One morning later, HappyFarmer92, known as Michael to his normie friends and family, was getting into his car when a hand grasped the door frame. He turned to face this annoying person who was either a neighbour or a beggar or salesperson, either he was about to tell them to fuck off when he looked up to see a thin yet sturdy looking man with a buzz cut, in casual gear which could only conjure up the image of as ex-military who had been drinking all night to drown his PTSD. He adjusted his face and tactical response: “Er, hell-low, can I help you?” It was always the polite question to ask when you were being threatened. “You are HappyFarmer92, yes?” asked the man in a gruff Eastern European accent. “What? he blinked. “You play FarmerKing, yes? I find you.” Michael’s eyes grew wide. “You’ve got the wrong person!” he said, “My name is Gordon half-dead02.” The man’s right hand dropped from the windscreen to his side. “Oh really?” he said, as he seemed to slide something long and heavy out of his pocket. “Yes,” replied Michael as his eyes fixed on the bare quiet street in front. “I mean, look,” Michael reached down and quickly swipe-opened his phone, and then changed his mind, as he realised he was able to drive away, exclaiming “I have to go sorry bye”, and did so. His brain on fire, screaming to himself what the fuck?
As he drove away, he looked in the rear view mirror and could see the man in faded and fraying fatigues standing on the sidewalk, watching him back, raising a crowbar into the air. What the fuck! He accelerated and clutched his phone to his chest, nobody must see my player name!
He drove for a good 30 minutes, repeatedly checking the mirror, occasionally seeing something that wasn’t there. The next time he looked back at the road, there was definitely something there, yes, there in the middle of the road, was a cow.
Careering off the lane into a ditch, his life flashed before his eyes. There were the first times he lost games and got laughed at, then there was the no mercy phase, a lot of winning and laughing at people but also some fun times where he destroyed people and brought them to tears. He saw his family playing some boring board games, they were laughing, but they were happy. He wanted to join in, put the phone down for a minute, maybe more. The car glanced off a tree and span sideways before rolling backwards into the river.
The car hadn’t quite sunk but Michael had passed out from panic. The fire brigade pulled him out successfully but the doctors found some abnormalities in his blood work. He had serious liver damage. He swore to make a change. And he did. For about six months, and then returned to his old ways, to buy game advantages and bully people across the globe.
Upon the seventh month, one shiny morning, the ex-military man turned up again, jumping on him as he opened his car door. In the basement car parking area, there was nobody around to hear his muffled shout as the chloroform sent him into lala land. When he awoke, he found himself blindfolded and tied up. He felt something like a cotton in his mouth and had to blow the snot out of his nose to breathe freely. “Ew”, said a voice, disgusting man. “Well, I said you, I find you. Now we stop playing games”. First, he could hear the smashing of a phone. You can guess what the man did next to his hands with the crowbar; as Michael cried out “why me?” while in his heart he very much knew why, he still debated, during his teeth grinding rehabilitation sessions as to what degree he deserved it as he lost the ability to hold anything tightly for a good few years after that.
A sunny morning, as he moved the computer mouse without much precision, he tried to play Solitaire, and dreamt of a nice game with farms. When offered a burger, he accepted but always hesitated and sometimes grew wet in the eyes.
Meanwhile cowiecowcow had become champion of Farmking, having spent a cool $100,000 on the game over 2 years. He had annoyed many many people, but they just couldn’t touch him in the game. Those who hacked him couldn’t really touch him in real life, even after they hacked him and doxxed his real life identity. However, after that news became public, there seemed to be an increase in his Amazon deliveries going missing or getting stolen. He wasn’t totally sure, but he felt people staring as he walked through the office, and not in a good way. He shrugged, fuck em. Farmking had become a global phenomenon, and he didn’t really notice his infamity now preceded him. His business meetings were a bit more difficult, again, a weird vibe around the table, but he never made the link, even as his partners kept looking at his phone screen. In fact, they all kept checking their phones. Whenever he saw they were playing Farmking, he wanted to tell them how he was champion but he always remembered the look on one guy’s face while they explained how much fun it was until they got raided, and when he ventured to ask about their opinion on the champion, they spat on the floor. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t seem to like him much and decided not to waste time dwelling on it, and certainly didn’t want to risk damaging business relations. It did occur to him that some low level players wanted revenge, and they were entitled to try. If they really wanted it, they just needed to spend some money. The thought of it made him chuckle, as he answered the door bell, only to find nobody there. This seemed to happen a lot more recently.
Those pesky kids were playing a game with him. Fair enough. Now while work was still bringing in loads of money, he was starting to get anxious around dinner time. He often would finish late and need to order out. His fubar food deliveries were on time but there was something off, even when he changed eatery, there was something missing in his order or outright wrong. He had to give all the local restaurants bad reviews, but the service just didn’t improve. As he opened the gate to the nonchalant scooter driver, he had to check the garage wall, as some kids constantly graffiting strange messages involving cows but he attributed this to their youthful artistic vigour and simply directed the gardener to paint over it, daily. After a year, the cost of paint was noticeable so he invested in more cameras and anti graffiti paint, which was somewhat effective in reducing the time needed to clean it. It was still annoying.
His front lawn always seemed to have discarded cigarette butts and soft drink cans thrown over the fence, and his gardener didn’t start work until 8am, so he’d always be greeted with this sight upon leaving the house. The most annoying thing was a dog seemed to defecate right in front of his gate, every damn morning. He could imagine how it smelled, as he drove past. Sometimes it was somehow posited on the door, which created a smear as it opened. He called the police but somehow they never could catch the guy in the hoodie with the dog, which looked pretty clearly like an Alsatian, but the interviewing detective wasn’t so sure. The detective also happened to find some thumbtacks in his tyres, how unlucky. Now those were expensive to replace and the garagist said it would take more time than usual due to a high demand. It was very annoying and he was starting to get fed up with all of it. If only there was something he could do.