First Person
Noblest of all pursuits
Book I
Sing, Muse, of those great and fearless men, skilled in all ways of warfare, who traveled from far lands with legendary names like Brooklyn and East Austin, men harried for hours on end in the scorched fields of Operation: Bunker Buster and Operation: Jungle Run by youths not half their ages who carried with them automatic weapons and cranky dispositions. Sing and tell the story of those heroes bold enough to face a day of paintball in the middle of summer in central Texas, and of the pains they suffered there, where many souls were lost and sent to Hades and their bodies made carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, and all of them were plagued by welts and bruises that they did boast much about later when they went to dinner at this charming little French restaurant that just opened on the Eastside.
Tell us how it began, oh Muse, why they so bravely put upon them the garments of war and turned on those three young men from high school who were taunting them. Which of the Gods set them to quarrel? It was Apollo, son of Zeus and Leto. For bristly-haired Paul did make burnt offerings to that God on the occasion of his wedding and did ask him, “Great Apollo, what shall I do with my friends for one last day of enjoyment before I am married and my life becomes a drudgery, an endless series of duplicated days, each no different than the last, on and on, even after death unto eternity, a walking, breathing paralysis, without feeling or beauty or art or the hint of pleasure?” And Apollo answered him, “You, grinning Paul, are the greatest of all the warriors upon the earth who do me service. As such you must take your noblest friends and go play paintball in honor of my war-like ways.”
And shortish Paul’s noblest friend, Josh Son of Joel, did overhear this and said to himself, “Oh, fuck me,” for he was convinced that the occasion of his friend’s wedding celebration would be cause for him to look upon the flesh of women without getting yelled at. And so he sacrificed four fatted calves and a loaf of bread and did plead to Apollo directly, “Great Apollo, why did you tell bristly-haired grinning Paul that I must play paintball with him on the occasion of his wedding?” And Apollo, god of the silver bow, did reply, “This you must do, for it shall bring one final day of pleasure to bristly-haired grinning shortish Paul and because it is inscribed in the heavens by my father, mighty Zeus, son of Kronos, that when a man’s friend does fall in love, that man shall be greatly inconvenienced and made to spend great deals of money and generally be made miserable.”
And so upon that day of battle, the friends of bristly-haired grinning shortish Paul, lawyer of patents, gathered and did put on their goodly greaves fitted with ankle clasps and their black helmets made for them by Minerva and generous amounts of suntan lotion and other exotic oils, and draped in their horrible masks of war and holding their paint rifles they did approach the mighty inflatable pylons of Operation: Armageddon, spurred on by the gods, and they were struck down immediately by the machine guns of the young men who had come out to face them and who had many years of practice. And the paint did rain down upon them like fire from the great heavens and caused them to cry out in pain and horror as one by one they fell in the grass and the grass did turn yellow with paint. As each one fell, they raised their arms and pleaded to the skies and the gods and the buried humanity of those horrible teenage boys, “I’m out! I’m out!” And mighty Zeus, master of the bright lightning, and beautiful nymph Calypso and Artemis of the golden distaff did cry out as well, “Let them out! Restrain your fury, oh young ones!” But the crankiness of the teenage boys was great and even after the men had begged their mercy, still they were struck with paint balls upon the head and face and also other places.
And noble Josh, Son of Joel, as he lay amidst the bodies of his fallen brothers, some who still cried out in pain, did remove his mask now covered in yellow paint, much like his shorts, which were the only ones he had, and raised his voice to the heavens: “I need new friends.”
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And suddenly the skies did part with the sounds of apollos booming voice “you would have to leave the house to accomplish that” and with that Josh trudged on.
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