[Fool's note: this is from the spring. I had been playing Contra 4 for a few weeks, hoping for victory with each round but knowing in my heart that I was destined for only failure. I wrote it a while ago when I was bored, but it's too badass to not post here.]

So I beat Contra 4 today. No, not on Easy, I went the whole nine yards. Or nine levels. Whatever. That fucking torture device that they call a video game has been breaking my spine and raping my limp unconscious body for months now. I'd play that shit for a few minutes, get enraged and let loose with a steady steam of profanity right about the time when the game let loose with a steady stream of semen in my anal cavity. Only instead of semen, it was oozing demon-seed from the ninth circle of hell, its fiery, putrid ectoplasm searing my very insides as I writhed and begged for some sort of divine intervention to descend from the heavens and put me out of my misery with a blasphemous bitch-slap. God never showed, so I took matters into my own hands. I've been playing it about once or twice a week now, as that's basically the very limits of my patience as a human being- any more than two soul-crushing defeats in a week would reduce me to a screaming, weeping man-ape basking in his own blood and vomit as the game cartridge flogs me with a spiked cattle whip or somethhing. Today was different, however.

Today I would accomplish what Buddha had attempted to do over two thousand years ago. I would break the cycle of suffering. I would escape the prison of perverse pixels that perplexed me for so long. Ooh, alliteration!

I started the game up sometime this evening. Homework never really crossed my mind, and there was nothing else to do- why not punish myself to start off the week? I was sloppy at first- perhaps my spirit was broken from weeks of abuse, like an outspoken housewife finally learning to shut her trap after one too many backhands to the face. Maybe I was depressed at the way my hockey team's been playing. Maybe I finally realized that my life is going nowhere, and I'm sitting here writing a creative tale of my triumph over a video game that nobody cares about at 10:46 on a Monday night with nothing else to do. Who knows, yet I was most certainly in low spirits, and it most certainly was visible in my performance. I passed the first three levels without the slightest bit of difficulty- a couple sloppy deaths, which rarely happens, yet who cares? Deaths don't begin to add up until the later levels- weapons are plentiful and extra lives are bountiful. To get a grasp of how this fucking game works, let me explain. It's a lot like Cock and Ball torture [the BDSM stuff, not the band]. It hurts a lot. And you don't get any leeway. Oh, you'll get a couple continues, but if you fuck up and lose those, you have to start from level 1. Yeah. Say you've made it to the very last level, you have one life and one continue left and you die? Fuck that, you're going back to square one! It's a horrifically punishing ordeal the likes of which today's children with their Wii Sports and Madden 2008's will never see. Whether this is a good thing, I do not know. I finished the first three levels and felt no better about my chances- I never lose until level nine. What's the point of going through the first eight levels just to die? Oh, if I only knew then what I know now.

So, level four shows up. It's an easy level. Take down a Nuclear Submarine with your dinky little gun, fight off an army of gay little robots. This game is a little heavy on the action- for example, the end of level four has you sailing through the sky riding atop a nuclear missile. While other, smaller missles are flying towards you attempting to kill you. While the nuclear missile itself is trying to throw you off with its stupid little hand-grips. It's a part that's always shattered my confidence. Sensory overload, I crack under pressure and nearly always fuck up. I fall off the stupid missile, I get hit or I just decide that the whole concept is fucking stupid and I quit. Oh, and after you climb it, you ride on its thrusters as it shoots fire at you. I don't even fucking know anymore. This is where the mental game kicked in. I never lost confidence. I played it like I always would, only something was different. I could see where I had to jump. I could see everything, and it all slowed down for me. I had entered the zone and didn't even know it. Eventually I passed level four without a single death. My weapons were at full power, and I knew I had just done something significant. Like the man who discovered insulin, I knew I had achieved a breakthrough. Something that would forever change the world. Onto level five.

The next levels went by like a dream. Something had changed. It was all so...Easy. I breezed through it, unfazed by anything that was thrown at me. Enemies died before they could touch me. I weaved through waves of bullets as if they were mere baseballs thrown by an arthritic three year old. With no arms. Level five, level six...Level seven is one of the longer levels, and I finally lost a life. I shrugged it off and went the rest of the way flawlessly. My mental game was unfazed. Truly, I had become one with the game- NO. I had become one with the great consciousness itself. I was intricately linked with every living creature, and their collective heartbeat became a rhythm that guided me. Level eight- my ascension continued as I began to feel incredibly tranquil. My life was a mere game now, and each level was clear to me. I saw the patterns before they were executed. I danced around enemies, seeing not the game screen, but rather the lives and loves of humanity itself, communicated to me by billions of beating hearts combined into one beautiful pulse. Level nine. The last level. The one that stood ahead of me now. I was prepared.

As soon as level nine began, I knew that this was my one and only shot. I had full weaponry and my utter dominance had earned me fifteen extra lives. My mental game was lucid as ever as I gracefully maneuvered my way through the level, fighting off waves of ravenous enemies. The enemies represented my own personal demons- lost loves, jealousy and hatred, the anguish we all feel from day to day- countless foes swarming me in all directions. I never lost my cool. One must BE cool before one can lose such thing, no? I died once, twice even, yet it did not matter. I conserved my weaponry and refused to so much as blink in the face of mortal terror. Finally, I had done it. The last boss stood before me, his horrific visage a reflection of years of self doubt and hatred. To defeat him would be to defeat myself. To lose would be to lose myself.

The battle began swiftly, and he quickly drew first blood, claiming one of my lives. Swearing loudly, I regained composure and continued. Another life lost. And then another. The profanity become prolific, parallel to my panicked pandemonium as I was pounded profusely. Damn I'm good with alliteration. My lives dipped below ten. Below five, now. I refused to give up. I still had my weapon, I still had hope. I attacked mercilessly. He claimed my life- and my weapon. My mental game had been defeated now, my composure shattered like my little sister's childhood innocence after walking in her room to see me having my filthy way with her stuffed animals. It was over. I was ready to abandon hope when a voice filled me with courage. But it was not one voice- it was the voice of billions. The hopes and desires of all living creatures were channeled into me. I felt their sorrow and longing, a single technicolour tear of enlightenment slowly trickling down my cherubic face as I witnessed the anguished screams of life itself. The doubts, fears and hatred of all living things were represented by this horribly designed last boss standing before me, and it would claim me. Their wails of agony reached a fevered din as I reached my last two lives. The boss bared down upon me now as I closed my eyes and fired. I then remembered to open my eyes, because I was playing a video game and closing my eyes would be totally fucking stupid. I shot. I shot again. Just as he was about to collide with my hitbox, finishing me off once and for all, I fired one last bullet. Flames engulfed the screen and I had won. I was victorious.

I never got to see the ending. Upon victory I became bathed in a white light as everything became obscured by the radiance. I was lifted from the Earth itself as everything I had known began to swirl into the mist of the unknown. I was alone, floating upon the currents of the universe. Yet I am never alone. We are never alone. It was then that I reached a pinnacle. I felt a unity with myself and all living things. I drank from the stream of infinite consciousness, quenching my material desires with the wisdom of supreme emptiness and fulfillment. There is no good. There is no evil. There simply is. Some gurus train their entire lives, honing their mind to find the ultimate truth. Others train their bodies, pushing themselves to the limit in an attempt to gain this sacred knowledge. I reached my limits and surpassed my wildest dreams. I beat Contra 4.

So, what is the meaning of life? What is the secret to happiness? Contra 4 has taught me. The entire mystery to life, and its solution? The secret to ultimate fulfillment is this: "Always press forward.




Keep pressing forward.



Hold down the forward button dammit.



...Oh god, press the fire button now, fuck, they're everywhere oh god keep moving forward don't look back oh god shoot them OH FUCK DODGE OH CHRIST HOW DID I SURVIVE THAT oh god no there's a tank why is there a tank I don't want there to be a tank please why oh god run run run run shoot shoot oh fuck oh christ why am I doing this no no don't stop run run run go forward OH SWEET GOD PLEASE STOP THIS MADNESS".


Jesus Christ, I spent a half an hour writing this incoherent rant. I'm fucking BORED, I hate Mondays.