Chapter 3 — Bowl
And thus begins Chapter Three.
Now, children.
Hostel.
We entered.
And immediately
smell.
The council stops.
What smell?
Children.
I do not know.
And I never investigated.
Some mysteries deserve solving.
Others arrive through your nostrils and immediately produce the instinct:
Do not seek the source.
The council nods solemnly.
This was the second kind.
Unpleasant.
Deeply.
Not ordinary hostel smell.
Not merely:
many young men live here and hygiene has become democratic.
No.
This had
origin.
Somewhere.
And whatever that origin was,
my soul wanted no visual confirmation.
The council opens an investigation.
Close it.
Immediately.
Archive law.
Smell existed.
Cause unknown.
May it remain buried.
So we proceeded.
Through the hostel.
Up stairs.
Then
more stairs.
The council looks toward Story Nuo.
Ascending?
Yes.
Complaints?
Probably.
But children,
weed was upstairs.
My lungs could negotiate with management later.
We climbed.
And eventually
room.
Hex’s room.
Or perhaps more accurately
the room in which Hex had been allocated a horizontal human storage slot.
The council pauses.
Because inside?
Bunk beds.
Many.
Too many.
Children.
There is a number of bunk beds a room can contain before it stops being accommodation
and becomes geometry.
This room had crossed that number.
Beds beside beds.
Beds above beds.
Everything packed together with the kind of spatial engineering I had previously encountered only in puzzle games.
The council studies the layout.
Visible floor?
Almost none.
Exactly.
The room appeared less like:
several individual beds.
And more like
one giant sleeping platform.
Lower layer:
mattresses assembled into a continuous continent.
Upper layer:
another continent floating above it.
Children.
Civilization had invented bunk bed tectonics.
The council nods.
Where was Hex’s bed?
Excellent question.
There were no meaningful labels.
Bed one?
No.
Bed two?
No.
Left bunk?
Which left?
Right bunk?
Children.
Look around.
Every direction contains bed.
So we adopted the only sensible navigational system.
Quadrants.
The council pauses.
Quadrants?
Quadrants.
Hex lived
bottom platform.
Near Quadrant Two.
The council attempts to identify it.
Which section is Quadrant Two?
That one.
I point aggressively.
There.
Children.
You understand.
Not mathematically.
Spiritually.
Somewhere in the lower mattress empire,
Hex had claimed territory.
That was home base.
For now.
I climbed into the region.
Bag down.
Then
laptop.
The council becomes reverent.
Ah.
The second sacred object of the pilgrimage.
Correct.
Because this weekend had two pillars.
Agriculture.
Dota.
And Dota required infrastructure.
My laptop came out of the bag.
Placed beside Hex’s.
Hex’s machine already there.
Two devices.
Two gamers.
One cramped hostel room.
Stalker
awaiting us digitally.
Children.
The temple was ready.
We pressed power.
And then
wait.
The council looks confused.
Why wait?
Children.
Because this was an older era.
Laptops did not always wake instantly.
At least ours didn’t.
Today,
you press button,
screen appears,
life continues.
Back then?
Ceremony.
Power button.
Pause.
Fan begins.
A mechanical whine somewhere inside the laptop translates roughly to:
Kill me now.
The council hears it.
Whrrrrrrrrrr.
Exactly.
Screen glows.
Logo.
Loading.
More loading.
Maybe desktop.
Not yet.
Fan increases intensity.
Children.
Our laptops sounded like they were personally offended by software.
Every boot up was a negotiation between ambition
and cooling systems.
So while technology slowly resurrected
Hex presented the quest objective.
The council turns.
Bag.
Weed.
Silence.
Children.
There it was.
The reason.
The pilgrimage reward.
Low tier Chennai pot.
Beautiful.
Not aesthetically.
Probably not chemically impressive either.
But emotionally?
Magnificent.
Because dry Nuo had crossed twelve hours for this.
And now
supply.
Acquired.
The council updates:
PRIMARY QUEST:
SUCCESS.
Now came preparation.
But children,
I had no intention of interrupting the Dota marathon every few matches
to perform repeated agricultural administration.
Efficiency.
We had a weekend itinerary.
Smoke.
Dota.
Repeat.
The system needed scalability.
So I prepared the supply for the session.
No elaborate ritual.
No constant rolling.
Children.
That would require attention.
Attention belonged to Dota.
Instead
one bowl.
Ready.
The council raises an eyebrow.
Bowl?
Yes.
Not culinary.
Obviously.
The weed prepared for simple bong shots
so that future Nuo could remain mechanically focused on what truly mattered:
ruining five strangers’ evening in a multiplayer game.
The council nods.
No pausing mid queue.
No:
Wait, I need to roll.
No.
Infrastructure established.
Then
first puff.
Children.
Quest officially consumed.
The twelve hour pilgrimage justified.
The council waits for enlightenment.
None.
This was not Rishikesh.
No spiritual revelation.
No letting go.
No mountain consciousness.
Just
high.
Good.
Exactly as ordered.
Hex beside me.
Laptop finally alive.
Dota opening.
And somewhere beyond Chennai
Stalker.
Online.
The council smiles.
Party assembled.
Not physically.
But close enough.
Nuo.
Hex.
And Stalker,
spiritually and digitally present.
The trio.
By this point,
our nightly ritual was deeply established.
Queue.
Draft.
Game.
Win.
Lose.
Complain.
Queue again.
Children.
Dota 2 friendships are built through repeated exposure to crisis.
You learn a person.
Not through:
What’s your favourite colour?
No.
Through:
Do they panic when the base is under attack?
Do they blame everyone else?
Do they stay calm?
Do they buy the correct item?
Do they suddenly decide to initiate a fight while the entire team is somewhere else?
The council nods.
Character revealed.
And Stalker?
Part of our rhythm now.
Girlfriend.
Teammate.
Cheerleader when required.
Insulter when deserved.
Hex?
Best friend.
Manager of Nuo.
Teammate.
And me?
Children.
At this particular stage of life
Dota addict.
Pot addict.
Currently supplied.
Currently reunited with Hex.
Weekend optimized.
The council checks the itinerary.
SMOKE:
Complete.
DOTA:
Ready.
REPEAT:
Pending.
Excellent.
I logged in.
Hex logged in.
Stalker joined.
Voices perhaps through headset.
Messages.
The familiar interface.
Hero portraits.
Menus.
Children.
Home.
Not the hostel.
Absolutely not.
The hostel smelled like an unresolved crime scene.
No.
Home was
this.
The game loading.
Friends connected.
No expectation beyond the next match.
The outside city disappeared immediately.
Chennai?
Irrelevant.
Traffic?
Irrelevant.
Beaches?
Unknown to current objectives.
Demonetisation?
Future inconvenience.
For now?
Dota.
The council nods.
And this is where Present Nuo differs so sharply from Story Nuo.
Present Nuo might look at that hostel and think:
Record this.
The room.
The bunks.
The impossible geometry.
The weird fan noise.
The scooter outside.
The streets.
Something.
Anything.
Because now I know how memory decays.
Now I know details vanish.
Now I know a smell survives while the staircase does not.
But Story Nuo?
Children.
He was not archiving.
He was living.
Poorly,
perhaps.
But fully.
The room did not matter.
The city did not matter.
The journey barely mattered.
He had arrived at the only point of importance.
Pot.
Laptop.
Hex.
Stalker.
The council smiles.
Simple man.
Very.
We settled into Quadrant Two.
Perhaps knees folded.
Perhaps backs against walls or bunks.
The exact posture does not survive.
Only the setup.
Two laptops side by side.
One supply beside us.
One girlfriend joining remotely.
And then
Find Match.
The council hears the click.
Children.
There are buttons that change lives.
Send.
Buy ticket.
Answer call.
Hop on.
And then there is:
Find Match.
Which mostly changes the next forty five minutes
and your blood pressure.
Still important.
Click.
Queue begins.
We waited.
Maybe talked.
Maybe insulted the matchmaking system pre emptively.
Maybe Stalker complained again that we were high and she wasn’t.
The Archive does not invent exact dialogue.
But the mood?
Perfect.
This was precisely what I had travelled for.
No sightseeing.
No adventure.
No meaning.
At least not yet.
Just the particular luxury of returning to a familiar routine
with a person who had moved away.
Hex physically beside me again.
Stalker digitally with us.
And the game.
Children.
Perhaps that was more of a reunion than the hug.
The hug said:
I missed you.
Find Match said:
We are back.
The council grows quiet for half a second.
Present Nuo thought?
Yes.
Story Nuo?
Queue popped.
Correct.
The familiar sound.
Match found.
Children.
All philosophical processing terminated.
Accept.
Hex accepts.
I accept.
Stalker accepts.
Ten players assembled somewhere across the internet.
The battlefield loads.
And the Chennai marathon
begins.
The council opens the operational schedule.
MATCH ONE.
Then?
Another.
Then?
Another.
How many?
Children.
This chapter does not know.
That belongs to what comes next.
For now,
only the beginning.
The pilgrimage had succeeded.
The hostel had been entered.
The suspicious smell survived without investigation.
Quadrant Two had been located.
Laptops had completed their lengthy resurrection ceremony.
Supply had been prepared.
The first smoke had happened.
The trio had assembled.
And one little button sat beneath the cursor.
Find Match.
Click.
Children.
Luxury weekend
officially underway.
Thus concludes Chapter Three.
The Unidentified Smell Of Fear.
The Staircase.
The Bunk Bed Continent.
Quadrant Two.
The Ancient Laptop Boot Ceremony.
The Fans Begging For Death.
The Bag Of Low Tier Chennai Pot.
The Efficient Agricultural Preparation.
The First Puff.
The Digital Arrival Of Stalker.
The Reunion Of The Trio.
And
Find Match.
Children.
I had crossed twelve hours for this.
Two laptops.
One cramped bunk.
Hex beside me.
Stalker in the party.
Pot within reach.
And Dota loading.
The council checks Story Nuo’s happiness.
High.
Literally and otherwise.
The queue popped.
We accepted.
And the marathon began.
