Whiskey

Kyle started drinking his third glass of whiskey in fifteen minutes “Dude, slow down. If you’re drunk you can’t talk about it.” He drank a third of it anyway, then set it down on the coffee table next to the couch he was half lying on, half sitting on. We were in my room, or the part of it closer to my door, where I have a couch for some reason.

Actually wait, this thing can’t fit through the door, how did it get in here?

“I don’t know what to say man,” He said looking up at the ceiling, “You were there, you know what happened, what more could you need to know?”

“I don’t need to know anything, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Do you really need to ask that question?”

“No, that’s- that’s not what I meant, I want to make sure you leave okay.”

He drank more of his whiskey, leaving about half left, “Well, what do you suggest we do?”

“Wanna play Rocket League?”

“Fuck yeah.”

I got up, and turned on my desktop. The fans hummed quietly to life, The lights inside the nearly pure tempered glass case turned on and started to slowly change colors. The BIOS prompted me for my drive passcode. I typed in the thirty character code, and hit enter.

While the computer started up, I got a smaller glass, went back over to the couch, and poured myself half a glass of whiskey, then drank about a fourth of it. “You’re gonna drink too?” “Yeah,” I set my glass down, “Rocket League is always better a slight bit drunk, and even better if the person who’s playing is completely drunk.”

I got back up, and logged into my account, started up steam, then Rocker Leauge. I grabbed the controller on the top of my computer, walked back to Kyle. He entered the queue for a 3v3 game. “You’ve always been a good friend to me,” Kyle nearly sobbed, “I live on the other side of LA, and you just decided to drive two hours to drive me home.” He laughed slightly, “You’re crazy, man.”

The game put him into a match, on the orange team. The countdown lasted a century. Even when drunk, Kyle kicks ass at Rocket Leauge; he pushed the ball to the other side; he dribbled the ball around the field until eventually a player on the blue team stole the ball from him. The possession changed team a few times, until the blue team eventually made a goal when all of the orange team was on the other half of the field.

“Fuck, how’d he do that?”

“I think it’s something to do with the fact you abandoned the goal to try and score.”

“You know why I like sports, Anthony? They’re the ultimate metaphor for humans. They bring out the most natural of behavior in us. When we’re playing basketball with the team, we work together, we trust each other, we always work to the team’s benefit; but when you put someone in an environment like Rocket Leauge, nothing similar really happens; everyone, including myself, only uses each other to benefit themselves. I dunno man, it’s probably just my drunkenness talking.”

“Actually no, that’s really deep, how’d you think of that?”

“I dunno, I don’t currently have the mental capacity to find out.”

Kyle scored a goal. “Oh wow, nice one.”

“Thanks”

The game continued; the blue team held the ball for a bit, then the orange team, then the blue team, and so on. Eventually, the score got to 2 versus 2, which means that the next round was sudden death: whoever scores first wins. Kyle spawned more toward the goal, which automatically obliges him the role of goalie.

The ball went back and forth for three minutes.

The ball was coming back towards Kyle’s goal, there were one of each of his teammates on each side, chasing the enemy looking to score, the other two were following his teammates. The enemy shot the ball, and Kyle blocked it, passing the possession to is teammate on the right of his field. Kyle headed down to the open goal at the other end of the field, he wanted to score, he saw the chance. The ball was passed to his teammate on the left side of the field. Kyle jumped, and took the ball for himself, he dribbled the ball straight down the field, and got the ball stolen from him.

The enemy who stole the ball passed it to his teammate who tried to score just before, and hit the ball right into the goal.

Kyle set down the controller, and finished the rest of his whiskey.

“Fuck, I did it again.”

“Kyle, I was thinking a bit about what you said earlier. Humans only work together because it is beneficial for them to do so, objectively we only give a shit about each other because it’s better for us. We work better when we know our teammates than when we don’t; because when we know them, the stakes are higher.”

“Shit, man, that’s deep.”

“Yeah…”