war games

as i have accepted the various assignments over the past few weeks and have adjusted to the various offices, i am more and more reminded of games i used to play with my brother, shirt, when we were little.

our dad had a laptop issued to him from work that was a little outdated and for whatever reason, they let him hold on to it. he allowed us, in turn, to play space invaders and what-not on it. i programmed some things in basica and shirt and i would take the laptop out onto the back porch for our "mission" assignments.

we would read the data on the screen and then grab our guns and storm out into the darkness of the backyard (these sorts of games are only good late at night, you understand) and we would accost the invisible bad guys and take them back to our backporch bunker and hold them captive. at that point, one of the invisible bad guys would invariably escape and we would be forced to go back into the darkness and recapture him OR we'd be given a new mission on the laptop. the cycle was limited only by our imagination and waning energy as the night progressed.

in the same way that we made up excuses to hate the invisible bad guys and decide to chase after them, companies across the country chase down bad guys who have infiltrated their secrets to success or "misappropriated" funds. it's anyone's guess who will be the next in the neverending cycle of "get the bad guy" and "keep our club safe."

i still remember shirt practically refusing to play when i'd decided that i would be the bad guy. he was upset because he'd shot me and i wasn't falling down. i wasn't playing by the rules. but in some strange way, it's anyone's guess what the rules are. how do we know that we are all playing by the same rules? how do we know when we've crossed a line or, God forbid, THE line?

in the end, as i push papers around and enter data and have various documents dictated to me, i am reminded of the war games i played as a child. and i realise all of us are still playing some game or another. children in business suits. conquering the world.