Everything is a game about everything.
It's important to have super-heroes that look like you. I have a family full of them. I got lucky.
Take my cousin, for instance. He's a gymnast, accomplished medical professional, and gifted technologist when computers were first starting to get their feet under them. A hard act to follow. I would come to visit their house and the scene was different depending on the day of the week.
A house full of beautiful girls doing tumbling runs in the living room framed by conversations about advances in diagnostic imaging and treatments for congestive heart failure. In the garage he had crates full of rare comic books and a Zeos 486 DX2 running at 66 MHz with 16 MB RAM and 384 MB hard drive with Windows 3.11 that he would just like, let me use.
Needless to say in my early teen's their house was literally heaven on earth and my cousin was basically black Batman; if Batman had a compulsively positive mental attitude, otherworldly work ethic, aversion to curse words and self-pity, and a moral integrity that conferred dignity and hope into every soul he met.
So not exactly like Batman, per se. He was closer to Superman canonically, but nobody wants to be Superman. Ok so maybe he was a Superman/Batman hybrid of sorts. He was actually into Marvel, so I don't think he would co-sign either comparison. I feel like I'm making this into more than it needs to be. You get the point.
Anyway, I just got word my cousin died in a hospital in a far off land. I don't know how or why. Just that it happened suddenly. All I know are words in a text.
At school I would tell all these stories about him. "My cousin can do tricks on a horse and he can do like a hundred flips and my cousin brought a guy back to life in the mall and my cousin knows how to make the internet!" Kids at school thought I was full of shit. They weren't wrong. Mostly. But they thought my cousin was another one of my tall tales. They were very wrong.
It's funny, A ways back the family was attending my other cousins graduation from law school up the street at the Balboa open air theatre. I was sitting next to my cousin when he turns to me with that omniscient smirk he was like to take on from time to time and says to me, "You know what, I envy you. You have known exactly what you have wanted to do your whole life. You are lucky." I remember being so confused. I go to Balboa and sit there often, trying to figure out what he meant.
I've been searching for a picture of us. I can't find any. I wish I took pictures now. I thought there was more time. I'm terrified I will forget his voice. Silly to think a picture preserves those things. Anyway, been a while, information. How's things? Also Jobs.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : Games : Voyagers Golden Record
