The Preface

The conceit of a preface is that it is typically penned by an author after a manuscript is finished.  It’s almost like a sort of legend (or disclaimer, if you want to look at it like that).  If there were, for instance, a preface at the beginning of an atlas of the United States (arranged alphabetically, without a miniature version of the entire country), it might read like this:  “While each of the fifty pages inside this book don’t appear to connect in any way whatsoever, trust me, they do, and this is how…”

While this preface may be presumed by the reader to have been written AFTER the completion of this work, let me assure you that that is furthest from the truth…  That is because I know how things go.  Life is dirty, haphazard.  It’s a patchwork of circumstances.  A cacophony of events that by themselves may each explode into some logical beginning, middle, and end, but not always.  In life, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts; we have so many of these little things added into the mix – the little “dead-ends” in life, things that we start and stop, never returning to again.  The only common thread would be the character(s).

Of course, I don’t need to point out that oftentimes “supporting” characters appear and disappear from the theatre of our lives without a flashing neon sign advertising the significance of their existence in our narratives.  I move that every single “minor” character in our lives sheds some microscopic part of themselves, which is then incorporated into our mental and/or physical being, nudging us – often just ever so slightly – onto another path.

It is often difficult to draw lines between every event in a person’s life…  If an author documented every moment of our lives into an objective, chronological history, invariably the harshest critics would tear it apart.  “Without structure” some would say.  Others would ask “What is the unifying theme?”  I would venture to guess that nearly 100% of those people went through life very much the same way.

In pinball, that little metal ball doesn’t have the luxury of contemplating its existence.  It is at the mercy of physics and the obstacles it encounters along the way.  Occasionally, some sort of outside force (vis a vis a player using the flippers) can effect some change on the ball’s trajectory and momentum.  Much like the events and people in our own lives.  But at the end of the day – much like us – there are two givens in the longevity of a pinball:  it is “born” and then it “dies.”

Between those two points lie 99.9999999999999999999% of the game….