The Tragedy of a Pinball Wizard

The Taxi

Not five minutes after they had sat down on the curb, a taxi came flying around the nearby street corner. It spun out of control and crashed into a small mom-and-pop coffeeshop. Oliver and Mr. Otis looked upon the scene before them disinterestedly. The vehicle had fully entered the coffeeshop.

A voice, presumably belonging to the driver of the taxi, called out, "sorry about that!" With that, the taxi entered reverse and backed out of the coffeeshop.

"I hope everyone is OK in there." Mr. Otis said plainly.

"I'm sure everyone is fine." Oliver replied as he stood to his feet.

The taxi pulled over next the curb in front of our dynamic duo. The passenger side window rolled down to reveal two people in the vehicle. They spoke in tandem, "need a ride?" they both asked.

"Yeah, we do. You think you can take us to Wally's Pinball Palace?" Oliver asked.

"Of course we can do that." They still spoke at the same time. "Now get in the fucking car." Their frustration was growing.

"Woah, man! Calm down there! You're both too feisty. Slow down there, tigers!" Mr. Otis sort of trailed off at the end of his sentence and began to stare. "Tigers?"

"Oh god. The tigers." He thought to himself.

20 years in the past

"That was totally insane, Oak Tree. Can you believe what Cletus was doing with that broomstick?" Sparky asked.

"I'll never unsee what I just saw, man. I'm going to call him broomstick for the rest of all time! I'll never let him forget this night!" Oak Tree said excitedly.

A third man approached Sparky and Oak Tree from the shadows. "Stop right there!" The figure boomed.

"Who are you?" Oak Tree's voice trembled as he asked.

"We're not doing this again!" Oliver Moore stepped out of the shadows and into the light of a glowing streetlamp. "You just had a Vietnam flashback in the last chapter!"

"What the hell are you talking about? Again, who are you?" Oak Tree inquired once more.

"We need a break from the Vietnam flashbacks. There's literally one every other chapter at this point! It's too much! Look, I'm sure the audience appreciates Mr. Otis's backstory, but this joke is starting to become overplayed. It won't be funny anymore. We have to wait at least a couple more chapters before we do this again." Oliver explained.

"I still don't understand. Flashbacks? Backstory? How does he know your real name, Oak Tree?" Sparky was even more confused than Oak Tree was.

"I suppose I can explain a little bit. See, this guy, Mr. Otis, is my friend." Oliver gestured toward Oak Tree. "Or he's a younger version of my friend Mr. Otis, I guess. He's got a little bit of PTSD from the war."

"Aw man! I get PTSD from this shit?" Oak Tree complained.

"At least you survive the war!" Oliver attempted to show Oak Tree the bright side.

"Hey, that's true! You survive Oak Tree! I survive too, right time traveler?" Sparky questioned.

"I'm actually not a time traveler." Oliver said, ignoring Sparky's question. "Anyway, because of that PTSD, Mr. Otis has a tendency to be randomly triggered and get launched into flashbacks of his time here in Vietnam. Whenever that happens, the audience and I are forced to put the whole story on hold to wait for Mr. Otis to regain his composure."

A fourth man then joined the group and put forth his own two cents. "I don't know, I actually like the flashbacks. It's honestly my favorite part of the story."