Conversation · Cornelius Gurdi and the Mountain Goats

The machine is dead and silent. It needs serious maintenance before anyone can play again.

Over there, in the corner?

Ignore the machine.

The pinball machine?

Not just any pinball machine. This is the pinnacle of pinball. 'Cornelius Gurdi and the Mountain Goats'. It's lit. You can't wait to get your hands on it.

'Lit' - a phrase almost synonymous with the Insulindian pinball scene. Any pinball scene really.

No, I'm out. [Leave.]

"Wait, you've played it?"

"A little."

Feels like a lot. Too much to play it again.

"Let's take a closer look." (Pull out the machine.)

"Oh, great." The lieutenant sighs.

'CORNELIUS GURDI AND THE MOUNTAIN GOATS' reads the golden lettering on top of the backbox. There's a small column of text underneath it. The machine is coin-operated.

Get the game on, finger-boy! Those flippers are ready.

Inspect the playing field.

The theme of the game is to explore Gurdi’s climb through the perspective of goats, and to ascend to the top of the mountain in a time of trouble.

The peak of the mountain is at the top of the playfield. All the balls have small goat icons on them, and represent the goats as they race up and down the mountain.

Areas around the playfield represent Gurdi’s climb: Places he was said to have camped, which the goats can discover. Get them to the summit!

Insert coin.

It takes a while to get into a rhythm, but pretty soon you're able to keep three goat-faced balls in play with with relative ease.

Go-go, finger-boy!

"I feel sorry for the goats. If they only knew the kind of guy old Cornelius really was..."

"Enough with the fun." [Leave.]

"Wait, what 'kind of guy' was he then?"

"The kind of a guy who uses the word 'savages' a lot when recounting his travels. A Mesque nationalist."

"A racist mountaineer?"

"An avid huntsman too," the lieutenant adds. "He was often photographed in his dining hall, surrounded by wall-mounted hunting trophies from every continent."

"Technically the human beings are at the top of the food-chain, so..."

"He also hit his wife. And kids. Other people's kids too. Sometimes pets. Hateful little man."

That's what they should've turned into a pinball game.

"But you seem to be having fun?" He nods at the machine.

"That is not cool."

"I'm pretty good at this." (Continue playing.)

Your game is definitely improving. The jolly goats are flying all over the board and although a few plummet to their deaths you're never left with less than three.

Natural selection.

Suddenly a special passage, leading to the summit, slides open at the top of the board. This is where the balls need to go.

Concentrate and aim for the narrow passage.

Maneuvering a goat-ball into a position for a perfect hit isn't easy. More fall to their deaths, but finally the opportunity presents itself. One of them gets through.

Tiny hammer shatters something inside the machine. Something glass.

An ampoule?

The last one.

The words 'PALE RUPTURE' light up on the speaker panel and the machine starts filling with a thick milky fog... something's happening.

"Congratulations." The lieutentant nods. "This is where the game ends. It's a cheap way of getting more money out of the players. A stupid, nihilistic finale."

There's so much fog you can barely see anything. Some is actually leaking out of the machine and one by one your goats start slipping, disappearing into the milky nothingness.

Lucky goats. The fog looks soft and inviting.

This can be navigated. The balls leave an almost imperceptible 'disruptions' in the fog. Use them to calculate where they hit next.

Hit the pads as fast as you can, maximum attack -- not even a bullet can get through!

The amount of focus it takes to predict when a ball-goat is in striking range is staggering, but it can be done. Focus!

You're down to your last goat, going mostly by sound -- eyes are useless at this point -- but that goat is something special. Five times you snatch him back from the jaws of death.

You're in a perfectly balanced system, where neither you nor the pale is able to get the upper hand. This could go on forever.

"Cuno, I'm killing it -- watch me play!"

The kid doesn't reply. He's squinting, eyes desperately trying to pierce the relentless fog.

"Why do they even make these if it's impossible to win?!" [Give up, winning is too stressful.]

"Mhmh, I've been wondering the same."

There goes nothing, finger-boy.

The kid shrugs, clearly relieved to get going.

Stay on the ball.

With automaton-like precision you keep the final goat-ball in play, reacting to the tiniest stimuli, floating in the flow state. The fog is clearing and suddenly the old speaker crackles:

"GURDI-BALL IS LIT!"

"Huh?"