As I’ve walked up and down the levels of Arcadia recently people have begun to offer me things in order to get me to part with my credits.
Stuff to make me forget…
Things to make me remember…
Items to numb my pain…
They think from their little merch tables that they can sell me the cure for my pain and lament. They feel they’ll be able to illuminate my life through their methods, but you can’t reignite a candle when the wick has been removed.
But still, these salesmen continue to feed me every bit of snake oil they can think of to get me to buy in. But their persistence only leads to them picking splinters from their ass and them needing new tables.
Albert, I know you’d be one of their numbers if the ACA wasn’t so far up your backside.
But hey, I’m no stranger to Illumination Antiques. I knew your father, I knew his business, and I knew his products.
So, what do you have to sell me, Lil’ Albie?
A hat that I can wear to make the memories that trouble me vanish while it consumes every pleasant memory affiliated with it as well. Nah, my memories make me who I am the good with the bad.
Oh, maybe it’s a mirror that reminds me of all the pleasant things I experienced with Michaela. Giving me all the warm fuzzies to lift me up. No, that would be no good either, you see my memories are from the outside looking in.
Or perhaps you have a good armchair for me where I can just sit in it and feel a pleasant calm, a drift in a wash of serenity, as numb as if I had bathed in Novocain. That’d be nice, but I don’t like that overly medicated feeling.
You see Albert, you’re the paragon of the rest snake oil salesman. Offering solutions to illuminate my life, but all it will do is rob me of it. You’re what they aspire to be.
But I plan to make an example of you, one that will echo through the levels of Arcadia.
As the table breaks under your weight, the sound of will make those following in your footsteps forget the desire to do so.
The sight of your crumpled body in the rubble will force them to remember my tolerance for your line of business is limited.
Numbing all of them to their core and making them think twice before putting that merch table back on the corner.
So this week Nobody’s buying in, Nobody’s making a purchase, and Nobody’s going to put you out of business.
But fear not as you look up at me picking the remnants of your shattered merch table from your ass.
But don’t worry Albert, Nobody will remember to hang the “closed” sign for you.