2003-05-09 - 2:28 p.m. Birth 9 Interlocking Parts 12/30/88 Being an only child on a block of only older boys I didn�t have many friends. I was anti-social for some time. But what I did develop was a imagination. My favorite toys were Lego�s and my parents allow me to set them up in an expansive battlefield of plastic green sheets and gray synthetic castle walls. These were my fields of imagination, as I would have armies wage war on fortified castles and use magic and siege units of my design to break the impregnable fortress. The black army would defend the huge castles and use their vicious death magic to slay the unsuspecting Gray and red army of the east. The black army wasn�t usually the evil army though. They were always attacked for unstated reasons. The just resorted to vicious tactics in combat. The gray and red army would be a war-mongering nation, looking to rule the kingdom. The only opposition was the black army, and the wood elves. Both the gray and the black would usually try diplomacy on the elves to have them fight on their side of �rightness.� The team with the elves usually won. The Elves despised the Black�s use of death magic, and hated the Gray armies scorched earth tactics. They wanted them both to die or leave their realm. They used their magic to summon a person who could bring balance back to this world. The person they summon became their wise leader, their king. This plastic figure was a boy from the future who rode on a metal horse. His name was Nelson and he actually rode a motorcycle. He was usually the person who was able to end the conflicts between the nations, and felt most at home with the elves, but felt empty. He was never able to see his family, or go back to his home. He came from the Lego set of people and fire workers and cars, but was forced into this strange world of magic and combat. He was doomed to play his part in my story of war and diplomacy. He wanted to be an artist. But he was forced to be a leader. He was never happy, and only took solace that his actions made others happy and kept peace in his new land, his new home. Nelson was a great warrior and an even better diplomat. He was honorable and rarely lied. Nelson was an ideal leader. He was like superman to these people. I always wanted to be Nelson, and I always felt a link with him. Nelson is a boy who is alone. Just like me. As I would set up the fights and press the figures into their sheets of green plastic, each one to play their role in the war. Each interlocking-part frozen in a picture of conflict with plastic spears, and shiny metallic swords. Some with black helmets, some with dashing hair, or silly elf hats, all posed to my design doing as I obeyed, holding in a position that I saw fit. Nelson�s metal horse was a motorcycle, with rubber wheels. He had no hair, no helmet, no silly elf hat. He had not shiny weapon or wooden spear. He wouldn�t pose. He usually fell over. Nelson had no interlocking parts. He defied my will as the Lego God. And for that I respected him, and knew that his defiance, his inability to fit in, is what made him a leader, and what made him my favorite. I accepted him for who he was, and understood that he was making due with his situation in this new strange world. I think that we had the same interlocking parts. | |||||||||||
