that I sometimes have a hard time talking to, but.

After he’s done presenting it, then we have our character parts.

“I don’t understand mine,” I say as I look at the character notecard.

You seem to get yours and are already starting to get into the character—which is whatever you want it to be.

I sigh and try to talk to the dude about it, but he just gives me some sort of cryptic answer. Which, I get it, right? I’ve run things like this before myself. He’s trying to build interest and immersion.

“But it says on here I can draw a card,” I say, “and I don’t know how to do that.”

He says something else dramatic, then runs off.

Again, I sigh, run a hand through my hair and set off in some random direction that feels like north, in the hopes of finding some way to engage with this fucking thing.

It doesn’t take long before I find a room—kind of like a bedroom suite, but set up to be more like an impromptu office.

The dude’s wife is there. She’s American—or maybe Canadian—has long blonde hair and is fit and athletic.

I’m not particularly attracted to her, but she’s a little flirty with me, so I start to see her a little differently; then, though, she directs me to this other room that has some clothes in it—costume options, I guess.

“That’s great,” I say, “but I’m not getting this game. Like, at all.”

She tells me I just have to go with it and play. It will reveal itself if I do that.

“I don’t know what that means,” I say.

She smiles at me, but doesn’t elaborate, just touches my arm in what’s meant to be a comforting manner, then returns to work at a computer in the office area.

I leave there and get almost overrun by a group of players who are hightailing it further north, across a wooden footbridge and onto a small island. I get a bad feeling, but some of that could just be all the people.

But it’s not, I soon learn, as I see that there are boxes of explosives near all the footbridges.

As soon as I figure that out, I haul ass back the way we came.

The boxes start exploding.

I’m not sure I’m gonna make it back before the bridge blows.

I’m not sure that I’m not going to get blown up trying.

I’m unsure if I’m doing the right thing, but I persist anyway.

And I do make it back across and safely away before the explosion destroys the bridge.

It is muted and controlled, the explosion, and I suspect that it might be more like fireworks timed with a mechanical break of the bridge to create the effect of explosion rather than an actual demolition. It is a game, after all, I remind myself.

When I make it back to the starting area, which has a living room, a dining room with a bed where the table should be, and an open air commons lounge, I go to the living room.

There’s a celebrity there, and apparently that’s a dimension of the game. Like, celebrities are occasionally around and you have to keep from waking them up. Or if you do, you have to keep them entertained. I don’t know what happens if you don’t cos I don’t really understand a fucking thing about this gee-dee game.

The celebrity is pretty and about my age, maybe a little younger. I can’t tell which one she is; I often confuse her with someone else, so I don’t know if it’s her or the one I think she looks like.

It doesn’t matter, I decide, because she’s happy and talking to other people, so I don’t have to worry about it.

I go into the dining room and see Lila on top of some guy. They’re fucking, maybe, or maybe just making out.

She sees me and gets off him.

“Well, at least I have something to do now,” I say, then walk over to the table, grab the guy, pull him off the table to the floor, and start punching him in the face.

He’s staring up at me, in pain at first, then more like it’s an annoyance, like I’m not really hurting him. Plus, my waking life morality reaches me in the dream state, and I remember my dedication to nonviolence, so I stop.

We both sit up, and I look up at Lila on the table, who looks kind of embarrassed and annoyed—because of me, presumably, not being on this dude cos that was part of the game.

The German presenter comes up then, and pulls the dude up, puts a collar around his neck.

The collar chops his head off at the neck like a cigar cutter. Then, launches the head into the sky on a rocket thruster and we see it explode.

Before I can really react, the body is strapped to a rocket gurney and also blasted into the sky. I can see the bloody stump and everything.

“Wait, is he really dead?” I ask.

The German dude explains how they achieved the augmented reality effect.

I’m just glad he’s not dead.

But somehow I am starting to get the game. And I want to keep playing.

Play procedures

• You can name and breakout some of the rules of the ARLARP if you’d like. And we can keep playing some, too. Just let me know, babe.
• You can name any of the characters in this chapter and add them to your contacts list.
• If you want that horrible head-chopper thingy, you can add that to your inventory. Gross.
• Write about what happened to you during the game while I was doing my thing. You can flesh out your in-game character, too, if ya want.