a choose your own adventure:
Castle Time Golfland
by Chelsea Sutton
HOLE 0
You’ve worked at Castle Time Golfland for way too long and today is your work-a-versary, though you only know this because your manager, Rod, surprises you with 200 arcade tickets to pick out a gift from the prize station.
Usually, the arcade tickets go over well because the other employees are teenagers, often temporary workers for the summer or weekends; the over-thirty crowd is composed of only you, Rod, and the janitor Karlie, who you’d made out with once in the kitchen near the fry baskets, and the smell of boiling oil still makes you think of her lips on your neck.
You have this feeling like you’ve done this before. But maybe that’s because you used to come here as a kid with your grandmother and you’re a little nostalgic, despite yourself.
Or maybe it’s just because today sucks and most days tend to suck.
Too long. Too long in the chlorine-scented, fun-sized landscape of Castle Time Golfland. You stand in front of the prize station inside the stucco-covered brown castle that houses the arcade and food court. You’re sweating from stomping around the course for the last three hours collecting stray balls from bushes and water features and the secret spaces beneath Hole 18 – a cement mountain with a cave carved into it, a three-headed dragon sprouting out (one red head, one blue, one green), the animatronic necks winding around themselves in such a way that will knock most (all) balls clear from the winning-hole-in-one and toward one of the many other holes where your ball disappears into a basket beneath the sidewalk.
Hole 18 is the finale of the course and is meant as a ball depository. Officially, if you get a hole-in-one here, you win a free game, though you’ve never seen it happen. There’s a legend at Castle Time Golfland that if you get a hole-in-one at Hole 18 you can restart your life. You don’t win a free minigolf game but an actual replay of the game and by extension your life. Which is different. Starting over.
But no. You don’t get a do-over, you get this 200-ticket voucher that is now damp in your hands. It’s the end of the night, twenty minutes to closing, and if you don’t cash in your tickets now, then the last way-too-long will have truly been for nothing.
Two hundred tickets don’t buy you much these days. Looks like an eraser in the shape of the Knight of Golfland or a single Knight of Golfland with its own plastic parachute, which is one historical inaccuracy that irritates you for some goddamn reason.
If you choose THE ERASER IN THE SHAPE OF THE KNIGHT OF GOLFLAND, go to HOLE 1.
If you choose THE KNIGHT OF GOLFLAND IN A PARACHUTE, go to HOLE 2.
HOLE 1
You hold the eraser in the shape of the Knight of Golfland up to the light and tear off his stupid little eraser head. You stick the head in your pocket and throw the eraser body in the trash.
The guy who wears the Knight of Golfland costume followed you around the course all day as you retrieved lost golf balls from the tiny river built into Hole 5, and odd corners of the miniature house at Hole 4, and inside the pint-sized lighthouse at Hole 12, which had a strip of carpet near the exit hole that likes to cling to golf balls until you come by to poke them out of its grasp.
The Knight was one of those costumed creatures, like Chuck-E-Cheese or Mickey Mouse but creepier, his puffy, felt cheeks cresting in a lipless smile, his eyes too big and too blue framed by the plastic metallic painted armor. He also carried a sword, which, from across several lanes of minigolf, looked real in the heat of the afternoon California sun.
Maybe it was just your imagination that he was following you around, on this auspicious day celebrating the worst fucking mistake of your life. Taking this job.
Maybe it was your imagination or maybe he is just too dedicated to his stupid bit, the “protector of the castle” thing, which Rod came up with and seems to have passed down to whatever sucker teenager has to waddle around in their sweat-soaked underwear in the Knight of Golfland suit.
But it’s not your imagination when you feel you are being watched on your way to the bathroom, when you think you hear the shuffling of felt thighs and slipper feet on tile as you wash the sweat and grime from your face with those scratchy brown paper towels Rod gets cheap from “a guy he knows,” when you see the Knight of Golfland reflected in the mirror, standing right behind you, staring with his unblinking, gigantic blue eyes.
“The fuck is your problem, man?” you say.
The Knight of Golfland lifts his sword and swings it at your head.
If you SCREAM FOR KARLIE’S HELP AND COWER IN THE CORNER, go to HOLE 4.
If you PUNCH THE KNIGHT OF GOLFLAND IN HIS STUPID FELT FACE, go to HOLE 5.
HOLE 2
As you slip the parachute Knight into your pocket, Rod calls you over the radio to come empty the ball basket at Hole 18.
“Already did it,” you say.
“You’re supposed to say ‘over’ when you’re done talking into the radio. Over,” says Rod.
“Yeah,” you say. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Just come to Hole 18,” says Rod. “Over.”
Rod is standing at Hole 18 when you arrive, holding a single slice of cold cheese pizza from the food court, a sad lopsided candle dripping wax onto the paper plate.
“Surprise!” Rod says. His mustache is particularly bushy today and you think you see flecks of ketchup in the hairs nearest his nose. He must have recently eaten his end-of-day hotdog which he stuffs in his mouth behind the golf registration desk, where he thinks no one can see him. “I’m sorry I’m gushing. We never have employees for this long and you’re just – you’re one of a kind!” He holds out the pizza for you to make a wish. Which you do in a short, spiteful blow.
“Thanks,” you say. You smile for him because Rod means well, and you don’t want him to think you’re an asshole even though you are.
“One more surprise,” says Rod, setting the pizza to the side and handing you a golf club. He gestures to a purple golf ball he has set out in the little indent on the rubber mat that sits at the start of every hole.
“Maybe today is your lucky day!” he says.
You set yourself up and look toward the dragon heads, which shimmy and dip, their mechanical mouths opening and shutting in a pantomime that doesn’t match the piped-in soundscape of roaring dragon noises, not even close, and that irritates you, the lack of attention to detail. Where did the last … how many years … go? Maybe you’ve just lost them, you think, like coins from your pocket, and they are right in front of you, tucked away and waiting for you to notice them.
“Go ahead,” says Rod.
You hold the Knight of Golfland in your pocket. You feel its tiny plastic parachute.
You glance across the course and see the Knight of Golfland – the real costumed character that roams the grounds every day with a sweaty annoying teenager hiding inside. He waves at you and gives you the finger with his oversized felt hand.
What a gift on this auspicious fucking day.
You count the seconds that linger between the necks of the dragons, that small piece of time where a ball might just slip by.
If you HIT THE BALL BUT DON’T TRY REAL HARD, go to HOLE 3.
If you FLING THE KNIGHT OF GOLFLAND TOY TOWARD THE DRAGONS INSTEAD, go to HOLE 19.
HOLE 3
You get the ball into that split second of time, of breath, of space between the dragons’ necks, the ball slipping into the darkness of the cave and dropping into the empty bucket on the other side. The dragons roar and sad sparks fly out of the top of the mountain, a leftover of a long-dead finale that you assume used to happen every time someone got a hole-in-one, before it was rigged. But it is rigged, you’re sure of it, no one ever gets a hole-in-one, so how did you do that? You look around the course, looking for witnesses, for anyone who might be seeing what you’re seeing right now. You look for Rod. You look for anyone straggling through the course before the place closes up – but everything has gone dark. It is only you and the dragons and the faint sound of the golf ball hitting the bottom of that empty bucket over and over and over, like a replay.
And then there is nothing.
You start over. You are born, thin and jaundiced, and your grandfather sits in the sun with you because they say that’s good for babies like you. You grow up, you go to school, you fail the same tests that you failed the first time around, you make the same friends and the same enemies, read the same books, chase after the wrong friends and crushes, you graduate with few honors, your grandfather still dies when you’re five and your mother when you’re 18, and you drop out of college and have a series of restaurant jobs that you’re terrible at until you see an ad for the weird minigolf course your grandmother used to take you to. You remember playing in the arcade and winning a small toy dragon in a plastic egg and you hid that egg behind the seat in her car, only to take it out on car rides as a little secret between you and the dragon. When your grandmother gave up that car without telling you, you grieved the loss of the moment where you could have rescued it, the tiny slice of time where you could have rescued that little guy from an unknown fate.
You redo your resume, fill out the application. You interview with a guy named Rod who has a thin, intricately shaped mustache, and you like him. He’s just a little older than you.
All this happens and you feel a little bit like maybe you’ve done it all before.
That afternoon, Rod calls and offers you the job at Castle Time Golfland.
If you DO NOT TAKE THE JOB, go to HOLE 6.
If you TAKE THE JOB, go to HOLE 7.
If you TAKE THE JOB BUT IMMEDIATELY SEE THE GHOST OF YOUR DEAD GRANDMOTHER IN YOUR BEDROOM, go to HOLE 10.
HOLE 4
The Knight of Golfland laughs at you. It is barely audible, but you can hear that little asshole screeching behind his mask as you’re screaming for Karlie. You don’t even know why Karlie specifically feels like the one to help you with this problem. Sure, you made out that one time in the kitchen. Sure, sometimes you’ll catch a movie after work and you almost reach out to grab her hand but never do – because you’re not ready for a relationship, you tell yourself. Sure, sometimes you have dreams where you’re in the Golfland kitchen, her neck to your lips, body against body, your arm dangerously close to getting burned by the outside of the fryer which is always hotter than is technically safe, which you know because you read the manual. That’s the kind of person you are.
“Karlie! KARLIE! I’m going to DIE!” you scream and scream.
“For reals? This sword is felt!” The Knight of Golfland pokes you gently in the shoulder with the sword. Which is very soft. Very squishy.
You slap the sword away.
“Seriously, everything okay?” says the kid inside the Knight of Golfland suit. “Is it the whole work-a-versary thing? I mean, it really makes you think. About time and stuff.”
“Fuck off,” you say.
“Yeah, fuck off,” says Karlie. She’s appeared beside you and it’s unclear how long she’s been standing there.
“It was just a joke,” says the kid.
“Out,” says Karlie.
You and Karlie watch the Knight of Golfland shuffle away, struggling to squeeze the giant felt head through the door jamb for almost a minute. But neither of you offer to help.
“You want to tell Rod about this?” says Karlie.
You look at Karlie in such a way that expresses hurt at the very suggestion, and embarrassment that she even has to see you like this, still crouched, still scrunching your body to be smaller and smaller.
“Happy work-a-versary,” she says. She holds out a hand and pulls you up. She doesn’t let go of your hand once you’re standing. Your heart is still pounding and pounding away, and you can’t tell if it’s the proximity of Karlie and the handholding or the seething anger still coursing through you, the frustration that you were too much of a coward to punch that dickwad in his dumb head, even if it got you fired.
“Karlie …” you begin
“Let’s start over,” she says, and gripping your hand even tighter, pulls you outside and across the grounds to Hole 18.
“Oh shit. A ball.” Karlie starts searching the bushes for a ball.
“It’s okay,” you say. “I don’t need to lose again today.”
“There’s always at least one. Oh! Here!” Karlie holds up a purple ball covered in dried mud that looks like it’s been there at least as long as you’ve worked at Castle Time Golfland.
“Don’t I need a club too?” you say.
“Nah. I got a trick.” Karlie runs behind the mountain and after a few seconds the dragons slow and slow and then stop completely.
“How did you do that? I thought they never shut down?”
“You can pause the timer. But it’s only like a minute so hurry up. Drop the ball in the hole!”
You both peer into the cave where the hole-in-one waits in the darkness. You’re sweating because it’s hot and what if this works and Karlie is so close to you and she smells so good, like fry oil and Windex and the pink gel soap in the bathroom.
If you FORGET THE BALL AND GRAB KARLIE’S HAND AND CONFESS YOUR FEELINGS, go to HOLE 11.
If you DROP THE BALL INTO THE DARKNESS, go to HOLE 3.
HOLE 5
Normally, you would not fight like this. Normally you would take it on the chin, go home and seethe about it, eat a bowl of cereal for dinner and watch stupid television and think about quitting. Instead, you punch and kick at the Knight of Golfland. And you don’t stop. You stab and bite. You rip off his stupid mask and the kid’s stupid face is there, and this makes you even more upset, that he’s just this kid who thinks he’s tough as shit. You flail at him in all directions, with all your rage. You’re bleeding too, and maybe this is the end, maybe this is the end for both of you.
You stop and take a breath. The Knight of Golfland is motionless on the ground.
You look around and can’t see any security cameras. But really, no one has been in that security booth for years. The cameras run but don’t record, the CCTVs buzzing the many angles of a fuzzy, black and white Castle Time Golfland, but no one, exactly no one is watching.
You’ve never killed someone before. But you know you have to hide the evidence. You need an exit plan. You need an alibi. Rod would never believe that you’d kill someone. Not on your work-a-versary.
If you QUIT IMMEDIATELY AND GET A MANAGER JOB AT THE LOCAL OFFICE SUPPLY STORE AND STILL SEE THE KNIGHT OF GOLFLAND FOLLOWING YOU, go to HOLE 8.
If you QUIT AND THEN OPEN A DAIRY QUEEN FRANCHISE, go to HOLE 9.
If you KEEP YOUR JOB AT CASTLE TIME GOLFLAND, go to HOLE 14.
HOLE 6
You’re tempted to take the Castle Time Golfland job, you need some job, any kind of job after all, and you’re used to taking the first thing that comes your way, but this time you just have a feeling, like maybe something else is meant for you. You don’t like saying no in general, but Rod takes the news well. He says, “Well, you always have a job at Castle Time Golfland if you need it.”
You don’t need it. You find something else to do, something that pays your bills and keeps your attention, but that’s not really the important thing, is it? It’s not that thing that defines you, anyway. You make a close friend at your next job, and you stay in touch after you both leave. And he is funny and kind and knows a lot about coffee and wears flannel and T-shirts that he gets free from jobs and events, and your friend eventually evolves into something more, and isn’t that the best kind of relationship, in the end?
One day, while visiting the Sunday flea market, he is browsing through the baseball cards and you are looking at rare books and manuscripts and you find what looks to be a handwritten journal about Castle Time Golfland, the accounts of which seem to describe an odd phenomenon about Hole 18, where people who make it in the hole-in-one get to start their life over. It’s not a new game, but a second chance, they say. The journal seems to be written by a woman named Karlie, who claims to have restarted once or twice herself.
The manuscript costs very little and you’re tempted to read more about this lore, about the job you didn’t end up taking, the life you didn’t end up living.
If you DON’T BUY THE MANUSCRIPT, go to HOLE 11.
If you BUY THE MANUSCRIPT, go to HOLE 12.
HOLE 7
You take the Castle Time Golfland job. What other prospects do you have anyway?
You hear stories about Hole 18. How it has magical powers. You’re generally a sucker for these kinds of stories but this seems wild, even for you.
The janitor Karlie tells you lore every week about the strange Hole 18, about the ghosts of Knights of Golfland past (those uncanny costume mascots that the teenagers are always forced to sweat all day in), who stalk the grounds at night. Ghosts who once got a hole-in-one at Hole 18, got a second chance at life and totally beefed it, got stuck in a loop of madness and terror, who warn people away from temptation.
You can’t tell if Karlie believes the stories. She has a way of talking that suggests there might be sincerity under the surface, but she also might be punking you. You don’t like to look foolish, so you laugh it off. You’re not planning to be here long anyway. Don’t get invested.
But Time just goes by. You spend so many years at this job you lose track.
You ask Karlie one night after closing if she ever tried Hole 18 herself and she just nods, chewing on some cold leftover fries in the kitchen with you. She doesn’t offer more details and you don’t press her. But you do kiss her, which she leans into, which she holds onto in a way that feels familiar, repeated.
In the days following your work-a-versary, every time you pass Hole 18, you swear you see yourself standing there. You or the Knight of Golfland, who is a fucking creep and might be following you around. Or maybe you’re seeing yourself as the Knight of Golfland. It’s hard to tell because as soon as you try to really look at yourself – you’re gone.
It’s too hot. You’re overworked. That’s what this is.
It’s the end of the day, nearly a week after your work-a-versary. The sun has set, and you are gathering the balls from the baskets at Hole 18 and that fucking guy, that Knight of Golfland, jumps up behind you with his sword, laughing that screechy laugh of his. Though there is something different about it. Something more familiar. Something closer to your own laugh if you were determined and completely and utterly sure of yourself. No fucks to give.
The Knight of Golfland is stabbing at you with his fake felt sword when he suddenly flings it onto the top of the three-foot hill at Hole 17. Then poof. The Knight is gone.
Did you imagine that?
Wait, are you bleeding?
You dab at the wound in your chest, so close to your heart. How did you not notice that the sword was real? That it became real in the moment it needed to be. You’re dying, but not as quickly as you think the Knight of Golfland had intended. What a shithead.
Rod is definitely going to hear about this.
You feel your legs buckling under you. You’re losing blood. It’s getting hard to breathe.
You can hear that irritating cackling the Knight of Golfland has. He’s still close. You can smell that sweat-soaked costume, the ketchup and fry oil stains that have been baking in the afternoon sun.
In front of you is Hole 18, a few balls you have gathered strewn out before you. To your right is the end of Hole 17, where you see the glint of the Knight of Golfland’s sword lying on the course. To your left is the main castle, where you know Karlie is cleaning, probably wearing her headphones, so she wouldn’t be able to hear your screams, even if you had the breath.
Perfect. What a shitty fucking night.
If you CRAWL BACK TO THE CASTLE TO CALL 911, go to HOLE 13.
If you CRAWL TO HOLE 17, GRAB THE SWORD, AND FIND THAT BASTARD KNIGHT OF GOLFLAND, go to HOLE 5.
If you TAKE A GOLF BALL AND TOSS IT WITH THE LAST OF YOUR STRENGTH AT HOLE 18, go to HOLE 3.
HOLE 8
You are a manager at the local office supply store and you don’t have a knack for it, which is too bad. Or maybe it’s the fact that you keep seeing the Knight of Golfland following you throughout the aisles. He’s there, among the paper.
And by the pens.
And then in the bathroom stall next to you.
He disappears when you try to look at him dead on. He is always holding his sword up, he is always staring at you with those blue felt eyes, though you swear they are burning with an aliveness that you don’t even see in your own eyes when you look in the mirror.
You’re being haunted, you have to be, because you killed that guy.
You knock on the security office door one night as you’re heading out. You ask if they’ve seen anyone following you.
“Following YOU?” asks the tall security guard who drinks Gatorade like he’s an athlete in a sponsor’s commercial. Which he’s definitely not.
“I just … I think I’ve seen a guy following me. Will you look?”
“No one is following you,” says the short security guard with the hair in his ears who every few minutes sticks his pen deep inside that bustle of hair and roots around.
“Have you been watching?” you ask. “How would you know?”
“It’s our job to know,” says the tall security guard, taking a gulp of Gatorade.
“Do ghosts show up on these kinds of cameras?” you ask.
The short security guard takes the pen out of his ear. “The fuck you ask?”
“I said maybe you should stick that pen up your ass instead of your ear.”
The guards file a report.
You are fired.
You have not saved money. You bought a new couch and some new nonstick frying pans, and now you got nothing to fall back on. You call Rod.
Rod says yes, please, come back. He’ll even roll back your file to a few days before your last year work-a-versary, so that it’s like you never left. That’s how much he loves you.
Return to HOLE 0.
HOLE 9
You decide to start your own business because why shouldn’t you be your own boss? So you go to the bank and take out a loan, the largest loan they’ll allow, and you lease a Dairy Queen franchise and open it about a block away from Castle Time Golfland, so you get the teenagers who are on their awkward first dates and the parents with their tired kids who just want ice cream, and adults who treat themselves to a round of minigolf just to feel like a kid again, and you get it, this flirting with the idea of youth and vitality and passion for anything, really.
Now that your job feels stable and happy, for once, you decide to ask out a woman you met at the office supply store, a manager of some sort who really knows her paper products, and she says yes and you kinda can’t believe it but goddamnit maybe you deserve this.
As a little nod to your old life and your new self, you take her to Castle Time Golfland on your first date, just to feel like kids again, and to say thank you, to the pathways that got you here where you’re finally a little bit happy, because if it wasn’t for this place, who knows where you would be?
You get to show off a little bit too, because you know where all the secrets are at Castle Time Golfland, all the ways the ground shifts just so and either makes sure you get a hole-in-one or a hole-in-ten. You even know a little bit about Hole 18, and you decide to give it a try again. You’re surprised it’s there, actually, because you’d heard it’s been destroyed. But there it is just the same. Just like you. Lucky. Maybe you’re lucky.
Your date is beautiful and terrible at golf and you laugh as she doesn’t sink a hole-in-one at Hole 18, and she laughs, and maybe she kisses you, and the feel of it runs through you like butter melting into the parts of yourself that need flavor and softness the most, and you set up your ball and you take aim and you hit it.
And you get a hole-in-one.
Go to HOLE 3.
HOLE 10
As soon as you officially accept the new position from Rod, the ghost of your grandmother appears to you.
“I knew about that little dragon toy in that little egg. The one you got at Castle Time Golfland. The one you hid in my car,” she says. She is luminescent, younger than you remember. You want to ask her so many questions.
But instead you say: “You knew about that?”
“Of course I did. You’re not as clever as you think you are,” she says.
“Okay, but did you come back from the dead to just tell me that?” you say. “Or like, is there a way to get it back?”
“I don’t know why you’re so attached to this thing,” she says. “You really gotta work on being less nostalgic. Let things go.”
“Do you know how long it took to clean out your house after you died?” you say.
“I didn’t come here to be mocked,” she says.
“I have to get ready for this job,” you say.
“You shouldn’t have taken that job,” she says. “But since you never do what I tell you to, at the very least don’t go into the dungeons to look for that dragon.”
“A mini-golf course has dungeons?”
“Obviously,” she says. “Duh.”
“What’s it like to be dead?” you say, reaching out to touch the translucent edge of her nightgown.
“Just promise,” she says.
You’re staring at a loose ghost thread on her hem and wonder about how a thread might be dislodged in the world of the dead and you’re about to ask this, but she’s gone.
The job starts off rough. Everything looks different since your grandmother paid you a visit. Maybe seeing one ghost makes you more sensitive or something, but you start seeing them everywhere. Castle Time Golfland is crawling with the otherworldly and it makes it difficult to concentrate. There are ghostly Knights of Golfland everywhere. There are shadows of creatures lurking behind arcade games and sliding along the fun-sized world of the course. It must have something to do with all those stories you’ve heard about Hole 18, how it restarts people’s lives, how there are ghosts of the same person waiting around to meet themselves, to stop them from making a terrible mistake.
You just can’t take it anymore. You put in your notice and Rod is sad, a little too sad if you’re truthful, and you leave his office in a bit of a funk, and you take a wrong turn down the hall and end up in front of a door you’ve never seen before. Wooden with rusted bolts and medieval carvings.
The dungeon.
Well, your grandmother told you not to go down there, but then she also said you never listen to her, so if she didn’t want you to go down there then she would have told you to definitely go down there, so because she said to not go down there that means she definitely wanted you to.
Right? Right.
As you descend, you feel a temperature change, and a blast of freezing air hits your sweaty skin. When you reach the ground floor, you see the dungeon piled high with golf balls and arcade tokens and laser tag guns and tickets and toys from the prize center. And right in the center, perched precariously on an impossibly tall stack of tokens, is your dragon in its clear plastic egg. Not a copy, but yours.
If you take it, most likely the whole token stack will jumble down. And, by the looks of things, perhaps the whole dungeon, too.
If you TAKE THE EGG, go to HOLE 15.
If you LEAVE THE EGG, go to HOLE 16.
HOLE 11
It’s funny how life gives you moments of clarity, when fear melts away and you know exactly what you want.
It’s a happy ending, it seems. The one you love also loves you back, which is wildly convenient and not often the case. You go home happy. You live a long life, marry, maybe have a kid or two, which for the most part is nice. You die with some regrets, but not more than average, and nothing that would keep you clinging to life, like a ghost, like those hauntings you read about all the time where a spirit just won’t let go of that one thing that went wrong in their lives, convinced they have unfinished business. Not like all those stories coming out of Castle Time Golfland. But don’t we all leave something unfinished, you think, isn’t that how it works, isn’t it impossible to wrap up all possibilities and to-do lists?
It’s all mostly kinda okay. Really nice sometimes.
And then you die.
END.
Want another ending? Return to HOLE 0.
HOLE 12
You buy the manuscript. It’s too tempting, too intriguing. Your life is lovely but boring and you’re always looking for a little adventure.
You stay up late and read the manuscript cover to cover and then again in the morning over coffee that the man in flannel makes with the care and passion you imagine the writer of this manuscript took in describing her experiences. The gist is: they all played Hole 18 and won, but instead of a free game, their life started over, like a reboot, started all the way from birth, and eventually, when they found themselves on the grounds of Castle Time Golfland again, they started to remember their past lives, or timelines, or whatever you might call them. Sometimes these memories felt like ghosts. It was hard to tell the difference. Overlapping of past lives or early deaths or something else entirely.
You convince the flannel man to go golfing with you and he does because he loves kitsch and you play terribly because you are in a hurry to get to Hole 18, which is themed around the very obvious final villain of a medieval fantasy world, a three-headed dragon, whose necks bob and weave where you’re supposed to aim. You watch the dragons for several minutes, trying to see how it could even be possible to get a hole-in-one the way their criss-cross dance is timed, and when you finally aim and hit the ball it bounces off the red dragon neck and into the par 3 basket.
That night you leave the house after the man in flannel is asleep and after Castle Time Golfland is closed and hop the fence. You want to see this Hole 18 again.
The animatronic dragon heads are still on. They never seem to be turned off.
As you set your ball up and aim, you feel someone step out of the shadows.
It’s you. But not you. Not-you is holding a sword. Not-you seems to be bleeding from the chest. Not-you can barely stand and points their sword at you.
“You bastard,” not-you says. “You killed me.”
“What?” you say. “Do you need help? We can call 911.”
“The fucking Knight of Golfland,” not-you says, “thinking you’re hot shit because this place dubbed you a knight.”
“I’m not the Knight of Golfland. And I didn’t kill you,” you say, backing away from the crazed, bloody version of yourself. “I’m just here to try to hit this last hole.”
Not-you blinks a few times at you, then at Hole 18. “No. Don’t,” not-you says. “Don’t do that.”
“Do you need help?” you say.
“Karlie,” not-you blurts out, a gurgle of blood in their throat.
“Is there a Karlie here?” you say, “Is she back in the castle? I can help you get to her.”
“No. It’s too late,” not-you says.
There’s something about this that makes you pause. Why are you here, anyway? Why would you even want to start over? What’s wrong with your life, just the way it is? Why do you fight against being content?
There are so many more flea markets in your future. And coffee and flannel.
And for not-you, too.
But of course, there could be so many other things. Better things.
If you IGNORE NOT-YOU AND TRY FOR A HOLE-IN-ONE BECAUSE THIS IS YOUR ONLY CHANCE TO SEE IF THIS IS REAL, go to HOLE 3.
If you HELP NOT-YOU LIMP TOWARD THE CASTLE, go to HOLE 13.
HOLE 13
You feel strange as you turn toward the main castle. Fuzzy. You start to walk. Or limp. Or are you crawling? You’re leaning on something – someone? You’ve forgotten. You can’t see them but you feel like you know them – a ghost from your past, someone who knows you better than anyone else in the world. Are you hurt or are they hurt? There is an arm around your waist. And your arm is around theirs. The closer you get to the castle, the less body you’re wrapping around, the more it seems to dissipate – not into the air but into you, like ointment you rub on a wound, your skin absorbing what it already knows. By the time you reach the door of the castle and pound on the window, hard enough, you hope, for Karlie to hear you, you are alone. Your shirt feels wet. You’re bleeding.
You collapse against the door. You lay there for a period of Time.
It’s impossible to know how much. And where it goes.
A woman screaming. Karlie is suddenly there, cradling you. She’s on the phone. She’s calling an ambulance. She’s crying, you think. You think, well, maybe this is someone you could spend the rest of your life with. Maybe, literally, she is the person you’re spending the rest of your life with.
She’s speaking to you. She’s putting pressure on your wound. She’s saying, “Tell me you’re not going anywhere. Tell me you want to be here with me.”
Things are getting fuzzier, and it is so tempting to just let go.
If you TELL HER THAT YOU WANT TO BE HERE WITH HER, go to HOLE 11.
If you DON’T SAY ANYTHING, go to HOLE 19.
HOLE 14
Everyone believes you, of course. You had nothing to do with the Knight of Golfland’s death, that kid was always a creep anyway. Good riddance.
You’re good at looking distraught. It’s a skill you never thought you’d need.
You go to his funeral with Rod and Karlie. You wonder out loud who is going to take over the Knight of Golfland character job.
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” says Rod.
“Who gives a shit?” says Karlie.
You pause. You’re not used to asking for what you want, but if not now, when?
“I’ve always wanted to be the Knight of Golfland,” you say.
“Oh wow,” says Rod. “I had no idea. It’s yours, buddy. All yours!”
“Like, you want to wear that costume and everything?” says Karlie. “I hate that.” But she makes out with you later anyway.
Rod makes sure the costume is deeply cleaned and adjusted for your height and weight.
You are waiting until Monday to officially accept, just to torture Rod a little bit. Over the weekend, you and Karlie go to Dairy Queen.
“It’s all cursed,” she says.
You look at your milkshake, confused.
“Hole 18. Idiot,” Karlie says. “There are a lot of ghosts around that place, and you don’t want to piss them off.”
This is kinda funny. You knew she likes ghost stories but this is something else. Then you remember the blood, the Knight of Golfland twitching on the ground, his breath going still.
“Don’t laugh,” she says. There’s ice cream at the corner of her mouth and you’ve suddenly forgotten about the blood and can only think of her tongue.
“I’m not,” you say. “I promise.”
“Just be careful,” she says.
If you TOTALLY FORGET TO BE CAREFUL, go to HOLE 10.
If you FOLLOW KARLIE’S ADVICE, go to HOLE 18.
HOLE 15
You pick up the egg and just as you predicted the stack of tokens goes tumbling.
And then the tickets and the toys go with them.
And then the walls and the ceiling, which is just the floor of the arcade and the offices.
And then the golf course itself, including Hole 18.
You cradle the dragon’s egg close to you, press it into your chest right near your heart, pressing so hard that you start to bleed, don’t you? Not that it matters.
Because it all keeps collapsing. One piece of the course and the city and the country and the world after the other.
You hold onto your egg and witness everything collapse onto itself. You witness the heat death of the universe.
END.
Or if you want a different ending, return to HOLE 0.
HOLE 16
You leave the egg. Your memories and nostalgia are not worth whatever chaos might come from the toppling of this particular pile of shit.
This is all the fault of Hole 18, you realize. The lore must be true, all the things you’ve heard. Of Hole 18’s power to bend and restart time. Its very existence has caused all the ghosts and shadows, and this strange dungeon room, a collection of nostalgia that everyone is trying to return to, precariously stacked one on top of another.
You head back up the stairs, grab a golf club, and march out to Hole 18 under a boiling midday sun. You aren’t going to try to get a hole-in-one though. No. You’re going to destroy this thing once and for all.
You approach the three dragon heads, swooping so fast they could take your head off if you’re not careful. You search for the electric box controlling the dragons and you spot it, tucked just out of the way of the red dragon head.
You swing. And sparks fly.
Again and again until the dragons whirl to a halt.
You swing the golf club first at the green dragon, whose left eye goes careening toward the water feature at Hole 15.
And then the blue dragon’s muzzle splits in two.
And the red dragon’s whole neck cracks down its middle, mini fires bursting from its insides.
You’re already exhausted and the vibration of metal on metal is buzzing your hands.
So you pause.
And you notice that an endless sea of you is watching you. Versions of you and the Knight of Golfland, a ghostly crowd gathered and waiting, ready to spring.
“I had to,” you say to the crowd of you. You’re not sure if you heard yourself, so you say it a bit louder.
“We understand,” says one of you.
“But there’s still time,” says another. “It’s not dead yet.”
“Yes,” says a Knight of Golfand. “You can still make a hole-in-one if you want to.”
“It can’t hurt anyone else,” says yet another you. “So maybe you’ll be rewarded.”
“You don’t like this job anyway,” says the first you. “After all, you just quit today, right? What are you going to do next?”
You have no idea. You have no idea what is next.
You hear the last sputtering of electricity surging through the dragons. You can hear them dying.
If you DROP A BALL IN FOR A HOLE IN ONE, go to HOLE 17.
If you WATCH HOLE 18 DIE, go to HOLE 18.
HOLE 17
You’re reborn.
It’s the opposite of what they’ve said.
You remember everything.
Somehow your life is worse than before.
Far worse.
The kind of worse that starts in the bones, shatters you from the inside.
The kind of worse that gets a memoir deal and spends the advance on cocaine.
The kind of worse that begins as a whisper just behind you, follows you, the heat of its breath burning a hole into your skull.
You grow up. Do all the things that that entails.
You end up at Castle Time Golfland.
Even on your first day, Rod still calls it your work-a-versary. “First days are important!” he says. “And I have a good feeling about you.”
Without wasting any time, you take a golf club and stomp out to Hole 18 to destroy it once and for all and to maybe … try again.
But as you approach, you see that the mountain is mostly gone. The dragon heads, like hunted game, lay in a pile near a man-made water feature.
Hole 18 has been ripped out.
You’re too late.
This is your life.
You feel someone watching. The Knight of Golfland is just two holes away, staring at you, giving you the finger, and even from this far away you can hear his cackling. The same cackling you have heard life after life after life.
He’ll move on – graduate from high school or college or whatever he’s doing now. And you’ll still be here. That’s how it goes. Though maybe you could tell Rod that you want to be the Knight of Golfland yourself. He already loves you. Maybe you could be a good Knight.
END.
Or if you BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THE KNIGHT OF GOLFLAND, go to HOLE 5.
HOLE 18
For once in your life, you love your job.
Nothing much has changed. Except that you chose this. This is your choice.
A few years into the job, you help build a new Hole 18. And you keep an eye on it. There’s this feeling in your gut that there should always be someone watching.
You watch over the castle and the course and Karlie and Rod. You tell Karlie how you really feel. At night, as you lay in bed, Karlie tells you all the stories she knows about Hole 18. All the lives she could have lived. All the lives you could have.
On your work-a-versary, Rod gives you 200 tickets to pick a toy from the prize case. But you get busy, you forget about the ticket voucher and leave it in your pocket and that’s where it stays. It dissolves slowly over each laundry cycle.
Time goes by as it tends to do. You’re in bed with Karlie when your alarm goes off. You wake up and it’s your work-a-versary.
END.
HOLE 19
There is no Hole 19.
You got stabbed. Or you threw a toy Knight of Golfland with a parachute at the high-speed dragon heads on Hole 18 and it bounced off their metal skin and right back at you, and the Knight’s tiny plastic sword went straight into your jugular vein. Or something else entirely. So it goes, as they say.
You are a ghost. Take your seat. Wait to see what happens. Wait to see if you make a better choice, somewhere, somewhen. That’s your job now.
Luckily, at Castle Time Golfland, ghosts are never alone.
END.
Copyright © 2024 by Chelsea Sutton
