Burn It All

The warrior bard slung his harp over his shoulder and drew his Sword of Righteous Indignation. There is a time to sing and a time to fight. A time to observe and a time to intervene. A time for the bard to defer to the warrior.

Saturday. My last day at work before moving. I was mildly disappointed that people had been fairly courteous on my last day, for I had been more than prepared to flip my Harvey Dent coin to determine their fate.

Meanwhile, in the mail, I had just received my letter of confirmation from the Department of So-And-So for the background check results for teaching Whatnot. Just in time, just as planned. The board was set, the pieces were moving. Time to GTFO.

It was my last night in St. Charles and I decided to execute it as I saw fit: to say good-bye in my own way. I went to Picasso’s first.

I will miss Picasso’s: The Art of Coffee and the Crooked Tree. Other than those two coffee shops, I could do without most of this town. Sure, St. Charles has some cool stuff to discover, but so does every other town. Franchises don’t count. Even Harrah’s and Ameristar are chains. They don’t count. So when I say, “I hate this town,” two coffee shops are exempt. In a matter of days, I am certain I will miss them sorely, so don’t you dare try to rub my nose in it when that time comes, because I just made the concession that not the entire town is a malignant tumor. And I should make a note that many of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met happened to work at coffee shops, for what it’s worth.

Honestly, I feel much the same way about most of Kansas City: it’s a museum of bad memories. It doesn’t have to be that way all the time, though. Once my luck finally turns for the better, I’m sure it will look much prettier everywhere I go. Except Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is like Minas Morgul.

But St. Charles… needs to be purged… in a cleansing fire.

I crossed the brick road, eying the upright bass through the window, suspecting I’d hit the jackpot. On my way in the door, I ran into three NPCs on their way out, two of whom I do believe I may have mentioned before: those two Japanese girls who never added me on Facebook like they said they would. Well, I thought, it’s a little late to look for tutors now. They didn’t recognize me, and I let them pass without greeting them. It didn’t matter much; it was just a minor cameo appearance in this finale, providing a very faint, ironic sense of closure.

In the back of my mind, I thought of Saga Frontier for PS1, where you can have up to fifteen characters—three groups of five—in your party. That leaves me with fourteen slots to fill… whom should I choose?

Picasso’s was dead. There were only a few people there by the time I showed up, so the band decided to call it a night early. So that was the last night out at Picasso’s for me.

”So I retreated once again into the moonless night, ever vigilant for an opportunity to punish the wicked…”
--One of the Good Guys, posted December 12.

”Nah. I didn’t want to go over budget just for the sake of playing the role of Avenging Angel on behalf of those in food/beverage service who can’t speak up for themselves.”
--Menagerie, posted December 8.

”I want to punish those who berate customer service employees who cannot defend themselves. I want to intimidate and humiliate those who intimidate and humiliate.”
--Avenging Angel, posted February 4.

So I left Picasso’s and went someplace else.

Shrouded in my Cloak of Anonymity, brooding with my pipe of Old Toby, I encountered another NPC. He was a senior at Truman State University, meaning that he had started one year after my departure. We compared notes and pieced together a big-picture understanding of the evolution of the town and its hangouts. The server, who by now had come to think of me as a “regular” and thus open to candor, had some cynical things to say about “his type” as soon as he left me alone.

”Finally, I decided that I was looking for two things: a good red lager and a memorable encounter with a total stranger.”
--Menagerie, posted December 8.

Well, it looks like this time I succeeded.

It seemed almost as though St. Charles was pulling its punches now, trying to convince me that it wasn’t all that bad. Even my customers on my last day were disarmingly courteous, after all. But I didn’t buy it. Too little, too late.

So there was one thing left to do…

Burn it all. St. Charles, St. Peters, St. Louis… all of it.

Burn it all… in a montage!

Delmar Loop. Countless college students and young professionals tore through the streets in terror. Anarchy prevailed as St. Louis Bread Co. exploded spectacularly. Bars, restaurants, vintage shops, clubs… all were deathtraps now.

Kayak’s coffee shop. All that wood served as kindling for a massive stretch of flames to cross the street and kiss the edges of Washington State University, very quickly ruining the art museum that snubbed the warrior bard twice in less than a year. In another world, this could have been the place to find the warrior bard, if one were so inclined, but that world never took form. Instead, the only world was one of fire and smoke. Ashes to ashes.

Westport. The warrior bard stalked purposefully through the panicking nobodies, making certain to torch every single building, every room, even every park bench in this vale of charlatans. Countless job applications, interviews, and rejections… all for jobs the warrior bard never wanted to have to apply for in the first place. Now the memories would be purged.

The St. Louis Arch. A resilient monument. Flames whipped up around it, and the arch swayed but held its ground. Even in Independence Day we never got to see it destroyed (though destruction was implied). The Arch endured, an immortal structure amidst a dying, smoldering city. The warrior bard vowed to return one day.

The forest trails along the river were engulfed in red and orange. Even Borders, the final Side Quest, was not safe from the Bard’s Inferno. They didn’t have my books in stock anyway. Screw ‘em.

The warrior bard sat on the roof of the towering Ameristar Hotel, burning beneath him. He played a soothing lullaby rather than a mournful requiem. As his song finished, a figure in white approached from the elevators.

It was the Personification of Saint Louis. The bard smiled and set his harp down, picking up his sword. Large CGI snowflakes were suspended in the air, never really landing on the ground. The moon showed through the clouds in bluish beams.

“Very well, Warrior Bard,” the Personification sneered. “If you want to personify me as a sentient menace, a mastermind of your despair, then here I am. Let’s finish this.”

The warrior bard gave a weak, humorless smile, his eyes distant. “This is the last night. You have no power anymore.”

The bard cast off his cloak and raised his sword in a high guard stance. The moonlight caught the sword, revealing ancient runes in the blade. The runes absorbed the moonlight as the choir howled in glory and awe, and the runes rearranged themselves to spell, in brilliant white light, “Orange Cream Soda.”

The Personification gasped and dropped his sword, clutching his temples. “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

The Personification crumbled into a pile of fliers for local restaurants.

The warrior bard sheathed his sword once more. No one could withstand the sheer power of the warrior bard’s self-referential humor. Even if they didn’t understand the jokes, the warrior bard still found it funny.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So my time here is at an end.

Ever since I left Kansas City, I have been through some really tough situations. One of the first things that happened in St. Charles was that whole crisis when I traveled back in time to destroy Craigslist before ever seeing that Overland Park free rent ad. That backfired on me, and I learned my lesson after finally mending the fractured timeline.

But then the machines rose up against me shortly thereafter. I was almost killed like seventeen times before surrendering. That sucked. I didn’t even do anything to start a crisis that time. I just got caught up in it because I refused to bow immediately. Sheesh.

And if it weren’t for the Captain, this whole city would be rotting zombies. What a perilous place this city has been.

And now it’s burning. It can’t hurt me anymore.

It’s Sunday. Time to head back to load up my car and GTFO. I’m going to cross the ashen wasteland back to the house, load up my car, and GTFO of St. Charles. So long, suburbia.