James Bond

A rendering of what the elusive James Bond is believed to look like.

An Eyewitness account of James Bond

It was late on a Tuesday night. The kinda night a detective can't get any answers and a hooker can't get any Johns. Normally I'd be relaxing at my desk with a shot of whiskey and a view of the city being rained on like God's own piss was cursing the place, but tonight I had work to do. He was a nervous man, an ill-fitting trench coat and shaky hands being the first thing I noticed. All that was forgotten as he pulled up a seat at the diner and started telling me about Bond. James Bond. "Freeform roleplaying. Ah, what the hell. I used to roleplay on AOL, back when I had a seemingly terminal case of The Dumb. It's currently in remission, or at least it seems to be. Anyway, I had been observing one of the chat rooms for a while, trying to decide what kind of character I'd try to play to best fit in with the setting and the players that had already gathered."

He shifted in his seat, a weary glance cast around the place. "As far as the eye could see, it was just god-level characters. One had telekinesis and some kind of prescience. Thief characters would probably be killed off by this guy before they had a chance to steal anything. Another was "the best spell-caster in the world," with the side-power of being able to cast spells by just thinking about them. Well, that eliminates being able to play as a bumbling mage. Yet another was a fifth Generation Malkavian that seemed to have the curious ability to use people's profiles to his advantage. Anything you wrote in there, the player would grant his character knowledge of, and the character would act accordingly. Irritating, but I guess it was creative enough.

"The characters that paraded through were each trying to have dark and mysterious pasts, but were too busy trying to enthrall each other to listen to one another's story.

"But then someone entered as a crab. A crab that smoked cigars. A crab that drank martinis. A crab whose name was apparently 'James Bond.'"

He took a sip of his coffee, the swirling steam casting his face out of view as he took a deep breath and continued his incredible tale. "Understand, I had planned to join this. I did. But when this crab entered, the place was immediately and irrevocably altered. The spell-caster didn't like that the crab was smoking, and attempted to put the cigar out by blasting it with water. James Bond's player's response was that it didn't make sense for a crab to have cigars that wouldn't work underwater. The mage was stymied.

"The crab then revealed that it could speak, and did so, uttering the words 'I pinch.' The telekinetic/prescient one was then grabbed in the pincers of the crab. Apparently, he didn't see it coming, because the player accepted the action and acted accordingly. He telekinetically lifted the crab and dramatically demanded to know what the fuck he thought he was doing.

"'I pinch,' spoke James Bond, blowing a crabby smokering into the face of the psychic.

"Then the Malkavian spoke up. 'His name is Bond. James Bond.' I checked the crab's profile. That was all that was written."

By this point the man was so engrossed in his own story he hadn't noticed the silence descending over the run down diner. Waitress, cook, patrons of cheap food and broken upholstery all had stopped what they were doing and listening. I admit I was taken myself by the image of this Crustacean causing such havoc. "The antics continued, and all I could do was watch. The psychic desperately tried to get the attention off of James Bond by changing the subject. The attempt failed when the crab whipped out a tiny martini kit and began mixing a drink for himself. The mage tried, oh so very hard, to thwart this attempt by setting fire to the martini with a magical spark. The crab stoically blew the fire out and drank it, saying unto her, 'Delicious.' The Malkavian tried to confuse the crab with his dementia. The crab nodded along with him, adding one or two words where it deemed appropriate, and continued to wreak social havoc with the supposedly all-powerful characters as if nothing had happened.

"Before the end of the night, the crab had singlehandedly derailed the roleplaying. The mage was pregnant with the child of the psychic, who, despite being male, carried the child of the Malkavian, albeit with a little help from the vengeful mage. The crab suggested it. The bar had been completely destroyed, after the crab said that the alcohol in it sucked. The psychic did it for him."

I cleared my throat, almost to remind myself I was there, rather then seeing this incredible scene unfold on that fateful night. "James Bond was played by a goddamn genius, it seems."

A half hearted laugh burst from the man's throat for a second, but his eyes were focused on nothing in the diner. He was away, back at the night it happened. "You have no idea. I wish I had the presence of mind to save the log of the events that transpired that night. As it stands, I can only try to describe it with my simple grasp of English.

"When told of the psychic's traumatic and dark past of being locked away in an insane asylum for having hallucinations that seemed to almost always come true, followed by his daring escape, with guns blazing and syringes jabbed into the throats of hospital workers and explosions all around, James Bond smoked his cigar, then replied "Very exciting."

"At which point the other two tried their DAMNEDEST to impress this crab in the same way.

"I'd never seen that much chaos from a single, simple character before. I left the chat at six in the morning, having learned a lesson.

"I fucking hate players that are charismatic online. I hate them to death."