The only Pokemon I ever wanted was
a Gengar.
Red, Blue, Yellow, etc etc etc I beat them straight through, all the way, with Charizard and Dragonite and leetness all over the place. I am Ash Ketchum, bitches
But never
Gengar
I never had a Golem either
Machamp.
But I didn’t care about them.
Rocks and meatheads, I knew plenty and would meet plenty more
but prank-happy ghosts?
didn’t have any
I didn’t have any friends to trade my Haunter
to
and
from
No one I could trust to send him back
Can you imagine?
my Gengar, meant for me,
Living with Chad down the street, who skips town and moves on, living under an assumed name so I can never find him because he’s a thief and I swear this never happened to me but if it did
I’d hold his Rattata hostage
and release him later when no one’s looking.
Because no one ever looked at my Pokemon training habits or
much of anything else, really.
Except Chad.
And I wonder, if I had had someone back then to help me
accomplish my first goal
would I be different now?
would I be a sous chef with his own cooking show
or an elevator repairman
who happens to be best friends with the childhood hero who took my Haunter and then
gave him back a Gengar
Maybe
Or maybe not
Josh Sippie lives in New York City, where he is the Director of Publishing Guidance at Gotham Writers and an Associate Editor of Uncharted Mag. When not writing, he can be found wondering why he isn’t writing. More at joshsippie.com or Twitter @sippenator101.