Ridiculous

The Life Game

The omlette had only been mildly sickening, thought Will, which by his count was very good indeed. He was about to give himself a pat on the back but then decided against it in order to stop the  inflation of the pat on the back market. Toby had, as Will had expected, consumed the meal with gusto, thus indicating the food was at least non-fatal and safe for Will to eat.

 After the meal they relaxed on a sofa, which they had to unearth from beneath yet another mound of: game reviews, the games that had been reviewed highly in the games review, the games that had been reviewed as poor in the games review and games that were so obscure that only the most hardcore of gamers even knew of their existence.

 They sat and watched television reminescing about the old times, such as when Will had been rejected on a first date  and Toby consoled him by letting him win a game against him, or when Will had been run over by a car and Toby played on the game boy next to his bed in the hospital or when Will and Toby had gone to Scotland together where Will had complained about the weather and Toby had played on his gameboy color enjoying its contrast with Scotland's monochrome surrounding.

"And remember the time you went binge drinking on the streets and I had to carry you home?" asked Toby wistfully.

"Oh yeah... I had a massive headache after that... what a hangover." replied Will, wincing with the memory.

"That wasn't a hangover, somegirl hit you with a six pack after you called her a wanker."

"Someone hit me round the head with a six pack of beer! No wonder my head hurt so much!"

"Oh no, I mean a really muscular girl smashed your head against her abdominal muscles."

But suddenly their peaceful trip down memory alley (like memory lane but with a few more unsavoury characters) was interrupted by a phone ringing somewhere under the piles of game related items.

 The two began to search for the ringing phone and when their search only resulted in them finding an old ring and a chicken, whose neck Will wrang because its squaking was becoming annoying, Toby began to wring his hands in agitation when the doorbell rang causing Will to shout "Could you just shut up! I am looking for the ringing phone whilst also wringing the neck of this chicken and all I've found so far is a ring and you wringing your hands is only making this more confusing! Go answer the door because someone is ringing the doorbell!"

Calming down, Toby went to the door to answer it and returned a few seconds later, "who was it?" asked Will.

"Wrong house, some Chinese guy called Ling." replied Toby.

A few minutes later they had found the phone under a pile of Game reviews, next to a game titled the "Thlequdroic Quest" which Toby exclaimed he had been looking for a few days earlier. Satisified at the yield of their search they sat back down to watch the rest of the documentary on television about the ethical correctness of the artificial creation of sapient organisms.

"Oh! The phone reminds me! I called you earlier." said Will, staring blankly at the television.

" Sorry, I didn't notice it, what did you want to talk to me about?" asked Toby, genuinly interested by what was happening on the television screen.

 Will knew that the answer to this question was quite fundamental, not as fundamental as questions like "Why are we here?" or "Who ate the last slice of pizza?" but fundamental to him being in Toby's house at that moment. The answer was the reason why he had come to Toby's house apart from the basic human need for food... but Will couldn't remember what it was so decided to tackle the question later and in order to not forget, made a mental post it note.

"Can't remember now... anyway you should at least be able to answer the phone! ... look at this place, its a mess" which was a big an understatement as Will's vanity... huge, "You don't have a job, you're just living off your parents inheritence, you barely eat anything... You need to sort your life out!" said Will, congratulating himself (but refraining from a pat on the back) for turning a potentially embarassing lapse of memory into a patronising lecture.

"You're not much better" retorted Toby, attention still fixed by the television, "You don't have a job either."

There followed a moments silence.

which was followed by another moments silence.

Then a moments silence at the back of the queue of moments silences asked whether it could skip to the front because it only wanted to take out a few things but was met with a stony silence from the other silences in the queue.

"I am not unemployed" muttered Will.

"I'm sorry" said Toby, realising he had accidentally crossed the line.

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL LOITERER! I am not unemployed! And I will not have myself bunched in with all the other degenerates who have sunk along with a fickle shift in the economic climate! I am nothing like those! Failures! Who rely upon society! Who cannot feed themselves! I AM NOT UNEMPLYED! I am a self reliant! Independant! Man! Who can stand on his own two feet!" So saying he ran towards the door, slipped on some magazines, and fell flat on his face, stood up on his own two, now rather bruised feet again, shouted "Good Night!" in what he hoped was a defiant tone and stormed out the door. Glad that he did not own anything apart from the clothes he wore so that he didn't have to humiliate himself by going back into the house to reclaim some forgotten item in some cliched comic indignity, Wil started his walk through the cold dark streets back in the direction of his apartment... realising only a few seconds later that he had left his jacket in Toby's house and wondered whether to storm back in to get it but decided against the action.

 Internally cursinf Toby and his stupid games, Will suddenly remembered why he had gone to Toby's house. One of Toby's geek friends had called Will after some failed attempts to call Toby, to ask whether Will would tell Toby that a certain rare game which Toby had asked and payed for had finally come into his poccesion... but what was it called? T... The.. The light gem? The... Li... Lif...

"The Life Game!" shouted Will into the empty streets, triumphant at finally recalling the name of the game.

 "The Life Game you say... do tell me more..." whispered a voice behind Will. A dark voice, a harsh voice, a voice that seemed to wrap around Will, causing him to freeze to the spot.