Congratulations.
You fucked up the timeline. Life failed to evolve human consciousness. Everyone dresses badly. The Monkees eclipsed The Beatles. Eric Stoltz starred in Back to the Future. Oedipus loves his mom. E.T. on Atari became a paradigmatic bestseller influencing gamedev best practices to this very moment.
Congratulations.
Your save file is more corrupt than Congress. You didn't feel like writing down a longass password before the global warming heatwave melted the power grid when you were right at the final boss. Your adult diaper burst right as you were finding your grind-groove in the fortieth consecutive hour of your MMORPG session. Your hand's cramping up as the Second Quest of The Legend of Zelda's gettin' good to ya'.
Congratulations.
Your spiteful roommate deleted all the save slots from your EarthBound and Chrono Trigger carts making you hate original hardware for the rest of your days. No matter how hard and how long you blow into that Double Dragon cart it never says 'I love you' or even gives you a wink or a pat on the head-not so much as a goddamn 'Good job, my dude!' You crash the market in Wall Street Kid at the exact moment an actual stock market crash occurs in meatspace laying the groundwork for both your eventual unemployment and homelessness-impressive how you doubled up on all that, my dude! Most impressive!!
Congratulations.
You were the real monster all along. You were the true final boss but never knew it. The rubbled landscape was Earth all along. In the final cut scene you strip off your powered battlesuit to reveal embarrassing tightie whities. All this time you were nothing but an errand boy for grocery clerks. They were using you to get to them. Your imaginary friend turns out to be a serious asshole.
Congratulations.
You prevailed, you zapped all the bad guys, you saved the fuckin' day, the people owe you their lives, the elders are eternally grateful . . . however, you're too much of the world, you no longer fit in with the gutless normies and conformists, try not to look too fornlorn as you wander off into the vanishing point-
-as you wander away, you walk past John Wayne babying his arm as he halts along; you see Yojimbo throwing a stick into the air; you come across Mega Man's helmet; you arrive at the shore just in time to see Godzilla wading out into the middle of the water tank-
Congratulations.
In the end, Hell was the only reality-now march into the fire.
But if money is made in sufficiently large stacks a sequel becomes an attractive prospect-now march out of Hell, forged stranger and sharper than you ever were in your life, my dude, your quest log is overflowing!
Oh, but they cancelled the sequel when it was ninety percent complete-amble around the leaked build purgatory 'til the code derezzes.
Congratulations.
Victory has become indistinguishable from defeat. You and your nemesis destroy each other. Techno-civilization collapses and everyone's a caveperson all over again. Robots take over the whole operation. Your ass hurts.
Congratulations.
You've suffered. You've doubted yourself. You receive an ambiguous ending-nothing worse than gnawing doubt. At least a burst adult diaper is an objective phenomenon that must be dealt with concretely. Fuck gaseous philosophizing.
Congratulations.
You lost. You're a loser. Maybe video games aren't really your thing. Your ass hurts. You stand up. You go outside. You almost weep at seeing the sun. You see people walking their dogs. You see couples smiling, holding hands, kissing, petting their dogs, taking selfies, throwing frisbees, all kinds of activities. A dog shits and a human with a repurposed plastic shopping bag over their hand cleans up the dogshit. You see, now, that you don't have to go it alone. People do things for each other, even for their pets. You smile serenely. You drop your tightie whities and take a fat shit in the green, green grass. Police assets arrive and show you no love. But now you know-the world is a braid of lies.
Congratu-
In the end, you become one with the global warming heatwave-you had to level up to 99 to do it-and you melt all the power grids your own self. You become the Power. The TRUE Power. You are now the Dispenser of Congratulations.
Like . . . Good Job, My Dude!!!
-May 2012-July 2022
