The Gaming Outpost

I had lived until I versed out in a tiny apartment in Boston. Since it was rent-controlled, the landlord had no reason to fix my toilet, or sink, or the soft spot in the entrance hall floor. He could not charge more for a nice place, and I and others would have paid even if there was a hole in the roof. No one was building apartments because one could not make back the money from the investment.

So it should come as no surprise when my electricity arced, and blew out my Scriff Inside! computer, and sent me spiralling through a dozen universes.

Later, I had a birchbark lodge, a penthouse suite atop a geosynchronous to planet below skyhook elevator, and a cage for gladiators.

I plucked a bit of weed from between my thick grass in the front lawn, and smiled serenely. Here in Westmont Developments, I had a front lawn bordered by red and white gladiolas, and a low white picket fence just enough to keep the little terrors on their bycycles out of my perfect green lawn.

Strolling along the edge, I spotted a wingabar caterpillar eating a glad, and caught the thing and squished it between thumb and forefinger. The chompers loved flowers, glads the best.

My driveway had a weed sticking up out of a crack so I hurried to the backyard shed, and got out my Weedblaster Pro. Three squirts of chemical killing power, and already my enemy was wilting.

Feeling triumphant, I flipped out my cell phone, and put in a call to the concrete repairman to come and fix a couple of cracks in the fifty foot driveway that led to my flower festooned carport.

Around my station wagon, there hung a dozen baskets of blooming flowers, including mini-roses, mary’s mantle, bluebloods, and marigolds.

A quick check, and it was all clean inside. I popped the hood, and checked the oil, the radiator, the AC fluid, the windowashing fluid, and then closed the hood with a good solid clang of steel.

With cheap off-shore oil, and Canadian oil sands, we can afford to drive heavy Detroit steel. And that steel saves lives. You can make a car almost as safe as a station wagon built of steel by being very, very clever if you’re also trying to maximize on gas expenditure. But that costs a huge hit in the wallet as well as not being as safe.

I left my station wagon, and went through the gate of the privacy fence to my backyard. A small orchard of peach and apple trees took up one corner. In the other, an archery shooting range was set up.

I had promised Robin Hood that I would practise every day I could for Friar Tuck had a vision of me coming back to them with bow in hand.

So with that in mind, I strolled past my square-foot garden in the near corner, and stopped by the mini-shed that theld sports gear. Inside it was my bow and arrows.

A quick run through of the arrows, and I had hit eighteen of twenty in the target. Retrieving my arrows, I did better next time through, hitting all on the target and making one bullseye. I continued for three more sets of shots,and then sweating, I cleaned off the arrows, and unstrung the bow.

A quick bath inside in my marble tile masterpiece, and I found myself impatient.

I went back outside and surveyed the last quarter of my lawn. Here tables in bright tapestry hung, with party hats, and boxes of birthday presents stacked in the middle space encircled by the tables were waiting for a lucky girl.

And then the front doorbell rang so that I heard it in the backyard. That must be the first of the party guests with their birthday presents for my next door neighbor.

I may not have a family, but here in 1952 Anno Domini of the North Amercian Confederacy, I am Uncle Tommy to all the neighbor kids, and to their mothers.

This is my own private slice of Suburbia Heaven.