“No it is not Pig Latin Mr. Telemark it is French it means to outrage the straights.”

“O yes I see.”

“Do not outrage the straights for another week Mr. Telemark and then we will have all this sorted out permanently.”

“Thank you Ms. Globus.”

“You are welcome Mr. Telemark.”

“Please send me an enormous bill.”

“Of course.”

—

I like arcades and this one is a classic. There is air hockey and there is actual Pong and actual Space Invaders and Asteroids alongside all the modern cabinet games which you sit in. There is that thing with the bubbles that you shoot with little harpoons which I have not seen since the ’90s when it was in every airport departures hall on Earth. There are no tickets here and no tokens you just pay and play and the costs are high but honest. Even the claw machine which lets you win marmot toys is honest I win seven marmots in little red hats that yodel when you squeeze them. I also win a bag to put them in because Switzerland.

Finally I play the Star Wars machine for an hour.

It is a two-person game and the other position is empty for that whole hour and I spend like a hundred francs during that time because I am not completely great at this.

Which is a lot until you think about how that is really not expensive to arrange a meeting like this one.

I hear the scrape as a little plastic box step is dragged along the floor and then I have a copilot or more accurately he has me. He does not try to kill me and I do not try to kill him and that is an acceptable beginning.

We play without speaking for another hour. My dime of course. I lose track of how many times we win and in all that time he does not die once. He’s like a little tiny Star Wars ninja in an ESA jacket and brown corduroys. If you had to describe him to police you would automatically call him a scamp. Then somehow it’s time and we look at one another as the stuff on the screen just blows up and there’s nothing left to do but talk or try to kill each other.

“Good game,” Evil Hansel says.

—

When we have not tried to kill each other for a few minutes I tell him what I want and he says he cannot give it to me.

So I offer him his heart’s desire because that is what I do.