Dear Nicky-Nick

Written for a good friend's 18th birthday.


It was a dark and stormy night… It a TV studio! The actors were on set doing a run-through. Not actually filming. The step just before filming. Exciting, right? Not really. Anyway. The story was about a plumber, an intimidating college professor, a queen and a moral fence. Even the writer wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to work out. But that’s okay. He just kept munching his foreign celery. It was kind of an obsession of his. Korean celery, African celery, he just loved celery! Though his current favorite was Russian celery. Anyway.
“AAH!” screamed the actor playing the plumber.
“AAH!” screamed the actor playing the queen.
You see, they were watching a scary movie late at night. They were the best of friends. Yup. The plumber and the queen. It was an odd friendship, the writer admitted. But. They were introduced by an intimidating college professor who knew that both of them were on the same moral fence: are hamburgers delicious? However, this dark and stormy night, there was conflict.
“Foie gras is better!” the plumber cried.
“No! Ground beef is where it’s at!” the queen insisted.
They were totally off book now. So the writer and the director and the other people left the TV set and went home. The plumber and queen continued to argue…
And then the author scrapped the idea and started over.
It was a dark and stormy night… When two psychos were somehow friends. You see, they had been friends ever since they were unborn. Their moms met in childbirth classes. There were something you could call fetus friends. Anyway. They grew to be friends even after they were born! They went putt putting and swimming at McDonalds (don’t ask me how) and they even went to school together. But one day, they decided to do something cool. No. They decided to do something COOLER than cool. They wanted to LIVE in a VIDEO GAME. It was the ultimate dream. The man-psycho, Nick, wanted to live in Aion. And the lady-psycho, Emi, thought it would be kinda cool to live in Hyrule. So they set off to do the impossible.
They searched for years. They turned five, then ten, then fifteen. And that year they discovered a glitch! They could enter the world of RUNESCAPE. Excited and thrilled, the two transported via rune magic (“Senventior Disthine Molenko!”) to Lumbridge. From there, they branched out, acquired rune pickaxes and began to mine the ore they would need to build their machine. After mining and smelting and smithing and all, they finally had what they needed. They could build their machine.
With a little more rune magic and a talisman, they constructed their machine. It was great, it was grand! And hopefully, it would work. But it didn’t look like a telephone booth.
And then they had a spat.
But then the just sorta became friends again. Which was kinda odd. But good.
Their machine wasn’t mentioned, though. They would stay up late watching movies and trying to teach penguins to fly. And discussing “I don’t even game” games. It was quite interesting. But then they got close to turning 18. And their dream still hadn’t died. They began to plot and toil on their machine again. They didn’t go back to Runescape for more supplies, though. Just for a bit of fun, now and then. They had gotten pretty beast in that world and it wasn’t that much fun anymore.
Anyway.
They worked randomly discussing mac’n’cheese pizzas, how not to get killed in Aion and why what you wear in these games seems so important. And finally, their work paid off. Their fabulous machine was built and functional! It could teleport them into video games! Nick and Emi tried it out and were adventurous and beast at the games they played!
And then the machine got packed away because they were both going to college.
But they made a promise to not forget the fun adventures and the beast-ness that they shared. Because, oddly, they were friends. And that was pretty darn magical itself. More magical than a video game machine or mac’n’cheese pizza. And mac’n’cheese pizza… Well. That’s pretty magical.
The end.