Time Warp - A Welcome To Funland Story

Lessons over, Bernie found himself in the arcade once again. Its childish allure perfectly reflecting his discordant, multi-hued persona in garish tones, both visual and musical. He eagerly made his way to his favourite game, Time Warp. If anyone was engrossed in their own consumptive temporal odyssey, he’d just sit on the floor next to the machine, releasing the odd fart and picking his nose with puerile glee until they decided to move on.

Once, he’d loudly emptied a nostril onto the display screen allowing the verdurous snot to drip slowly towards the hastily abandoned joystick. The player had recoiled with mortified disgust and left the game at Bernie’s disposal. He’d removed the gelatinous filth from the screen and claimed his prize. This time, the game was not in use and euphoria burst through him like the effervescent bubbles escaping from the overpriced full fat coke he’d just bought at the in-arcade café.

Bernie’s cognitive skills were exceptional. After disciplined development, his hand-eye co-ordination was astonishing. He moved the joystick with a steady precision that would have the envy of a neurology surgeon. His game tactics were no less imperfect. The High Score display had ten places, with Bernie’s initials celebrated in tangerine orange on each level.

An obsessive eye for detail, exceptional reflexes and an adamantine will to remain focussed on each task assured his progress through each of the game’s lurid levels. He lost himself within the game’s temporally displaced complexity, his mind liberated from the world outside as though entirely detached from reality.

When the game foiled his best endeavours, he’d thump the screen with his delicate fist, wincing as both physical and psychological pain tortured his being. For Bernie, this was life and death stuff and he lacked the perspective to recognise his own folly. Perhaps such contextual sagacity comes to everyone in time, however Bernie’s immaturity snared him in the game’s melodrama as surely as a bear trap, clamping down remorselessly upon its quarry.

A new Personal Best. He was invincible. Bernie craved confectionery, the sugar rush an irresistible elixir. He scanned the area and decided it was safe to temporarily leave the site of his overstimulated triumph. As he approached the tawdry café, his eyes were drawn towards two young teenage girls giggling as they attempted to pin a small pink panda in the clumsy mechanical claws they jointly operated.

Their short skirts and loose-fitting ski-tops held his gaze. He observed the lithe line of their trim bodies, tracing their bare legs to their pert bottoms. He’d seen both girls smoking outside earlier and concluded they were sluts. Bernie put everyone into categories of his own making, all assumptively formulated upon his naivety, unreasoned cognitive bias and unfettered primal urges.

The seedy stench of cigarettes, caustic floral perfume and the presence of pheromones he could neither see or recognise, were all erotic cyphers and brought heat to his engorged groin. He categorised the girls as ‘Filthy Bitches’, his contempt for them only equalled by his libidinous, rapacious craving for the physical delight they might wantonly bestow .

Unable to control his desire, he slipped into the toilets and furtively relieved himself, sighing gratefully; his perverse pleasure exacerbated by the need for circumspection - a practice now as common as that of buying his beloved coke, etched into the arcade’s meaning and ineluctable temptations.

Calm now, Bernie brushed past the objects of his affection and smirked. They’d given pleasure with unknowing innocence and the theft was his secret. Bernie liked secrets and guarded them as jealously as he did the Time Warp console.

Two chubby boys were noisily consumed in a game of Laser Fire, the ultraviolent amusement next to his own. Their uninhibited excitement irritated Bernie. Like all those who have yet to learn the cathartic joy of shared fun, Bernie resented their happiness as though it somehow threatened his own. He’d never played well with other children, formed any sincere friendships, or found a way to be comfortable with others. In an attempt to reconcile his discomfort, Bernie organised his inner universe by walling himself within the yeasty boundaries of his own reality.

Finding he’d no coins left for Time Warp, Bernie seethed with an indignant, victimised rage. He’d stormed out of the arcade previously, irate and embarrassingly close to tears when denied the next session with his precious game. Bernie wiped the first hot tear from his left eye and dug deep into his old school satchel.

He adored the soft leather bag as though it were a lover. He seldom left it anywhere other than by his side, even sneaking it into some lessons in which bags were forbidden for health and safety reasons. These prescriptives vexed him to the point where ignoring them became another one of his cherished games. Risks to others were never risks to him, and the childish imperative to get his way reigned supreme in the court of his conscience.

Bernie felt a stranger’s eyes boring into his back. Unable to resist the building aggression, he turned round to face his adversary. Bernie’s paranoia burnt like a torch within the dark recesses of his undeveloped soul. Evidence of other’s contempt for him was everywhere, he just had to look for it. His petulant, ephebic mind raced to the most infantile explanations of that around him, enthusiastically supported by his fractious emotions and febrile imagination.

Every visit to the arcade catalysed an admixture of sulky distress, and satiated pleasure. The games and the girls gave him the pleasure, everyone else fuelled an inveterate bitterness drenched in insecurity and fed by self-doubt.

His mother had once told him that the other children would never accept him if he cast them as enemies to be feared and viciously foiled. She had repeatedly admonished him, bringing the heavy ivory hairbrush down on his bare backside with sanctimonious delight. Her savage blows would always be accompanied by the same minatory words… “you need to grow up before the cement sets, or you’ll make me regret the day you were born”. She’d then sob, holding him as though letting go would kill them both and kiss his forehead with manic, motherly tenderness.

Bernie’s pager pulsated within his pocket. Autonomic reflexes took over, shaking him from his infernal reveries. He marched to the arcade’s exit. Once outside, he lit a Dunhill and dextrously fondled his mobile, searching efficiently for the Hub number. “Responding to Bristol code 5, reference Bravo, Alpha 4723. Why have I been messaged?”

The call handler replied, his tone deferential and perhaps even obsequious. “Sir Bernard, sorry to disturb you. The carotid endarterectomy you oversaw this morning as part of your consultancy visit …the patient is in ICU…stenosis has failed. Vital signs indicate imminent risk of a terminal stroke. We have stabilised the patient, however an emergency restenosis is required. Transportation to Bristol is likely to prove fatal. The procedure must be carried out within the next three hours. Your expertise is the patient’s best chance of a non-lethal outcome. Are you able to return and carry out the surgery?’

Bernie took another long pull on his Dunhill, glanced at his wrist watch and replied. “Regrettably not, I’m on a train bound for London. I’m so sorry. Advise to whoever you schedule for the procedure to use a non-invasive shunt, appropriately sterilised, gauge 0.3 to drain the site and hopefully prevent bacterial infection. Standard process from there, if no further complications are encountered. My paper on the process is in last month’s Lancet. I can’t offer you anything further”.

Bernie hung up and headed for the nearest cash machine. The patient’s game might be over, but Bernie’s was just beginning. Time Warp beckoned. After all, there is nothing as noble as striving for one’s Personal Best.