To The Geekier Go The Spoils

          Let me state right of the bat this one point, You're Welcome. If you are wondering just what Mouse With A Machete, can do for you that is wondrous and amazing at this time, I bring you a post that not timely, nor topical. The results of the election, and the up coming month of madness are not featured or discussed herein. As a point, that should be made, I have already written too much about these topics in telling you I will not mention them further. So anyway, without another syllable of prologue, enjoy. 

Versus The Wall

They called him The Wall, because he always seemed to disappear into blank white space as you stared into his empty gray eyes.  He sat, straight backed with his hands clasped in front of him, on the Champion’s Table. This man had never been defeated and he was all that stood between me and victory, glory, and women.  It had been a long hard road since I signed my name on the competitors list at noon. It was now almost one and I left behind me a wake of steady-eyed carnage. I had taken out Lazy-eye Joe in an instant. The Conjunctivator was a worse challenge. The oozing pink goo made keeping eye contact difficult. After a long struggle of more than a minute the affliction that turned my stomach ended the engagement when the pink-eyed freak was forced to blink. It was a Pyrrhic victory. I had to reject the half-time hot-dogs because my stomach was still unsettled by the disgusting eye disease.

All that was behind me as I climbed the steps of the stage for my final contest. I nodded a greeting to my competitor which was not returned, and took my seat across from him. We both removed our glasses in preparation for the  battle. He sat motionless as I tensed and relaxed my hands, and rubbed my knuckles into my eyelids. His hands remained gently folded, and I placed mine flat on the table between us and leaned forward. The referee spoke.

“Ok boys, I wanna see a good clean fight, now.There’ll be no speaking, no making faces of any kind. This is the big show now so there’ll be no time limit, no ties. This is a battle to the blink!” We nodded our ready and the ref raised the indexes of both his hands and counted down “2...1...stare”

The first thing I was ever taught about staring contests, beside don’t look away, was too keep your breathing even. I counted my breaths, four in and four out, and locked my eyes on the gray pools before me. A true contender knows that looking at something and placing your eyes on it are very different actions, and the latter is the key to victory. The Wall knew this, too,  because I watched his eyes glaze over as mine did. He wasn’t seeing me at all, and less than a second later I wasn’t seeing him.  I felt a bead of sweat of my neck as I became aware of the judges watching us, two on each of us and one on the table. It’s an awful lot of people to be hanging around when you are doing your level best not to be distracted. I tried to return my thoughts to my breath in-2-3-4 out-2-3-4, but it was no use. The cloth on the table began to darken at the edges of my hands. I was a goner.
Silence is required during preliminary matches, though there is always a few minutes of loud celebration after each one. This is not the case at the final bout. After the starers pass the one minute mark anything goes from the audience. There are bets laid between fans on who will distract the players first, and by what means. It is, with certainty, a beautiful woman who takes home that prize. Once a man lost his concentration at the flashing of the side of a small but lovely breast. This year’s victor was chosen when his competition was distracted by a woman’s scent. Just a spritz of perfume was added to air near our platform. I enjoyed the familiar smell but my opponent, The Wall, was allergic. Not a second after the olfactory assault his nose wrinkled, his eyes teared, and yes, yes, he sneezed! The judges called it. I was the winner! I searched the crowd for the lady, my savior who sprayed the perfume. It was impossible to find her, there must have been ten people in that room. I shouted “Who was she? Where did she go!” as grabbed and shook the shoulders of my friend and coach. “Where is the girl with the perfume?” He just looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“There was no girl, dude. It was the Febreze Ninjas. They sprayed the whole crowd.” I hung my head. My deliverer was not a fair and lovely maiden, sure to join me in the hentai viewing room, but a small group of bandits who roam all Geek-Cons spraying air freshener at groups who are lacking in their hygiene. I took the trophy when my name was announced, but it was a Pyrrhic victory.