Gordon put his shoes on. They were a lovely combination of red and white. Gordon remarked to himself that they looked vaguely like the shoes that Sonic the Hedgehog used to wear in the game ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’. Gordon chuckled to himself and began to gently hum the music from the Emerald Hill Zone as he went to select his bowling ball. He looked down at the balls as they sat on the rack. They were numbered from 4 to 76. Gordon decided he would probably just go for something light, something that allowed his arm to swing freely through the air as if it were a fleshy knife and the air were vaporised butter. He selected a number 12. It was green. Gordon thought this was probably a good sign, since not only was 12 his lucky number, but green was also his lucky colour. Surely the combination of these two things would lead to bowling greatness.

Fifteen minutes later, the ambulance departed with the young boy unconscious in the back. Gordon wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to throw the ball into straight into his face, since he was pretty much perpendicular to the pins he was meant to be aiming at, but somehow things had gone very wrong. The whole alley stared at Gordon now as he silently shuffled across to pick up a new ball, the silence only broken by the faint sound of the Emerald Hill Zone music. Suffice to say, he would probably not be going for a number 12 ball again, especially since the family behind him were made of glass. This had the potential to go very wrong. Gordon was selecting his ball in deathly silence, when a beautiful young woman sauntered over to the ball rack to select a ball for herself. She smiled at Gordon. Gordon smiled back, and watched as she selected a number 16 ball. Gordon mentally swore to himself. He couldn’t pick a light ball now or else he’d look weedy and distinctly unmanly in the face of this lovely woman. He looked across at the heavier balls. He stared at the number 76. Could he possibly lift that? It did look kind of heavy. The woman saw him looking at the number 76 ball, and looked flirtily surprised. Heck. He would have to go for it now. Gordon resignedly Emerald Hill Zoned across to the number 76 ball, and sighed quietly to himself, as he reached across to pick up the number 76.

An hour later, and the surgeons had finally reattached Gordon’s arm. The woman had long since gone. Ushered away by a councillor, covered in the blood that had jettisoned itself from Gordon’s severed biceps. Gordon was not really having a good time, indeed, he would have to say that this was the second worst bowling outing he’d ever had. The surgeons and paramedics said their goodbyes, as the alley manager ushered everybody back into the bowling zone. Many people glared at Gordon as they did, unhappy that he had been such a disruption on their games. Gordon kept his head down and continued to gently hum tunes from Sonic the Hedgehog. He hadn’t thrown a single ball down the alley so far today, the pins stood as tall and steady as they had when he’d arrived. He looked up at the scoreboard. A message was flashing across the screen. ‘THROW THE DAMN BALL YOU IDIOT’, it read. Yes, thought Gordon, this would be it. He casually picked up a ball (a number 14, if you’re interested), ran towards the alley, and threw his ball. The next seven seconds were occupied by disappointment, as Gordon watched his ball slowly make it towards the end of the gutter. Evidently he was not as good at bowling as he remembered. Indeed, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t even sure why he’d come bowling. The last three times he’d been, he’d left with scores of 17, 25, and 12 respectively. It was a humiliating experience. He vowed not to repeat this experience again. Looking around, he saw a child of no more than six years old placing his bowling ball onto some kind of bowling slide, which launched his ball down the alley in a perfectly straight line. His family cheered as he got his first ever strike. Gordon envied this boy as he looked across at his own alley, still soaked in blood, remnants of muscle tissue, and the chalk outline of the young boy whose face he had so brutally (though accidentally) shattered. His alley was not so much a scene of sporting triumph as it was a location shoot for CSI by this point. He still retained the belief that he could turn this around though. If only he could get his hands on that slide. Gordon would need some kind of distraction to allow him to take it away from the family though. He searched his pockets for something that he could use. He found his wallet, chewing gum, some loose change, a Premier League ’97 sticker of Gary Pallister (his lucky Gary Pallister sticker no less), and an old Google map to a cupcake shop in Kensington. Oh, and a flashbang.

Having rendered the family temporarily blind, deaf and screaming, Gordon slowly wheeled the bowling slide across to his own alley. This would surely now be the highest scoring game of bowling he’d ever participated it. Gordon eagerly pointed the slide towards the top pin, loaded a ball, and then released it.

As the ball slowly but surely cascaded towards the pins, Gordon’s heart began to beat faster. This was all he had ever hoped for, all he had ever dreamed of. He adjusted his collar, ready to accept the applause of the rest of the bowling alley. Unfortunately, as his ball came within three feet of triumph, a metallic cage lowered itself, grabbed the pins, and raised them up into oblivion. Gordon’s ball slowly trundled underneath the pins and into the back pit of despair. Gordon looked up at the monitor. His game had timed out. Gordon sighed to himself. He sat down and slowly began to untie his Sonic the Hedgehog shoes. Replacing them the shoes he had crafted himself out of sandpaper, he miserably shuffled out of the bowling alley, leaving nothing but a bloody mess, a sense-deprived family, and an out of control fire sparked by his friction feet in his wake. It had not been a successful day out. Next time he would stick to darts.