My footsteps from my black sneakers are all I hear in the giant warehouse. Some fans buzz about aerating the enormous space that contains boxes of all shapes and sizes stacked tightly on pallets. The shelves that reach the ceiling must be, at least, five stories high. I am alone, and desire nothing but this moment of peace.
As a security guard for a reputable agency in the city, I am to walk this fortress of goods for insurance purposes. Otherwise, I'm just a body in a ludicrous uniform designed by psychologists to lower the esteem and the ambitions of the wearer. I have no importance but to roam the well-swept aisles with my flashlight and notify the proper authorities of emergencies that will never happen. My gray and black costume has lapels with red stripes indicating absolutely nothing. The cap fits my head nicely, but it is just a cherry on the top of a position of shame.
I am ashamed of making my honest living in a job that pays peanuts, but it allows me to work solo with only my thoughts to torture me. After college, I've jumped from job to job with no goal in mind, no future goals to seize. I've realized that I don't share the joys and prospects of others. I've accepted that solitude is my home, and my life will follow the path of a wandering soul till the day I die.
As I meditate on the black forms that I pass by in the darkness, my flashlight reveals some labels that look familiar. They are on several cardboard boxes that strangely are not shrink wrapped like the others, and I move toward them with some boyish excitement. The large letters of G.I. Joe spelled the lost happiness of my childhood. The innocent toys that occupied those boxes stirred a sense of wonder of war and adventure. It wasn't deranged nostalgia but a time traveling moment in my childhood, I craved. I wanted to seize that moment and transform to the happy boy I once was.
Undeterred by the silent judgment of the warehouse, I doffed my cap and tie and opened the first box with greedy hands. In the box laid a plethora of figures that occupied the ranks of both COBRA and G.I. Joe. Even the dreaded maverick, Zartan and the Dreadnaughts, who were unpredictable mercenaries that often sided with COBRA, were in their original packages. My eyes became wide with my discovery of this treasure trove.
Without too much thought as to what collector or store that was to receive the toys, I started opening the clear plastic pockets that held the figures. They were all from the era before they became unrealistic and colorful. Very unwarlike. The latest phase of G.I. Joe became oddly futuristic, and this signified the downfall of their franchise. But these boxes contained the characters I loved from its cartoon series and the slightly darker comic book.
I plotted an ambush of the intrepid, yet, forever targeted Joes by the hidden blue-suited and black-masked foot soldiers of COBRA. The Joes attempt to retrieve the hostages of Scarlett and Lady Jay would be doomed if they fell into the trap of the sinister terrorists who wielded their small black AK-47s. The tight, black suited Baroness would snipe from an upper box with her heavy caliber weapon. She would carefully lead the poor Joes into an attempt to retrieve their wounded man on point (Footloose) into a crossfire set by her comrades.
Everything was set for this tragic firefight. The Joes would be humiliated by this onslaught of their brethren, and Scarlett and Lady Jay would be ravaged and eliminated by Destro and Cobra Commander themselves, enjoying the spoils of this eternal conflict. I figured that evil should triumph over good in this event, because life is hard. It is an eternal struggle, an eternal conflict. Scarlett and Lady Jay acted as the Joe's Helen of Troy. The beautiful friends of a male and mostly loyal counter-terrorist organization. Their feminine beauty would lead the party of Joes to a shameful massacre, and their own fate would be sealed as Cobra Commander and Destro would rape and execute them.
"Oh my God, what are you doing?" a voice asked behind me. I jumped up from my knees at the sound of the question, not knowing what was asked or who asked it.
"Jesus, Liz. Aren't you supposed to be here at 5?" I demanded, trying to maintain composure.
"Its five, now. Sweet lord, are you playing with toys?"
"Yeah, aren't they cool. Man, they even have the swivel battle arm grip. That came out a year after they started the G.I. Joe line. They probably even have the vehicles and heavy guns in the other boxes. I haven't gotten to those yet."
