General Jacob Gallbladder and the Art of War part VI

Chapter 2

Sometimes it’s difficult being friends with a poindexter like Kenny. You can be in the same room and in two different worlds at the same time. As we’d agreed the day before, we both decided to take the day off, and after our parents had gone to work Kenny slipped out and joined me at my place. It really didn’t take more than a minute before we wound up in separate corners of the room. On my TV was the next big thing in gaming. In his hands was what seemed a tremendous leap backwards.

“What is that? Chess?”

“No it is not Chess. It’s the Legend of the Sword Song.” He proclaimed proudly.

“Looks like Chess.”

“This is a turn based tactical war simulation set in a rich fantasy world detailing the tragic and quixotic lives of a group of troubadors who try to stop a civil war.”

“So it’s chess. If chess were also a book.” Kenny frowned at my assertion but didn’t disagree. In general, that means he doesn’t have any way to counter your argument.

Which was fine by me because I didn’t want him to know that I had no idea what “quixotic” meant.

Still, let it not be said that Kenny doesn’t handle defeat like a winner though. Years of Gordon’s abuse had accustomed him to it. He sighed as he snapped down the lid of his little handheld system, putting it in standby. “Okay, fine. Whatever. What’s important is that I thought of a solution.”

For a moment, I didn’t even know what he was talking about. If I had, I’d probably have said something smarter than “Huh?”

Kenny slipped his system into a protective case, which he then placed in a larger case, and deposited in a cushioned area inside his backpack. After zipping it all closed he stood and stretched. “About Gordon,” he began “I think we should fight fire with fire.”

“Wouldn’t that just make a bigger fire?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Oh.” I thought about that for a moment but I wasn’t sure how a bigger fire would solve our problem. Or any problem for that matter. Outfitting the fire department with flamethrowers instead of houses sounded like a terrible idea to me. I was half convinced that Kenny would attempt to convince me of some Science Fiction style Nega-Fire, metaphysical wavelength that would stop fires or something equally crazy. “I’m not really sure how that helps us.”

Kenny snorted. “You’re just not thinking politically.”