A Nikolas Searches For Love

A Nikolas was confused. He wanted a new monitor, as his own was old, and filled with deadly cathodes, and far too tubular. It was improper! So he had set out to replace it. But now he was lost! Lost in the gloomy aisles of Retail Hell.

He looked about himself. "Will anyone help me?" he wondered aloud. "I am but a poor boy, here to look for fancy liquid monitors."

A voice hissed at him, from the gloomy shelves filled with mysterious boxes. "You will search one likely spot, and you will search another."

"Well that's not very encouraging," a Nikolas complained. "Look, can you tell me where the Monitors are found?"

"But my mind is not at rest, for questions linger on. I will ask, and you will answer," the voice hissed in response.

A Nikolas spun around, looking for the voice's originator. He saw nothing in the swelling gloom. "Do you have to be so hostile?" he asked.

The voice seemed to reconsider. After a long pause, it hissed again, "Fate had us meet as foes - but this ring will make us brothers." Something slithered through the boxes behind a Nikolas; he turned to face it, but it shot back before he could properly see it. Where it had been, a ring lay, the only light in the eternal gloom of the Retail Hell. A Nikolas picked it up, noting that the light issued from one side of it only; pointing in the same direction, no matter how he turned it. He set out, walking away from the heart of darkness.

At length, he emerged into the luminous rivers of commerce, home of electronics. Still following the ring's relatively-dim glow, he found the liquid Monitors he sought. They glowed a lovely blue, and hovered, and whispered strange thoughts. Nikolas chose his favorite and departed. He was happy! He had gotten a Monitor, just as he wanted!

Then he got lost again. It was gloomy! And more than a bit creepy? "Are you there?" he asked the darkened corridors.

Giving a Nikolas a slight start (for all that he expected it), the voice hissed at him, "There is much talk, and I have listened, through rock and metal and time. Now I shall talk, and you shall listen."

"What?" inquired the Nikolas. "I just want to take my Monitor and go home..."

The voice hissed again: "Do not be afraid. I am peace; I am salvation."

A Nikolas was very frightened. He broke into a run, Monitor floating in his arms.

Shapes, black against black, extended from the gloom to block his way. "If you will not hear the truth, then I will show it to you." They slithered closer; touching a Nikolas, scraping along his jeans. "I am a timeless chorus. Join your voice with mine, and sing victory everlasting."

"Who are you?" a Nikolas asked, trying to bat away the shapes. For each one knocked away, two others came closer.

"I? I am a monument to all of your sins." the voice hissed once more. It was right on top of a Nikolas.

A Nikolas finally lost patience. Raising his Monitor, he smashed it into the shapes, dashing for freedom. He was guided by the ring once more; but now he ran away from the light.

He saw the light of the entrance, and cheered; then was stopped as shapes reached out and grabbed the Monitor away from him. It gibbered silently. The hissing mused, "This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded. This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded."

Desperate, a Nikolas could only pray. "Monitor, monitor of mine, o sim-sim - open the way to freedom!" he called out.

Nothing happened. A Nikolas gave into despair, as shapes closed in around him. Then light burst out; blinding, burning. A Nikolas felt the Monitor slip back into his hands. "Protocol dictated my response," it issued enigmatically, then returned to its usual mumbling.

A Nikolas, free at last, fled for the light. Hissing pursued him: "Do I take life or kill it? Who is victim, and who is foe?"

In the parking lot, getting into his car, a Nikolas collapsed. Starting limply at the steering wheel, he said, shell-shocked: "The horror! The horror!"

It was a grave experience!

And if you believe that the Nikolas has been thinking too much about Halo, you would be entirely correct.