I’m afraid to post my experience on here, but you all have given me courage to talk about the Junji Ito Pinball Machine.
I told the owner of that place I’d never talk about it again after that afternoon…the sun sliding across the carpet, reminding us we shoulda been outside doing something wholesome. We kept telling ourselves we’d only play one more game. Slip in one more quarter. Funny thing is, I don’t even like pinball…I…I…really shouldn’t go on.
I can still recall the awful laughter. The awful laughter from the machine itself. That’s a Polaroid I took of it. Just to remind myself. To remind myself I wasn’t the only one who slipped away in that afternoon, the smell the baking dough of Theo’s Pizza next door.
I’m from a small town in Connecticut. The arcade left almost as soon as it opened. I told my father I just wanted to check it out while we waited for the pizza. He nodded and made for a quick beer run but told me to look after my brother, but after my experience the three of us would never see each other again.
The Polaroid above is surprisingly pristine after all these years. I had it tucked away in a Nike shoebox
for all these years.
Never knew a butcher knife could fly that fast, or that there exist cities under cities…but I’m getting ahead of myself again.
There’s just some people and some games you should never look too long at…like when they make your skin crawl, take it as sign. You can bury yourself, pretend things aren’t real, but in the end? You’re only fooling yourself. And deep down, you know, that’s impossible to do.
Kids at school, even when they tried to comfort me afterwards, never would corroborate my story that this place, this arcade, this lone pinball machine went up and down like a traveling circus. I may have able to lie myself about certain details, or I guess, willfully forget. But it WAS there. And we did, unfortunately, play it. Some people seem to be laughing it off or trying to do some internet searches for proof. And you know what? I envy you. I envy all of you. Prolly gonna delete this. I know it’s…I just can’t.