Yeah. I Cant Really Explain It, You Know?

“Yeah. I can’t really explain it, you know?”

“It’s a little unnerving. Even the big dinosaurs, big as houses or more— they can just slip away from the cameras and the sensors. Sure, Arnie can pull up a bio-map right now on the big screen like it’s the Super Bowl and show where everybody’s at, but, they just vanish. Into the undergrowth, into the trees. Like they were never there. That’s the thing with dinosaurs I don’t think people get. They’re fast. They’re quiet. It’s not like an elephant, even the Apatosaurs and the Brachiosaurs, they’re huge, and they move so gracefully.. It can make your goose flesh pop.”

“A lot of screen watching on all six main habitats, and I’d say we see an animal maybe, a third of the time. It’s easier than you think to feel like they’ve gotten loose. Had to send Muldoon down there a few times, see if everybody is still in the paddocks and safe. Don’t even get me started on the Raptors, Christ. When we see them, sure as hell feels like they want you to..”

I am destructive

The Great Hunt.

She runs through the snow, breathing hard. Every tree a charcoal sketch against white. Naked as every leafless, grasping branch above.

The Hunter.

Striding and perfect. Inhuman. Taller than any man, who wears the night like mortals wear their cloaks and coats. Sword whispering to him of its insatiable hunger. The pale Moon above is his God.

The Chase.

Between skeletal forest fingers and down across yawning frigid rivers, cold scouring everything in blissful numbness. The wind howling, the Hunter laughing hollow as breaking bones.

The Capture.

Ensnared. A net that brings welling redness from a thousand fine cuts across pristine skin. The bone-breaking laughter emanating from the dark. Promises of liberating pain, gifts that burn and boil and bleed.

HALO: GREEN AND BLUE; an Essay

One of my favorite moments in *Halo* can be completely missed without so much as a blink. You can (and I certainly did) *run* right over it, several times. In the level *Requiem*, attempting to reactivate the Cartographer and beneath a gleaming Forerunner bridge, is a strange artifact at the end of a small chamber. It’s a medallion, the omnipresent symbol for the Mantle and Reclaimers. Interacting with it yields a brief but meaningful interaction between Cortana, the Master Chief, and the mysterious environment around them. Cortana recognizes bits and pieces of Forerunner lore, Chief understands that it holds no pragmatic value in saving his friend and returning them home, and Requiem beckons. Silent, unknown, and rich with an ancient history.

I played through *Halo 4*, and subsequently ran right over this little piece of storytelling, numerous times. And now, after discovering it, I have played through and interacted with this medallion of the Mantle. It’s overall tiny addition to an already meaningful campaign to me represents something genuinely exciting for what the future of *Halo* could mean. *Halo 4* especially is rife with what 343 has manifested in different forms across all of its entries. Wandering around Requiem especially: things feel big, beautiful, majestic, in a way that is entirely unique to that game. Even the smaller, “on-rail” hallways and rooms feel *big* in the sense that at some point in development, even conceptually, it feels like a prime direction to be explored was genuine exploration. Guns down, monolithic spaces with an ethereal and mysterious vibe that feels like they would’ve been even more impressive, more meaningful, with something like that Medallion in *Requiem*: sentinels unfurling from Forerunner gateways like eerie metallic insects, the vividly alive machinery of the Shield World moving and pulsing as John and Cortana quietly converse.

*Guardians*, as well, explored this formula further with the actual realizations of its weapons-down missions. The two protagonist fireteams in a beautifully realized space, interacting briefly with NPCs and scannables. This was one of the best parts of that game, and felt like a deeply exciting glimpse into the future. Sanghelios and Meridian especially highlighted the depth of *Halo* as a universe, whether it was hearing Grunts alongside their Elite counterparts admiring a sunset, or hardy frontier types on an Outer Colony telling Spartans to get lost. Cheesy as it could be, *Guardians* felt like a step towards worlds that were more alive.

Enter *Halo: Infinite*. Lauded rightly for its detailed environmental storytelling (and criticized for an incomplete open world), *Infinite* feels somewhat like a step back. Maybe less instead of a deliberate drop in quality, and more because of a lack of capitalizing on those previous successes. FOBs, marine squads, and High Value Targets are all positive additions, but are lacking in connection. Imagine a *Halo: Infinite* where singular marines or rescued squads could be interacted with as NPCs, ascertaining the location of areas of interests or even just hearing a story of how someone was captured, a war story from back when this particular veteran survived against the Covenant. Imagine interacting with hidden Forerunner terminals and unlocking new ways of transport and exploration like hidden passageways, teleports, or interesting tools of engagement like friendly turrets and Sentinels. *Halo: Infinite* has all the tools to create a cohesive narrative-connected-world, and instead drops the ball.

- An exciting way of telling stories in Halo should reflect the mindsets of its characters. Cortana was curious, but driven by cleverness and an infiltrators mind. The Weapon is curious, but guided by naive excitement and interest, perfect for introducing complex concepts to generalized audiences. Master Chief (and Blue Team should they return) is pragmatic, determined, and fiercely aware. Locke (and Fireteam Osiris should they return) are more multifaceted, made up of specialist/intelligence operatives, somewhere between cautious and curious, intuitive to out-of-the-box solutions.

- Marines are a staple of *Halo*. Elites, NPC Spartans, even Sentinels and other Forerunner constructs should become outlets for genuine interaction. Let me talk to my allies at a FOB, let me engage with freed marines or even have little things like radio chatter out in the field, etc. *Far Cry 5* does this surprisingly well where any number of NPC groups can be interacted with, spoken to, and information gleaned. The world feels much more alive and fluid where instead of placing a marker on a map I follow, I can listen to someone directly, and then follow said directions at my leisure or pace.

- Give me tools, mysteries, and adventures to interact with. The environment of Zeta Halo is absolutely stunning. It’s also incredibly empty of anything that feels remotely *present*. There’s nothing to touch, nothing to stumble into that responds to the presence of a Reclaimer or a Meddler. Nothing. Nothing replicates that brief, wonderful moment under the bridge in Requiem. Zeta Halo especially is fantastic for this kind of innovation because it seems at one time or another that was the intention: large caves, Forerunner pylons, and numerous empty chambers seem to indicate heavily that one point or another the environment was much more lively. Give us signals that lead to Domain-intertwined areas, or terminal areas filled with more than just a few shielded enemies and an upgrade cache.

*Halo* has an astoundingly rich universe. That’s why we’re here. Regardless of the mistakes and missteps 343 has taken in each of the entries into the franchise, I am in the belief that the games have improved in one way or another, even if they’re small or isolated. *Infinite* is the skeletal outline of something that could be so much bigger, so much more immersive, and innovative.

Road Trip

This town is dust. Wooden buildings turned to half sand-submerged memories. Rusting train tracks to nowhere, empty, their iron horses like so many beached metal bones. Wind whistles between gaping doors, across barren frames.

___________________________________

Lights blaze up and down the Highway, islands of illumination standing proud against so much desert emptiness. We pass them one night, surprised how crowded the emptiness has suddenly become, but we’re too keen to stop and press on. Maybe later, we say, laughing.

We pass them again the next four nights, the exact same buildings.

Their lights are harshly bright, glaring.

On the fifth night, shadows of backlit forms stare out from their windows. The radio hisses with hostile static and the sun refuses to rise. We can’t see any stars. There are no stars. Just the lights, the shadows.

——————————————————————

*”Any volunteers?”*, implores the Man on Stage. His grin is big and white, almost leering.

Hot, dry wind blows. There are words there, like someone pressing a secret into your soul but they’re snatched into silence as quick as they came.

*”Any volunteers?”*, says the Man on the Stage again, but now is looking down into an unfamiliar face, his grin like a crescent moon, an omen. Hands sloughed by merciless winds and scorching sun reach out, fleshless, tender.

The crowd is all looking. Watching. Bottomless sockets so empty, and so hungry.

The noose sways, inviting and open as the blue sky looming. It fits around your neck like it was all meant to be.

______________________________________

There are smiles on all the billboards.

The teeth are fangs, caked and smeared with redness.

There are smiles on all the billboards.

The mouths are opened to black gullets.

There are smiles on all the billboards.

______________________________________

Old Friends in WV

Accusations make the coffee bitter. The stranger doesn’t like his coffee bitter, if you can call his creamy slurry *coffee* at all. It’s the only thing the waitress has brought him since he arrived. Steady rain knocks at the window like it’s curious how he managed to pass through it without getting wet.

He’s pouring another dose of cream, unperturbed, while the diner stares at him. Twenty minutes ago it had been a vibrant place; workers between shifts meeting for their coffee and rumors, long distance haulers catching their moments relaxation. It had all slowly peeled away into silence. The stranger did not belong, tall and thin except for wide, heavy shoulders that hung like wings behind his coat a season too heavy. His shadow does not belong. He knows them all.

The stranger doesn’t need to lift his eyes, methodically stirring the concoction in his mug, to feel it. The spoon orbits the curve of the mug once, twice, nine times without scarcely a ripple. When he lifts the mug to his thin lips there is a man opposite him, broad and heavyset.

“Where you from?” It’s a blunt object as much as a question, and a nations worth of paranoia hangs behind the words. This man believes he should be afraid of foreign men in suits, invaders and nuclear bombs tucked into tidy suitcases. But the stranger can sense the deeper fear hiding behind his anger.

“The hell you smiling for?”

The stranger leans back, relaxed. Somewhere in the diner, a phone rings. No one moves to reach it, but every soul in the room feels its tug. Tommy Nichols most of all.

*Because, Tommy, we’re old friends. Don’t you remember?*

Tommy Nichols without warning, becomes a statue carved from terror. The anger that bubbled up out of him, like an animal trapped and caged striking at capturing hands, it vanishes into the cold in his stomach. Tommy Nichols remembers the phone calls. The nightly, incessant phone calls, rising out of bed in the dark, fumbling for a phone that rooted in place seems to run away from him. Listening to the clicking, hissing nothing from the receiver. Waiting. Every night, waiting for something, standing alone in the living room until the silence blended into sounds, and the sounds into words.

Words that he could not bear to remember. Words that come now like black wings across fifty nights.

The stranger turns his gaze to the others, stands. Moments ago they felt emboldened, maybe even ready to strike him. But now they look, all of them, exactly the same as they did in the dark, listening to the phone whisper its designs into their ears. Afraid, deliciously afraid.

*We are all friends*, the stranger says, smiling, *but I don’t believe you know my name*.

The strangers voice is a whisper, the itching familiarity that has lingered with every nightmare and half-remembered waking. It has tiptoed across every mind behind a booth or on a stool in the place, fingers brushing their every waking moment like a rising chill.

*Cold. My name is Cold*.