found drama

I’m in this huge stadium-like space. This gigantic, sodium lamp-lit, Lego-built American Gladiators arena from hell. Each end has teams of people that are forced out into this tremendous playing field that is littered with these obstacles (tightly packed in some places, sparse in others) that appear to be fashioned from Legos the size of of a Buick LeSabre. It’s this elaborate game of capture the flag, a bit on the Unreal side of things with futuristic weapons, body armor, and other, similar accoutrements. I can’t really tell if there’s an audience or a crowd but the walls around us seem to curve upward into infinity and it’s loud-loud-loud. Crowd-noise loud. This competition frightens me out of my wits. In addition to the combat between each other and the obstacles, fucking DINOSAURS are unleashed into this pit. Velociraptors and T-rexes and dromiceiomimuses rampaging through those Lego-like snap-together obstacles of American sedan proportions. Narrowly, I escape getting eaten. Once in a while I manage to save myself by burning a descending reptile with my plasma gun. But ammo gets more and more scarce and it isn’t long before the dinosaurs have reduced the playing field to me and (maybe) a handful of other contestants. A little luck is on our side, however – – we’ve managed to reduce the dinosaurs to one last resistor – – a giant Tyrannosaurus rex. But all the ammo for every weapon is gone. Even the chainsaw is out of gas. So I grab the only item left that I think will do any good – – I grab a length of monowire and start wrapping it around the obstacles, creating as dense a weaving web as I can. Maybe I can catch the T-rex in that web. Snare him. Capture him. Escape. But he just kept coming.

About Rob Friesel